{"id":156,"date":"2015-05-28T15:54:44","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T15:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/?p=156"},"modified":"2015-05-28T15:54:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T15:54:44","slug":"the-impacts-of-californias-drought-on-hydroelectricity-production%e2%80%8f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"The Impacts of California\u2019s Drought on Hydroelectricity Production\u200f"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>WATER WARS: \u00a0The Impacts of California\u2019s Drought on Hydroelectricity Production . . .<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/eelriver.org\/2015\/03\/the-impacts-of-californias-drought-on-hydroelectricity-production\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/eelriver.org\/2015\/03\/the-impacts-of-californias-drought-on-hydroelectricity-production\/<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>EXCERPT<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The\u00a0<a title=\"Pacific Institute\" href=\"http:\/\/pacinst.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pacific Institute<\/a>\u00a0just released a report that evaluates how California\u2019s drought has resulted in less energy produced by hydroelectric dams and a greater reliance on the more expensive process of burning natural gas.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>The current severe drought has many negative consequences. One of them that receives little attention is how the drought has fundamentally changed the way our electricity is produced. Under normal conditions, electricity for the state\u2019s millions of users is produced from a blend of sources, with natural gas and hydropower being the top two. Since the drought has reduced the state\u2019s river flows that power hundreds of hydropower stations, natural gas has become a more prominent player in the mix. This is an expensive change.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Institute\u2019s report, between October 2011 and October 2014, California\u2019s ratepayers spent $1.4 billion more for electricity than in average years because of the drought-induced shift from hydropower to natural gas. In an average year, hydropower provides around 18 percent of the electricity needed for agriculture, industry, and homes. Comparatively, in this three-year drought period, hydropower made up less than 12 percent of total California electricity generation. The figure below (Figure 6 from the new study) shows the monthly anomalies in state hydropower generation in wet and dry years, and the severe cuts over the past three years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WATER WARS: \u00a0The Impacts of California\u2019s Drought on Hydroelectricity Production . . . http:\/\/eelriver.org\/2015\/03\/the-impacts-of-californias-drought-on-hydroelectricity-production\/ EXCERPT The\u00a0Pacific Institute\u00a0just released a report that evaluates how California\u2019s drought has resulted in less energy produced by hydroelectric dams and a greater reliance on the more expensive process of burning natural gas. The current severe drought has many negative consequences. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-posts","category-water-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primarywater.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}