Latest / Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker / California’s Powerhouse: Innovation in the Fight for Water & Energy

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California’s Powerhouse: Innovation in the Fight for Water & Energy · Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker

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Welcome to Nonsense Season 3, Episode 66, our big story.
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On our second show of the week, I'm Jeff Parker.
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This time, we're looking at how University of California Merced
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is harnessing the Golden State's canal network for clean energy.
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Up next. Oh boy, we're talking about coal
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again, aren't we actually? Solar.
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That hot ball of gas in the sky, the one that's evaporating up
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all of our water. The folks at UC Merced have
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figured out how to do both generate clean energy and
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preserve our precious water. Oh, OK, so you you burn the coal
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in the aqueduct to put the fire out, I guess.
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I guess that makes sense. Do you listen to anything I
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said? You know.
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That identical twins don't have the same same fingerprints.
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Wow, it's going to be one of those shows.
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OK, you see Merced. Simple fix for California's
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energy and water crisis. Let's go.
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I guess it makes sense they don't have the same fingers
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either, right? Less with the talking.
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Philanthropist Mackenzie Scott has made two significant gifts
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to the University of California, Merced, the most recent of which
1:02
is the largest single donation in the university's history.
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Ironically, she gave those gifts as a Walmart gift cards and a
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whole team. People just scratching off the
1:09
codes on the back the whole time.
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Scott's recent commitment, announced this last Monday,
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December 8th, 2025, is a $38 million transformational gift.
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This follows a previous $20 million donation made in 2021.
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The total $58 million investment underscores the growing national
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recognition of UC Merced as a public research universe and a
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leader in social mobility. UC Merced officially opened its
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doors in 20 O 5, making it the 10th and newest campus in the UC
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system. You and I are both fans of
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California. Forget the UC system for a
1:38
second, just the state broadly. We're both fans of California.
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In a moment, we're going to talk about some of the state's
1:43
serious problems. But in light of Mackenzie
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Scott's incredible gift, I thought we should mention one of
1:48
the state's most productive resources, the University of
1:51
California system. I know USC grads that we are,
1:55
however, you have to admit, sure they have really contributed.
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As an amazing system it is. Yeah, it's been.
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Absolutely. Amazing.
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I don't want to admit it. I guess technically, yes, it's
2:03
true, but I don't want to. Yeah.
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Mm hmm. I have been very vocal that I am
2:06
a huge fan of Gary May, the chancellor of UC Davis.
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Gary May is like a legit. Rock star completely.
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I didn't know much about this guy until you brought him to my
2:14
attention. He's pretty impressive.
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He's first of all, he's electrical engineer.
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He's superstar. Yeah, he's like an EE superstar
2:20
like this guy is, is pretty amazing.
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He has a list of accolades that like.
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When your Wikipedia page has sections, then you know that
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you've made. It Oh no super, super smart and
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what an amazing chance yeah this in 2019, UC Davis reached the
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top ten in four national rankings of universities.
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Wow And in 2024, the Wall Street Journal College Pulse ranked UC
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Davis the third best public university in the United.
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States the third best UC system. I would have been like, wow,
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that's pretty good. The third best in the UC says
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that's not what they said no of. Course the third best in the UC
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system. I would have been like, wow,
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that's pretty good, right? That's, that's, that's.
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Not much better than the UC system versus.
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Public university in the country, which is yeah, which is
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amazing. I just assumed it was all
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agriculture there. Apparently that's not the case
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anymore. It's also a vet school.
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Oh, and that's, that's actually the cliche from when I was a kid
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of what it was that there's actually tons and tons of other
3:07
things there now. It's really amazing.
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It's AC Davis. Yeah.
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Quite a Research Institute. Chancellor May is just one of
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the many reasons the UC system is among the world's top
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universities, if not the top, operating three national labs
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and being a major engine for our state's economy and innovation.
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Well, you know, it's California. We like to make stuff.
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Here we do think of some of the things that came from the UC
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system. Can you think of anything?
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Nothing. Nothing good.
