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Climate change threatens California power supply - report
Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 7/31/12 | Rory Carroll | Reuters

Posted on 07/31/2012 8:16:05 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's electricity sector is more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought, as higher temperatures will impede the state's ability to generate and transmit power while demand for air conditioning rises, a report said Tuesday.

The data is part of the latest report released by the California Natural Resources Agency and the California Energy Commission, which are trying to help state and local leaders prepare for life in the hotter, drier California of the future. (Report: http://r.reuters.com/zag79s)

Wildlife, agriculture and coastal communities are also at serious risk from climate change, the report said. Sea levels could rise by more than a foot by 2050, and more intense storms combined with less overall precipitation will present a host of challenges.

California is considered a national leader in setting policies to combat climate change, with a strong renewable electricity mandate in place and a carbon cap-and-trade program coming into force next year.

"We know that climate change will significantly affect the state's energy supply and demand," said Robert B. Weisenmiller, chair of the California Energy Commission.

"This groundbreaking research gives us the data and analytical tools we need to better plan, forecast and prepare to meet the state's energy needs as we face climate challenges," he said.

The warmer climate will decrease hydropower generation in the summer months when it is needed most, the report said. High-elevation hydropower plants, which supply about 75 percent of the state's hydropower, are especially at risk, since the small size of their reservoirs allows little flexibility to cope with reduced snowpack.

At the same time, higher temperatures alone will require the state to increase its electricity generating capacity 38 percent over current levels by 2100.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; climatechange; globalwarming; powersupply; threatens
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To: Inyo-Mono

And this is now the 5th summer IN A ROW in Pasadena CA that has been unusually cool. So far, just a few days over 90, and we’re often under 85. 90 would normally be considered a relatively cool summer day, but now 90 is seen as a hot day. A change has definitely occurred. And it’s not a warming change, it’s cooling!

If you look at the ocean temperature map at this Real Science post, you can see the cold Pacific waters out there off of CA: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/ucs-to-report-that-less-dense-water-now-sinks/


21 posted on 07/31/2012 9:58:47 PM PDT by Hokestuk
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To: NormsRevenge

Burn coal fools.


22 posted on 07/31/2012 10:10:02 PM PDT by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: editor-surveyor

There is nothing from California that I need. I can grow lettuce in my own garden. Pistachios - smuggle them in from Iran (sarc/).

Marxist bullshiters and crazies. Hey, I live near DC. We’ve got plenty of them here, in the media, academia and the govt.

Gov. Moonbeam? We had Tim Kaine. Same-same.

Communist-run cities like Oakland, Santa Cruz, SF, etc? No thanks.

Disease and gang-ridden cities? No thanks.

Taxes up the ying-yang? No thanks, but our Democrats are spending like drunken sailors and the working class suffers because of it.

The Ninth Circuit court? You’ve got to be kidding. Nobody wants the Nutty Ninth, at least not if they are sane.

Hollyweird? The corrupters of our youth and culture, along with way overpaid One-Percenters who consistently vote Democratic. That is a sure sign of insanity.

What the Left Coast, including Seattle and inland Portland need is a good tsunami and earthquake. Smart conservatives will have bailed out much earlier and will reestablish a sane, New California and Washington State.

California: Keep your diseases, gangs, communists, child pedophiles and flamers, drugs, illegals, cartels, CARB, Nancy Pelosi/Barbara Boxer and Maxine Waters, and stupid police chiefs.

We know a “plague” site when we see one.


23 posted on 07/31/2012 10:53:21 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: editor-surveyor
"California is more than 1/3 of the US economy. "

Bravo Sierra...

24 posted on 07/31/2012 11:51:16 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: Paladin2

You forgot the several power dams they intend to tear down!


25 posted on 08/01/2012 12:01:59 AM PDT by Loyal Sedition
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To: NormsRevenge

Yeah, except this time I can run my three houses on an 18,500 Watt propane generator and 500 gallons of propane. We should be just fine.


26 posted on 08/01/2012 12:04:18 AM PDT by EggsAckley ( There's an Ethiopian in the fuel supply ! ! ..)
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To: editor-surveyor

That may soon be “Was 1/3”!

Other states need to begin taking a larger share of the economy away from Kalifornia, for the national good.

This would also quickly diminish Kalifornia political power, a necessity.

