OT Just how bad is the drought? Just curious OT

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Last week, the State Senate leader, Kevin de León, quietly introduced legislation that would require California to get all of its electricity from solar, wind and other renewable sources by 2045.

The proposal significantly raises the bar set in 2015 when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that aims for 50 percent use of renewables by 2030.

We asked a few energy experts for their reactions to the plan.

• Is the timeline plausible?
It’s “ambitious,” said Felix Mormann, a faculty fellow at Stanford’s Steyer–Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance. “But not implausible.”
“Last year, Germany was able to briefly meet 95 percent of the country’s electricity demand with renewables,” Mr. Mormann said. “But such peak events are still a long way from weaning an entire energy economy off all nonrenewable energy on a permanent basis.”

• What are the biggest challenges?
Cost is one, said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment.
“Prices are coming down in all these technologies,” he said. “But we wouldn’t know how much it would cost. We also presumably would have to retire some existing power plants, so the ratepayer impacts are unknown.”
Another challenge is energy storage.
A total reliance on renewable energy would require a major expansion of storage capacity for those times when the wind dies down and the sun fades, said Sadrul Ula, managing director of U.C. Riverside’s Winston Chung Global Energy Center.
“Lithium batteries offer good potential,” he said. “But they’re still not there.”

• Is Mr. de León’s legislation encouraging?
Yes, said Dr. Ula, because it would essentially set the table for innovation.
“Without that, we don’t discuss it. We don’t have a target,” he added. “Resources and development don’t get channeled unless there is a goal post.”

On Catalina, the Drought Is Far From Over

By MIKE MCPHATE

Catalina’s Wrigley Reservoir sat empty. To conserve water officials have been relying almost entirely on desalination plants.
Catalina’s Wrigley Reservoir sat empty. To conserve water officials have been relying almost entirely on desalination plants.

For many Californians, the drought now feels long gone.
According to the latest figures from the United States Drought Monitor, just 24 percent of the state remains under “moderate drought” conditions or worse. This time last year, it was about 95 percent.

But not everyone is rejoicing.

On Catalina Island, just off the Southern California coast, water scarcity is so severe that residents still rely almost entirely on a pair of desalination plants.

Catalina is home to population of 4,000 or so people and a beach playground for roughly a million annual visitors. Residents and businesses have had to contend with mandatory water rationing since 2013.

Surrounded by ocean, the island has a major disadvantage to the rest of California: It can’t tap the melting Sierra Nevada snow that sustains mainland farms and cities during the warm months.

That’s why officials have tightly restricted the use of Catalina’s main water source: an aquifer connected to the interior Middle Ranch Reservoir. The drumbeat of winter storms has helped to replenish the reservoir, but as of last week it was still only roughly a quarter full — and summer is looming.


Residents have taken creative measures to conserve water, such as washing dishes in the shower.

A herd of American bison, introduced to the island during the filming of a movie in the 1920s, has been hit by the drought. Conservationists added water troughs for the animals.

Scores of northeastern U.S. cities just had their warmest February ever recorded

weather is Variable, that is why it has a different name than climate