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I'm gonna start us off things that came out of the UC system.
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Now you'd be nice. Oh boy. 1969.
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Yeah. 3 miles from here. I know where this is going the.
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Classroom is still there. The computer is still there that
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they did it with. Yeah, they connected 2 computers
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and made him talk. It was the beginning of the
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Internet. Uh huh.
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They literally invented the Internet at UCLA.
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Yeah, OK, sure, that's what they say.
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But Andreessen said he made it. OK, your turn.
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Now I'm OK. Look, UCLA, not not a big fan.
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Early research leading to the design and commercialization of
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the modern cochlear implant for the deaf or hard of hearing,
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which we've covered on this show.
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Yes, was conducted at UCSF. Correct.
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Well, that's good. So I got that one.
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You're not? Hold on.
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You're not opposed to making people here.
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Good. OK, good.
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Finally for something we agree. Yeah, sure.
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Earrings. Good.
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OK, great. That's amazing.
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UC Berkeley alumnus Douglas Engelbart invented the first
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computer mouse in the 60s, along with hypertext and the graphical
4:16
user interface, things we hardly use today.
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Brunola eating hippies. That's what those people in
4:20
Berkeley are. Simplified instruction set,
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Computing risk architecture. You know I'm a big RISC 5 fan.
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You are a big risk fan Which? Powers nearly all modern
4:28
microprocessors, including all of those in smartphones.
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Was pioneered at UC Berkeley. What like during a sit in?
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Yes, during a sit in Berkeley. UC Irvine chemists, I believe,
4:37
discovered that the chlorofluorocarbons,
4:40
chlorofluorocarbons, CFCS for short, were destroying the ozone
4:45
layer and that led to a little bit on CFCS.
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So that felt. Pretty good.
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The Positron Emission Tomography PET scanner, a vital medical
4:52
imaging tool that visualizes metabolic processes in the body,
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was invented at your favorite UCLA and.
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Probably stole it from somebody else.
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The core technology for the revolutionary CRISPR CAS 9
5:02
genome editing tool was Co developed at UC Berkeley.
5:06
They were. High, of course, they did what
5:08
they do. UC Santa Barbara professor was
5:11
one of the three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize for
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inventing the highly efficient and affordable blue light
5:17
emitting diet, or as regular people know it, an LED, which
5:20
made white LED lighting possible, which is the.
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All the LEDs that we use now pretty much came out of UC Santa
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Barbara. If it doesn't emit light, it's
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not an LED. And then?
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Well, no, there were red LEDs before that.
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But it's emitted light but. You couldn't make the white
5:33
light. You couldn't make the white
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light until you figured out the. Blue 1 Sure I understand how
5:37
this works. Okay, a practical process for
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reverse osmosis, the technology used worldwide for water
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purification and desalinization, was first demonstrated at UCLA
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in 1959. Boiling.
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They invented boiling. Water.
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OK, Wow. The UCS have created some cool
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stuff. The UCS are fantastic.
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We talk about California's strengths.
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The UC system has to be at or very near the top of the list.
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I love that I just I cannot give any props at all to UCLA yet.
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I'll let them deliver both of my children and perform numerous
6:08
surgeries on me. I'm always certain to never wear
6:10
any SC gear. Whenever I go in I'm like Nope,
6:12
going to just Detrojan myself before I go in for my checkup.
6:14
It is true at the UCLA is a giant hospital connected to a
6:18
small school. There's a small little yeah,
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it's like a little vocational school attached.
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To it one of the one of the most important research schools on
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the planet. But yes, sure, yeah, that
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California has lots of problems though serious problems when we
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talk about those two. The California water crisis is
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driven by climate change and chronic over reliance on a
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finite resource. The state experiences
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intensifying climate whiplash, swinging unpredictably between
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severe droughts and extreme atmospheric river floods.
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I mean, I would argue we've got overlands on several finite
6:42
resources, but yeah, a lot of people.
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We go, yeah, we got, we get our water from the Nevada snow back.
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Oh yeah, it doesn't fill up. We don't get the snowfall.