Redistricting after the next census might finally free us of Kalifornia’s near lock congress.


27 posted on 08/01/2012 12:08:04 AM PDT by Loyal Sedition
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

Really.

Well you can start by removing yourself from this server.

Its in California.


28 posted on 08/01/2012 12:11:12 AM PDT by DB
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To: NormsRevenge

I can’t wait until global cooling kicks in and this lie of AGW is dead and buried. Anybody awake knows that the huge temperature increases and ocean level rise predicted in the early 1990s never came to fruition.

The model is wrong. The theory is wrong. The logic is wrong.

All of this is just to implement UN Agenda 21. California is a lead in that effort and will go insolvent eventually.

This report is whitewash hogwash.


29 posted on 08/01/2012 12:16:29 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: TXnMA; editor-surveyor

You are right. California’s economy accounts for 10% of US GDP, not 33%.

US GDP is $14 trillion and change.

The California GDP (GSP) is $1.3 trillion.

10% is still a huge contribution from one state among 50, but nowhere near a third of GDP.


30 posted on 08/01/2012 12:23:00 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: NormsRevenge
We know that climate change will significantly affect the state's energy supply and demand

No, the Government has and will effect supply.

31 posted on 08/01/2012 12:56:53 AM PDT by MaxMax
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free; editor-surveyor
"10% is still a huge contribution from one state among 50, but nowhere near a third of GDP. "

Yep... I was aware of that, since Texas is about 8% of US GDP.

32 posted on 08/01/2012 1:12:20 AM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: NormsRevenge
Do journalists now go to special schools where they study stupidity? LOCAL climate always varies MORE than GLOBAL climate! Is this too hard for their brains to understand? Do we need a microscope to find their brains? How many times must we be subjected to stories that are flawed in such a blatantly stupid way???? Any given local location on earth may have been colder or hotter by margins that make the fractions of a degree in global average completely and utterly irrelevant! Duh????? Duh!
33 posted on 08/01/2012 3:41:24 AM PDT by AndyTheBear
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free
I can’t wait until global cooling kicks in and this lie of AGW is dead and buried.

Oh the scientific theory has been dead for a few years now. But instead of burying it, its adherents prop up the corpse and pretend its alive for their own selfish ends...the more it rots the more its putrid smell and the insidious corruption of scientific integrity grows parasitical tentacles from the corpse into corrupt political alliances.

34 posted on 08/01/2012 3:46:00 AM PDT by AndyTheBear
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To: Loyal Sedition

Correct. I thought about the blowing of the dams after I hit “send”.


35 posted on 08/01/2012 4:06:02 AM PDT by Paladin2
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California is considered a national leader in setting policies to combat climate change, with a strong renewable electricity mandate in place...

You can't afford to pay for it.

...and a carbon cap-and-trade program coming into force next year.

You can't afford that either. Scrap the Magical Mystery Train project and start building nuke plants-- you're gonna need them.

36 posted on 08/01/2012 8:15:11 AM PDT by Max in Utah (A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.)
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To: Windflier

Here in inland California, the low to mid 100s have been pretty much normal summer weather for a couple of centuries of record keeping.

Our temps are decidedly lower in summer now, compared to the 50s and 60s. We call June Juneuary now, as it is rarely warm in June any more.


37 posted on 08/01/2012 8:34:29 AM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they were.)
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To: editor-surveyor
Here in inland California, the low to mid 100s have been pretty much normal summer weather for a couple of centuries of record keeping.

Our temps are decidedly lower in summer now, compared to the 50s and 60s. We call June Juneuary now, as it is rarely warm in June any more.

Yep, I know. I'm a native Californian myself. It actually pisses me off that I spent a half century baking every summer there, and now that I'm in Texas, the California climate has cooled a bit.

It ain't fair, I tell ya .. LOL

38 posted on 08/01/2012 12:32:42 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: NormsRevenge

It’s funny how they also mentioned Bjorn Lomborg as a converted climate skeptic, when he was always for climate change being real from day one. The lamestream media must be getting plenty rediculous to try and pull crap like that.


39 posted on 08/02/2012 8:30:48 AM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

They do account for 1/3 of the wackiest gorebull warming laws and best high-speed chases on COPS.


40 posted on 08/02/2012 9:42:19 AM PDT by TurboZamboni (Looting the future to bribe the present)
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