CALIFORNIA ENERGY

Vicki Drake

Earth Science Department

Santa Monica College

  1. Energy Consumption
  2. California large consumer of energy

1. Climate encourages high usage of electricity: long hot summers

2. Car ‘affair’ encourages high petroleum usage

  1. Sources of Electrical Energy
  2. Hydropower

1. 22% of CA energy needs today

  1. Future: Down to 10% due to increased consumer demands, and no new dams built

2. High mountains and precipitation pattern creates control problems

  1. Dams built and operated in No. CA – year-round river flow
  2. So. CA too dry and unpredictable precipitation pattern – ephemeral river systems
  3. Major Hydroelectric Power Sources in CA

1. Shasta Dam (Sacramento River) – Federal Control

2. Oroville Dam (Feather River) – Sate Water Project Control

3. Big Creek Project (Water Division Project from San Joaquin River, and Mono Creek) (Huntington Lake and Lake Edison)

4. Castaic Lake (Operated by DWP and CA Dept of Water Resources)

5. L.A. Aqueduct near Owens Gorge (Lake Crowley) – DWP

6. Los Angeles and Franklin Canyon Reservoirs in Santa Monica Mountains

  1. Sources of Electric Energy Outside California

1. Hoover Dam (Lower Colorado River)

2. Dalles Dam (Columbia River – near Oregon/Washington border)

  1. Pacific Intertie (AC/DC transmission lines)

1. SoCal Edison, DWP, Power agencies for Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena

2. International system – Upper Columbia River in British Columbia

  1. Oil and Natural Gas
  2. California’s greatest mineral resource historically
  3. Once led nation in production of Oil and Natural Gas (pre-1960’s)
  4. Expanding population – increased demand - # 4 today behind TX, LA, AK in production
  5. Imported Gas and Oil meet ~50% of CA electrical energy needs (remainder used in automobiles, industries, and municipalities)
  6. Today: 93% of natural gas imported – CA natural gas supply almost exhausted
  7. Petroleum reserves down
  8. Land-based reserves: ~3.7 bbl (billion barrels)
  9. Offshore reserves – estimated @776 million barrels (but may actually exceed land reserves)
  10. Restraints on off-shore drilling: California Coastal Act
  11. Areas near Mendocino, Humboldt, Sonoma, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara: Federal feasibility study
  12. Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) – alternative to Oil
  13. shipments from Mexico and Canada, SE Asia and Alaska
  14. Challenges: where to build LNG plants
  15. LNG needs cold temps – conversion into gas vapor dangerous
  16. CA PUC favors location near Santa Barbara County near Pt Conception
  17. Rough seas, high waves, geologically active areas, Native California Indians claim lands, non-support from FED, too expensive
  18. Northern California Gas’s needs

!. Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan)

2. Giant ‘gas’ bubble: estimated 3.5-trillion ft3 annual output (70 trillion ft3 known reserves, another 70 trillion ft3 estimated reserves)

  1. Long Term Outlook for Importing of Gas and Oil
  2. Super-tankers too large for most harbor – new unloading systems needed
  3. Currently ‘lightering’ (unloading cargo onto small ships and transported into ports) only way for oil to reach shore
  4. Oil leaks – oil spills
  5. Regulatory agencies slow to approve new sites and procedures
  1. Other Sources of Energy
  2. Coal
  3. Coal not mined/produced in CA, but shipped to and through CA
  4. Coal-fired plants outside CA (and a few inside CA) do not produce large amounts of energy
  5. Supreme Court disallowed new plants
  6. Challenges:
  7. Air pollution
  8. Bulky and dirty to transport
  9. Not great energy source
  10. Neighboring states don’t appreciate CA using them as ‘energy colonies’ – polluting their air, not CA’s.
  11. Solutions:
  12. Slurry – liquefied coal
  13. transported via pipelines (less air pollution
  14. technology too expensive to be competitive with solid coal
  15. Geothermal Power
  16. 5% of CA’s electrical needs
  17. PG & E Geysers in No.CA (Sonoma County) largest Geothermal plant in contiguous USA (1000-2000 MW)
  18. South Geysers (Calistoga) shut down by CA DWR, reopened by consortium of 14 cities and Unocal
  19. Inyo, Imperial, Lassen and Mono counties tapped
  20. Greatest potential: Salton Trough (Imperial), 126 MW (magma power) to ~100,000 SoCal houses
  21. Clean Air Act – geothermal power non-hydrocarbon based
  22. Optimistic expectations: >4,600 MW by 2030 AD (new tech. req.)
  23. Energy: decay of radioactive material – generating magma – groundwater heating
  24. Superheated water, steam, and hot rocks used
  25. Challenges: minerals in hot water (flashed to steam) corrode pipes; Brine build-up must be cleaned out; Sulfide (‘rotten eggs’) smell
  26. Advantages: Clean power; used at site, no transportation necessary; ‘green power’ – environmentally friendly
  27. Nuclear Power
  28. <10% CA energy needs
  29. San Onofre (San Diego), Diablo Canyon (SLO), Rancho Seco (Sacto)
  30. Nuclear fission reactors (spitting atom, release of enormous nuclear energy)
  31. Challenges: Residual radioactive wastes for disposal
  32. No safe method for disposal
  33. Reactors used similar in structure to: 3-Mile Island; and Chernobyl, Ukraine
  34. Other problems: building plants in seismically active CA
  35. LA DWP taps into Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Plant (Phoenix, AZ)
  36. San Onofre: 2200 MW, Diablo Canyon: 2160 MW, Rancho Seco: 875 MW
  37. Another Reactor near Humboldt Bay – ‘de-commissioned’ in 70’s
  38. Breeder Reactors used in Europe too dangerous – not used here
  39. Nuclear Fusion plant not a reality need ~1,000,0000F to generate fusion (Think SUN!): residuals? HE, H