6:48
We get in trouble. I mean, we pull water from a lot
6:50
of places. I think the majority of it comes
6:51
from that snowpack. So when that thing doesn't hit,
6:53
then you got a real problem. And we get warmer temperatures
6:56
and that water evaporates and then we have less water for the
6:58
state. And simultaneously, the state
6:59
has severely over pumped groundwater which causes wells
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to run dry, leading to land subsistence that damages canals.
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I mean, next thing you know, I'm limited in two-minute showers
7:09
and nobody wants that. The solution requires a massive
7:11
investment in recycled water, storm water capture, especially
7:14
for aquifer recharge. Yeah, and modernizing aging
7:17
conveyance infrastructure. Without this action, projected
7:19
supply declines could cost the state billions and force the
7:22
following of millions of acres of farmland.
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The core challenge is simple. Demand still exceeds sustainable
7:27
supply. Yeah, and we've done a lot to
7:29
try to curb demand, yet it's still going up 'cause it's a
7:32
lovely place to live and more people want to be here.
7:35
Never going to be a shortage. And that's not even the problem
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that cause. The problem is, it's the
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farming. Sure, you have to have tons and
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tons 6 a gallon of water to grow an almond.
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You know how many almonds we grow in the state?
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12 to 15 every year. You kind of glossed over the the
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aging conveyance infrastructure. Yeah.
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You know, that's a big word for pipes.
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And we've got really old pipes, right?
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Not just in this town, but the stuff that brings it here.
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Sure. And you know there is a a bunch
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of my neighbors are certainly grumpy about the DWP when we
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have water mains that break. Often pipes that are 90 years
8:03
old in many cases. Yeah, I mean, up by me, they're
8:05
not quite that old, but you're still in the 60 to 70 years old.
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And also, I don't know if you know this or not, but the ground
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here moves a lot. So that's all problematic,
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right? These things do break, and I'm
8:13
impressed at how quickly they get them resolved.
8:16
Like it's really, it's, it's an amazing feat to keep this water
8:19
flowing to all of us here in the desert.
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And that's like on a micro level.
8:22
On a macro level, the big canals, they're bringing us
8:25
water, Yeah, are constantly in need of maintenance, too.
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The water in California can't only be a concern to
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Californians, though, because sure, we are the producers of
8:32
American agriculture. We are the the top producers of
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all sorts of things, fruits, vegetables, nuts.
8:38
Cattle almonds. I think we make something like
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80% of the almonds in the world come from California.
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They should rename the almond the California men.
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They all come from here. 4 out of five almonds that you put in
8:48
your mouth come from California. That's insane.
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We have this great Mediterranean climate and we have this this
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huge Central Valley that generates the largest
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agriculture value of any state, exceeding $59 billion annually.
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The. Mediterranean has a great
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Californian climate. That's what I'm going with.
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How many almonds do they make? Walnuts, pistachios, artichokes.
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Olive. The Golden State supplies nearly
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2/3 of the fruits and vegetables consumed by the US, nearly 3/4
9:13
of the nation's nuts. Crucially, California is the
9:15
sole domestic producer of many high value commodities,
9:18
including almonds. As you say, the production is
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highly diverse, spanning over 400 commodities from leading
9:22
dairy and cattle industries to wine grapes, tomatoes and
9:26
lettuce. The state's food security
9:27
contribution is immense, but it's increasingly challenged by
9:29
water scarcity and climate change.
9:31
I mean, it is nuts that like when people think about
9:34
California, even people that live here that live for their
9:36
whole life, you typically think about like like entertainment,
9:39
Hollywood, maybe you think about Silicon Valley and and the nerds
9:43
up there. Where the bread basket think.
9:44
About the Golden Gate Bridge, where the food, But then you
9:46
drive through the middle of the state, which does seem to go on
9:49
forever. I mean, the five is basically a
9:51
straight arrow to nowhere and you're driving forever and
9:54
you're like, this is all food. Yeah, it's just all food the
9:57
whole way up from, you know, vegetables that are grown or
9:59
nuts, huge dairy farms. I mean, everyone has been
10:02
through where the magic in and out is right in the middle of
10:05
all Cow town smells terrible, but the in and out's pretty
10:08
damn. Good man Stink.
