For December 22, 2022
(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20221222-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report 2.pdf
A Note to Readers
The report begins with two maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor. The current week and the map from November 28. We had two healthy storms in early December and the change in the intensity of the drought in California is noticeable, but not significant. Forecasts continue to be that a fourth year of drought is all but certain.
The next section is brief and is one example of the insanity of the environmentalist outlook. This “study” proposes that huge areas of the Central Valley be “repurposed” from growing food to be “used for solar energy and other clean industries, managed aquifer recharge projects, and parks and wildlife corridors….” Of course, this fantasy would cost hundreds of millions, and claims it would provide good jobs for those agricultural workers thrown out of work by the fallowing of fields in the drought. Actually providing new water and ending the diversion of water to the ocean through the Delta tunnels is not something any of these people would even consider.
Lettuce at $11 a head. That was the price charged by one store in Oakland, CA last week.
Next a quick summary of the extent and intensity of the drought from several areas of the country, from the mid-west to California.
Two sections of this week’s report under the titles,”California Drought” and “The Colorado River,” demonstrate several things. First, the drought is beginning to evoke conflicts– conflicts between farmers and the water management bureaucracy, and conflicts between the states on the Colorado River.
Secondly, the impact of the drought, as I have reported previously, fallowed almost one million acres of farm land in California, and is already fallowing farm land in Arizona.
Thirdly, on the Colorado River the panic over how to cut between two and four million acre feet of water from being withdrawn from the river to the seven states and Mexico in 2023. The federal government Interior Department and the Bureau of Reclamation have presented a new deadline for the states to reach such an agreement on January 31, 2023. If no agreement is reached, then one will be imposed on the states by the federal government.
Without an abundant and nuclear-powered energy supply, not only will the re-industrialization of the nation be impossible, but, as we have seen in Texas and California, blackouts and shortages are guaranteed. If we shall build dozens of desalination plants in California, nuclear power is essential.
Just today it was announced that Japan has finally come to its senses and will now restart and extend the lifetimes of those plants shut down in 2011. In addition, Japan will build new nuclear power plants.
As this report presented two weeks ago, the U.S. must build between 700 and 1000 new large nuclear plants over the next decades. Modular plants, which should be on-line in the next five years, are smaller, so even more than 1000 of those can partially take the place of the large-scale ones.
All that as the nation and the world accelerate the drive to solve the remaining problems in producing fusion plants.
That leads to our Feature this week,”Eureka! Fusion Ignition! Now Let’s Realize It in a Crash Program,” by my associate Barbara Boyd.