D. Solar Energy

1. Nuclear Fusion energy direct from Sun

  1. C = speed of light (186,000 miles/sec or 300,000 km/sec)
  2. Full EM spectrum – Shortwave-longwave
  3. Transformation of shortwave energy to longwave energy: secret to solar heating
  4. Natural gas, oil and nuclear energy becoming more scarce, more expensive and more dangerous – solar energy moving to forefront again
  5. 1998 Deregulation of electricity industry in CA: feds, state and city officials promoting solar energy development
  6. CA is perfect target for solar energy development
  7. 1987 – SOLAR ONE, Daggett, (Barstow) CA
  8. LA DWP, SCE, DOE, CA Energy Commission joint project
  9. Solar energy collected – turned to heat – steam – turbines
  10. Private company “Luz International” took over after govt. bailed
  11. Lower gas/oil prices in late 80’s sent Luz into bankruptcy
  12. 1991 – still operating with 9 plants sending electricity via SCE lines
  13. SOLAR TWO now being considered by govt
  1. Challenges: Solar collectors/concentrators big and unsightly
  2. Micro-climatic disruptions due to amount of energy concentrations
  3. New technology expensive
  1. Passive Solar Energy: Collects solar energy, converts to heat energy, used to heat water, steam to spin turbines, electricity
  2. Active Solar Energy: Photovoltaic cells: convert solar energy directly into electricity
  3. Very expensive!
  4. Benefits: Constant renewable resource – green power
  5. Wind Power
  6. Use of windmill farms throughout CA – provide <8% of CA electrical needs
  7. 85% of all wind power energy in world generated in CA
  8. Use of Danish technology

4. Locations: Tehachapi Mountains, Mojave Desert

Near San Diego, and north Central Valley

  1. Deregulation: WHAT HAPPENED TO CALIFORNIA’S ENERGY SUPPLY?
  2. Deregulation of energy industry: 1998: cut electricity rates; break up energy monopolies by utility companies; utilities free to purchase and market power in and out of CA; out-of-state operators/competition join in providing cheap electricity
  3. A brief timetable:
  4. 1995 – Deregulation legislation introduced
  5. 1996 – Gov. Pete Wilson signs a bill allowing utilities to start competing for customers by mid-1998
  6. FERC (Federal Energy Regulating Comm.) adopts new rules to speed up utility merger approvals
  7. 1998 – California utilities begin selling power plants in anticipation of deregulation (PG&E, SoCalEdison, and San Diego Gas &Electric sold off plants to outsiders and became middlemen “power brokers” for CA.
  8. Problem? No long-term contracts allowed – fear of future lower costs – instead – costs have tripled…and consumers are paying
  9. 1999 – San Gas and Electric deregulates first – within one year, wholesale costs soar, customer bills triple
  10. 2000 – May - 1st Stage 2 alert (power reserves dip below 5% of demand) – June: Blackout in SF - Dec: 7 1st stage 3 emergency alert (power reserves below 1.5% of demand)
  11. Dec (2000) – Sec’y of Energy orders out-of-state generator to sell to CA; FERC approves flexible whole electricity rate cap: SoCAL Edition sues FERC – failing to ensure reasonable wholesale rates (10-fold increases)
  12. Jan 2001 – rates increase 15% for some CA’s
  13. Stage 3 alert – SoCal Edison cannot pay bills!
  14. Jan 17 – rolling blackouts ordered - $400 million rescue package announced
  15. About 40% of CA’s capacity comes from facilities that are >30 years old (breakdowns common)
  16. No new generators built – CA did not complete a single large power plant over the last 10 years – even while Silicon Valley boomed, economy expanded by 34% and population grew
  17. High demand for electricity that cannot be met
  18. Rate freeze set until 2002 – utilities thought it okay (buying wholesale in a free market, then selling to consumers) – until prices soared!
  19. 25% of CA’s energy needs must be imported from SW and Pac. NW
  20. Natural gas prices (used in 50% of CA’s generating plants) spiked and wholesale price of energy jumped from 5 cents/KH in Jan 2000 to >40 cents/KH in Dec 2000.

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(c) V Drake

CA GEOG