10:09
Everybody I know always calls it Kaushowitz, which I don't think
10:11
is the right name for it. I've never, I'm like, can I
10:14
laugh at that? I don't think I can laugh at
10:16
that. It's pretty funny, but funny.
10:17
I can't even think of the original name.
10:18
I can't think of the actual name of the town.
10:19
I just noticed Kaushowitz. It's where all the cows go to
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die. Yeah, I like the rest of the
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world. We also have a power problem, an
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electrical power problem. We do.
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California's power demands are surging, driven by aggressive
10:29
electrification goals for the transportation and buildings,
10:31
rapid expansion of high demand sectors like data centers.
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For AI to meet it's 2045 carbon free mandate, the state needs
10:37
10s of thousands of megawatts of new clean power.
10:39
And we're not going to get it from hydro.
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That's pretty unlikely given our hydro situation.
10:43
Lack of hydro. Lack of hydro, as it turns out,
10:46
is a is problematic. Solar is the natural solution.
10:49
Solar seems to be the way to go, right?
10:50
We've got a bunch of turbines here.
10:52
There's a bunch of renewable turbines here, yeah.
10:54
But solar does seem to be the way to go.
10:56
We are sun drenched, We are legendarily sun drenched.
10:59
So that kind of seem. I mean, we're recording this
11:01
right now in your backyard. It's 83° out into December.
11:04
California is already the undisputed leader in solar
11:07
capacity. Yeah, but a massive build out of
11:10
utility scale solar farms comes at the expense of invaluable
11:12
farmland because you got to put it somewhere.
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You got to put it somewhere. As we noted, the California
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Central Valley is the backbone of America's food supply,
11:18
producing nearly 2/3 of the nation's fruits and vegetables.
11:21
But some California farmers have discovered that their land can
11:24
earn more as a solar farm. Yeah.
11:25
Which is a problem if you've grown a real problem accustomed
11:28
to, say, eating. Yeah.
11:30
All you used to eat the solar cell, but unfortunately the
11:32
economies right now are in in such that in many places they
11:35
can deploy solar farms as opposed to farming.
11:37
And that Land's not coming back anytime soon.
11:40
It's going to be a solar farm for quite a while.
11:41
Sacrificing high yield agricultural land for solar
11:44
creates A profound food versus energy conflict.
11:47
Many years ago, my father-in-law turned off the Internet at his
11:50
house. She's like, ah, we don't use it,
11:51
we'll just use our phones. And I looked at him and I was
11:53
like, if you asked me if I would turn off the Internet or water,
11:57
I'd have to think about it. I'd have to think about which
11:59
one would be easier for me to live without.
12:01
And it'd probably be water. Also, do you know how your phone
12:03
works? Yeah.
12:04
I understand. Project Nexus, The Solar topped
12:06
canals, Yes. Doctor Brandy Yes Q&J Elliott
12:09
Campbell and Others co-authored a 2021 UC Merced study
12:13
investigating covering California's 4000 miles of
12:15
canals with solar panels. It's a game changing solution to
12:18
the state's climate and water crisis, inspired in part by a
12:21
similar project in India. Yeah, Well, I mean, first of
12:23
all, when I read this and I was like 4000 miles of canals, I was
12:26
like, that's a lot of string shoved into the jar.
12:28
So how do you get 4000 miles in a state that's not 4000 miles
12:31
long? And then do you realize, well,
12:32
those canals don't go in a straight line?
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There's a lot of. Exactly.
12:35
They have to go everywhere. There's a lot of canaling, Yeah,
12:37
it's really. Turns out the whole state needs
12:39
water. It does every, every part of it.
12:42
And, and where it comes from isn't where you need it always.
12:45
You got to get it from A to B. Yeah, this is fascinating to me.
12:47
And and as you were alluding to, this has been done several years
12:50
ago in India. They have something like 80,000
12:53
kilometers of canals, right? Meandering through just one
12:56
state of India, which is a lot of canals.
