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Opinion: Will Salton Sea Lithium Dreams Come True? It Will Be Years Before We Know

/in , , /by /Desert Sunby Desert Sun Editorial Board

The underground chemical stew beneath the Salton Sea is believed to hold enough lithium to power millions of cars and homes with green energy. But only if — a big if — enough of that scalding “geothermal brine” can be brought to the surface and the lithium sifted out.

That’s an incredibly complex process. And it’s just about as hard for those who live around the sea to separate reality from dreams when it comes to the impact of all that lithium.

In the best case, we’ve heard over the years, a lithium boom could generate billions of dollars; bring thousands of badly needed jobs for those living near the sea; spur an environmental revival; and give clean energy to a region, the state and beyond.

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Floating Solar Panels Could Be the Next Big Thing in Clean Energy

/in , , /by /Popular Scienceby Thor Benson

Solar panels can be placed on your roof, on a plot of land, or basically anywhere else where they  are anchored to something solid. That said, there are only so many solid spaces available to install them. To beat climate change, our electricity mix is going to need a lot more renewable energy systems to take over fossil fuels.  Many in the solar industry are looking for a new home for solar panels—possibly even floating on water.

Floating solar farms have been around for over a decade, but water-bound panels became much more prominent in the last few years. The basic idea is to attach solar panels to plastic floats which then drift on a body of water.

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One Colorado Farmer Is Going Against the Grain to Use Less Water. It’s Working.

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Chris Outcalt

On a chilly morning 5 miles north of Fruita, Lowell King, standing at the edge of a cornfield, reaches down, grabs a clump of dirt, and starts tearing at the soil with his meaty fingers. King eventually points to a tiny white spot in the dirt. “Anytime you can see stuff almost like that mold right there, that’s fungi,” he says. “And there’s all this other good stuff, and these roots intertwined; that’s what increases your water infiltration.”

King, who’s been farming in the Grand Valley since 2005, is illustrating an important principle of a concept known as regenerative agriculture — a technique he says could help Colorado stretch its dwindling water supplies. But adopting that philosophy also requires rejecting deeply entrenched conventional farming methods, such as tilling fields to prepare the ground for planting.

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Where California’s Key Reservoirs Stand After the 2nd Driest January Ever

/in , , /by /SF GATEby Amy Graff

California hasn’t seen rain in over a month, and some of the state’s key reservoirs are starting to be impacted.

Shasta Lake, the state’s largest reservoir, was at 54% of its historical average as of Feb. 9, compared to 72% last year, the California Department of Water Resources said. San Luis Reservoir on the eastern slope of the Diablo range is at 59% of its historical average, compared to 71% last year.

Other reservoirs are up from where they were at this time last year.

“This would be expected given that last year was the 2nd driest year for CA in our observed record and the 2020-2021 two year period set a new record for dryness,” Michael Anderson, the state climatologist for the Department of Water Resources, wrote in an email.

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California Sizzles in February Heatwave

/in , , /by /phys.orgby Paula Ramon

A heatwave was bringing unseasonably high temperatures to California on Thursday, sending sun-worshippers to the beach, but also sparking a brushfire.

Forecasters issued a heat warning for the most populous US state through to Sunday, warning the mercury could hit a height-of-summer 90 Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) in Los Angeles, well above the average for winter.

California, in common with much of the western United States, is enduring a historic drought and wild swings in weather that scientists say is exacerbated by man-made climate change.

“If you warm the planet, you’re going to break heat records,” said geographer Justin Mankin of Dartmouth College.

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Critics Rip ‘Half-Baked’ Federal Plan to Save California Salmon

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Service by Nick Cahill

Fishing groups and water suppliers fighting the Biden administration’s proposed drought rules for California’s water system told a federal judge Friday the emergency plans won’t stop the demise of endangered salmon.

With California trudging through another disappointingly dry winter, the federal government and state officials have agreed upon a set of temporary rules they claim are necessary to preserve enough cold water on the Sacramento River for Chinook salmon this spring and summer. The rules call for new water temperature targets and improved collaboration between federal and state officials on the management of California’s two main water conveyance systems.

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How Much Rain Does California Need to Get Out of the Drought? A Lot Still

/in , , /by /AccuWeatherby Zachary Rosenthal

If you flashback to October, it might seem hard to believe that California’s Sierra Nevada would be experiencing a below-normal snowpack at this point of the winter. During October, the region was regularly pummeled with atmospheric rivers and major winter storms, with those storms dropping feet of snow in the mountains.

But as of early February, despite that strong start, the region has had its driest period of winter in recorded history. It has been more than 32 days and counting since the last snowfall at the U.C. Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, breaking the previous record of 31 set in 1990.

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The Beginning of the End of Lawns, One Rebate at a Time

/in , , /by /Sonoma Index-Tribuneby Chase Hunter

When Kim Chapman and her husband Don Gross were tired of their lawn, and the brown grass and the water bills that accompanied it, they got paid to remove their grass. They were one of 150 households who have benefited from the City of Sonoma’s turf removal rebate since it launched in 2013.

The program has been able to drastically reduce the amount of water used by residents who remove their lawns, since nearly half of a home’s water bill can come from maintaining lawns, Sonoma City Water Manager Mike Brett said.

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Sen. Nielsen Bill Seeks to Help Sites Reservoir Project

/in , , /by /Colusa County Sun Heraldby Robert Summa

State Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Red Bluff, and Sen. Andreas Borgeas, R-Fresno, introduced a bill last week that would have a significant impact on the Sites Reservoir project in Colusa County.

The bill, Senate Bill 890, is meant to ensure millions of acre-feet of water is stored during wet years instead of being flushed out to sea, a release from California Senate Republicans said.

Sites Reservoir is an off-stream facility proposed north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that captures storm water flows from the Sacramento River for release primarily in dry and critical years, the Appeal previously reported.

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Interior Official: Federal Funds ‘Coming at Just the Right Time’ to Help Utah Drought

/in , /by /Desert Newsby Kyle Dunphey

Standing at the foot of the southern Wasatch Mountains in Spanish Fork, Tommy Beaudreau, deputy secretary of the Interior, said the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure package will make Utah more drought resilient, while easing tensions between Western states and Washington, D.C.

Less than a mile down the road, construction crews worked to install two massive pipelines — one that will replace the Salem Canal and one that is the final piece of a lengthy project to divert a portion of the state’s Colorado River allotment to southern Utah County.

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