12:59
It's amazing. And their state electric
13:00
corporation in this, this territory of Gujarat.
13:02
I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that.
13:03
We'll get some angry letters. If they could convert 30% of it.
13:06
They feel that you get 18 gigawatts of power and save
13:10
something like 90,000 acres of land.
13:12
Yeah, which is massive. You already own the canals, you
13:15
don't have to buy any new ones, you can just put solar panels on
13:18
top of them and you solve a big chunk of evaporation problems.
13:21
Well, that's the other thing that's super interesting, right?
13:22
That is not obvious. So when you put these things
13:25
over water, two things happen. One, OK, you get less
13:27
evaporation. I guess that kind of makes
13:29
sense. But then also the the flowing
13:31
water underneath keeps the solar cells cooler.
13:33
Which makes them more productive if they're.
13:35
Cooler, they remain more efficient.
13:36
Yeah, something of like 2 to 5% percent, which is not nothing.
13:39
That's a real number. And then you also get less algae
13:42
growth. You get virtually, from what
13:43
I've come to understand, almost no algae balloons.
13:45
Because you're in shape. Because it needs the sun.
13:47
If the sun doesn't hit the water, you don't get algae.
13:50
And if you don't have algae, it's one less thing you have to
13:51
clean and remediate from the water in the canal.
13:54
So it really does seem like a win win.
13:55
The other thing that that I read and this was they, they saw this
13:58
true in in India as well as in the project Nexus here in
14:01
California. It's like, OK, these these solar
14:03
farms are cheaper on a MW basis than building like a like a coal
14:07
or a gas. It's powered station.
14:09
Sure. That seems intuitive to me.
14:10
That seems to make sense. Solar certainly come down a ton
14:12
in cost. What didn't make sense to me is
14:14
that building these solar canopies over the waterways, it
14:19
has a tendency to be cheaper than building them on land.
14:21
And I was like, that can't be true because you got like some
14:24
trussing you got to deal with, you know, getting to them over
14:26
the water. The reason it's true is because
14:28
what you said earlier, you don't have to buy the dirt and you got
14:30
to factor that in. You already own the, the quote
14:32
dirt, which is the canal here, which is really fascinating.
14:34
So you've got less CapEx and then you get higher OpEx because
14:38
because now in theory you're getting 2 to 5% more power just
14:40
from having the water flow underneath.
14:41
It ain't off to clean the canal. I was like, wait, this is just
14:43
like a win, win. You do have to maintain the
14:45
canal, so you have to engineer it such that you can get to the
14:47
canal to do whatever engineer, because canals do break.
14:50
You do get leaks and, of course, problems and issues.
14:52
Yeah. In fact, California covering
14:53
large sections of California's 4000 miles of canals with the
14:55
rays of solar panels could help conserve water, reduce air
14:58
pollution, save land and generate clean energy.
15:00
Using existing land and infrastructure, it could
15:02
generate 13 gigawatts of clean energy annually, roughly 1/6 of
15:07
the state's current solar capacity, about half the
15:10
projected new capacity needed to meet the state's goal of
15:12
reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.
15:16
That's enough new electricity to power Los Angeles for nine
15:19
months of every year. Well, yeah.
15:20
And 13 gigawatts, that's enough to power 10 flux capacitors.
15:24
It was like 1.2 gigawatts, like you almost get 11 out of that.
15:27
There, Right? Yeah.
15:27
The study also found that solar on canals could reduce land use
15:30
by up to 50,000 acres because solar arrays would be placed on
15:34
existing infrastructure. And as you said, the shade from
15:36
the panels will save 63 billion gallons of water annually,
15:40
enough to meet the residential water needs of about 2 million
15:43
people. That's everybody in San
15:44
Francisco and San Diego combined.
15:46
That's. Everyone that's on the 405 right
15:48
now, OK, their water needs could be met.
15:50
That's pretty impressive. You're getting power and water
15:53
savings and enough for, I mean basically power for like roughly
15:56
speaking 4 to 5 million people and water for about 2 million
15:59
people. That's a game that's pretty
16:01
impressive. It's significant, it does seem.
16:02
Like a game changer. The idea is live.
16:04
Right now. They've got a $20 million pilot
16:06
project, which is spearheaded by the Turlock Irrigation District.
16:09
Yeah, and UC Merced. The project is already
16:11
constructing solar arrays over canals and will integrate energy
16:14
storage to stabilize the grid. That is to say, your solar power
16:17
will not just be wasted when you make a lot of it during the day,
16:20
you'll actually have enough you can save so that you have
16:22
electricity at night. Yeah.
16:23
These are these large battery deployments they put alongside
16:26
or typically near the generation points so that they can charge
16:29
them up, charge it basically large lithium ion battery
16:31
stores, and then release it back to the grid later in the day
16:33
when you don't have as much sun, you've got more demand.
16:35
When you say large battery, what you're talking about is
16:37
something that almost looks like like a small warehouse.
16:39
These things are huge. They look like oversized
16:41
containers, like. Container cars, yeah, that's a
16:43
better way. It's like. 20 to 40 foot
16:45
containers, yeah, yeah. And these things look pretty
16:47
cool. I've, I've looked at a couple
16:48
deployments. There's one in like up near
16:51
Santa Barbara, there's one that's going in Phoenix that I
16:53
want to check out. They are pretty massive.
16:54
I mean, these things are doing hundreds of megawatts in some
16:57
cases low gigawatts of, of power storage.
17:00
It's it's pretty cool. And they claim I don't know this
17:02
but they claim to have something like 2 decades of lifespan which
17:05
seems pretty impressive to me, whereas my I phone 16.
17:09
Barely gets seared. Last like 6 months, right?
17:12
And it's like the battery's toast.
17:13
I'm like, cool, yeah, now what? Another cool thing, the high
17:15
voltage power lines often run along the same state or county
17:19
owned rights of ways, meaning they're running over those
17:21
canals or near those canals they have.
17:23
Power there. So it couldn't be easier,
17:24
cheaper to link the electricity to the grid totally.
17:26
California's first solar covered water canal is up and running.
17:29
We already have one up and running.
17:30
Yeah, this is impressive. And this is like a 1 1/2 or 1.6
17:33
MW installation that's running fully.
17:34
Completed a few months ago. Yeah, $20 million state funded
17:37
pilot and stretches of the Turlock Irrigation District's
17:40
canals into hubs of clean electricity generation in a
17:43
remote area where cotton, tomatoes, almonds and hundreds
17:45
of other crops are grown. The pilot program is is powering
17:49
several thousand homes right now.
17:50
So you figure that's about 12 million bucks per MW.
17:54
I'm assuming that it's a very high number just because I
17:56
haven't done this before, right? Like you're starting somewhere
17:58
because? It's a pilot, Yeah.
17:59
You're experimenting. They're doing a lot of testing
18:00
and experimentation, including like how high off the water to
18:03
place the panels. Obviously the lower you get the
18:05
panels to the water, the cheaper they are to install because you
18:07
don't need it's quite so much infrastructure and it gets
18:09
closer to the cooler water which makes their efficiency go up,
18:13
but you lose a lot of canal maintenance convenience.
18:15
I mean, for perspective, according to the Internet's
18:18
typical cost for like a nuclear power plant, which I think is,
18:21
is one of the, you know, the lower ends of cost for, for
18:24
clean quote, clean power is anywhere between 2:00 to 20
18:26
million bucks per MW. So this is at least in that
18:29
window. And I suspect that number is
18:31
going to go down. I suspect this number because
18:32
the pilot program is much, much higher.
18:34
The solar panels Jimmy Carter put on the roof of the White
18:36
House still work. Today I've been taken out.
18:39
They've been long taken out. Reagan got into office and he
18:41
took them off the the roof immediately.
18:42
But sure, whoever owns them now, they can still generate power.
18:45
So you have so much latitude in the cost of this because it
18:48
doesn't have to pay for itself over the course of seven years
18:50
like anything else. Sure, you can extend the payoff.
18:53
It's going to produce electricity for at least 30
18:55
years. Yeah.
18:55
California's solar canal system was built in two phases.
18:57
The little test piece that they've done with a 20 foot wide
19:00
stretch that was completed in March in a roughly 110 foot wide
19:03
portion. 110 feet wide. That's crazy, that's impressive.
19:06
Finished at the end of August and then and now, researchers
19:09
will study the project's performance over time with a new
19:11
initiative led by California universities, and the company's
19:13
Solar Aqua Grid will push fast track deployment of solar canals
19:16
across the state. Yeah, I just feel bad for for
19:19
Tommy. He's the guy they put on that
19:20
had to go into the canal 110 feet and hold the little stance
19:23
and so they can bolt it up. OK, buddy, this is pretty
19:25
impressive that they're able to build this.
19:27
I mean this. I don't think this is an easy
19:28
challenge. Especially those wide parts of
19:30
the canal. Totally.
19:31
I'll put some links in the show notes, but you can see some of
19:33
the renders and some of the pictures and it looks really
19:34
impressive like this. Still, there's a lot of
19:36
challenges around how they're going to keep it clean so you
19:38
can keep it efficient, keep the panels clean.
19:40
Yeah. You want the cells to typically
19:41
always face S if you can, to get maximum utilization.
19:44
Sure. And I'm pretty sure the the
19:46
actual canal doesn't really care about that.
19:49
It's going to kind of, you know, zigzag around and back and
19:51
forth. They figured out a solution to
19:53
still get optimal output out of the panels, which is pretty.
19:55
Cool, You can keep the panels still facing South even though
19:58
the the canal zigzags. Yeah, the duck curve.
20:01
We got to talk about the duck curve.
20:02
This is always an issue with solar because we have oversupply
20:04
of solar power in the daytime. Last year, Californians lost out
20:07
on 2. .6 million MW hours of electricity, enough to power all
20:11
the households in San Francisco for a year.
20:13
We lost out on it because we just had no place to put it.
20:16
But we are putting in tons of of batteries.
20:18
Yeah, that will take care of this problem.
20:20
So it's not really a reason to slow down installing solar.
20:23
I mean they've figured out there's several companies that
20:24
are doing these large grid based battery storage solutions.
20:28
It looks pretty compelling. California Governor Gavin Newsom
20:30
put it well. No other state in America comes
20:32
close to California solar production, and now we're adding
20:34
more batteries faster than ever to help capture that energy to
20:37
use at night. Yeah.
20:38
I mean we're well poised. We should always be the leader
20:41
in this one, not just because it's renewable and and we think
20:43
it's the the best solution we have.
20:45
We're drenched in sunshine. A lot of sun, yeah, yeah.
20:48
You can't be like, hey, Illinois, why don't you catch up
20:50
with that, hey? Been to Illinois, although
20:52
Germany is way ahead of us in all of this.
20:54
They made some tax incentives in Germany so that if you put solar
20:57
panels on your roof, you get some benefits.
20:58
Yeah. I don't know if you've been to
20:59
Germany. It's like being in Portland.
21:00
It's cloudy a lot. It's cloudy.
21:02
They they have tremendous amounts of solar production
21:05
because of the quantity of solar panels they've deployed.
21:07
It's really impressive. Yeah.
21:08
Yeah, but even when it's sunny, the Germans are still a great
21:10
people. Like the rest of the world,
21:11
California faces many challenges.
21:13
Our university system will continue to be at the forefront
21:16
of solutions. Well, that's.
21:17
Kind of the most impressive part, like we do have some of
21:19
the, I'll call them unique and relatively hard challenges, but
21:22
we also seem to have a whole lot of bright minds here that are
21:24
solving them. And that's why I'm like, oh,
21:26
sure, you want to leave the state to go run your business
21:28
elsewhere, OK. You're still going to be using
21:30
the benefit of California and especially our institutions that
21:33
are here, like you're going to be building on the back of
21:35
those. No way around.
21:36
I'm a firm believer that they're probably is no better college
21:39
system than the UC system. Yeah, the UC system for its,
21:42
especially for its size is amazingly impressive.
21:45
That's been able to scale up that big and still be this good.
21:48
And that takes a lot for me to say that.
21:49
Oh, I know, I know. It pains you.
21:51
It hurts. USC is part of this program now,
21:53
too. They've included a number of
21:55
other universities who are part of this research.
21:57
Yeah, yeah. But our role there is try to
21:58
figure out how to cheat. It's the best way to like if you
22:00
need to falsify some numbers or something like that, that's
22:02
where they bring the SC folks in.
22:03
Yeah, let's pump those numbers up a little bit.
22:05
All right, we have to get out of here before we do.
22:07
Have you seen already think good this last?
22:08
Week. Well, yeah.
22:09
So in my research for this, I came across the Alabama Gates
22:13
occupation of 1924. Do you know what this is?
22:15
Sure, it's a picnic. This is it basically was a
22:17
picnic. So it was a nonviolent seizure
22:20
of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, right.
22:21
This is in 1924. Sure.
22:23
They controlled the gates just north of Lone Pine and basically
22:25
just dumped a bunch of water into the historic Owens River.
22:28
Yeah, which had been sort of dried.
22:29
Out. It was like 11 years after we
22:31
put in the aqueduct. Yeah, exactly.
22:32
It was it was like a just, you know, just shy of of 1112 years
22:35
after we put in the aqueduct and they had something like 700 to
22:37
1500 residents just just came and had a picnic effectively to
22:41
show sort of solidarity with these occupiers that that sees
22:44
this. And that led me to this really
22:46
interesting. It's like a self-guided audio
22:49
tour, like a car audio tour called There It Is Take It,
22:51
which is of course the the famous Mahalan.
22:53
Quote He was quite a speechwriter.
22:55
Such a great set of lines. It just does what it says rather
22:57
than tin, right? There, that's all he could come
22:59
up with. There it is.
23:00
Take it. Come up with there it is, take
23:01
it. But it's it's this self-guided
23:03
audio tour that runs along US Route 395.
23:06
So this is a road that I'm on quite a bit because it's how I
23:08
get into the Sequoia. So this runs up like anybody
23:10
who's ever done from LA to Mammoth has taken the 395 here
23:13
goes up through like Lone Pine, through Bishop all the way up to
23:15
to Mammoth and then Monolith past.
23:17
That driven it many times. Many times, yeah.
23:19
So really neat audio tour. It's it's free.
23:21
It's about 90 minutes long. They've got stories of the
23:24
aqueduct told from multiple perspectives and viewpoints
23:26
through voices of historians, biologists, activists, native
23:29
speakers, environmentalists, litigators, LED WP employees and
23:33
then residents from both LA and Owens Valley to sort of shed
23:36
light on the mutual past, present and possible future of
23:39
these two very intertwined California regions.
23:41
And this story is a really interesting story because super
23:44
cool. For those that don't know, LA,
23:45
when it was experienced sort of its growth around the late
23:48
1800s, early 1900s, they started buying up a bunch of land there
23:51
and not telling anyone that they were buying it up.
23:53
They bought the land and the water rights to be able to pull
23:55
this down. And this created quite a big
23:57
impasse. I think lots of the city of Los
23:59
Angeles is still the largest landowner in the Owens Valley.
24:01
I think it. Is, yeah, which is kind of crazy
24:03
to think about that we have this giant chunk of land that we own
24:06
up there just for the water rights to be able to get it down
24:09
here. And at the time, by the way,
24:10
that was providing something like 2/3 of our water.
24:12
Yeah, it was a significant amount of water.
24:14
I believe we've since diversified that.
24:15
It sounded like 1/3. It's still a real part of our
24:18
water. 3rd So that's a real part.
24:19
Yeah, for sure. It's pretty crazy.
24:21
So anyway, it's a very interesting documentary.
24:24
Not all the way through, but I started listening to some of it.
24:25
And even if you don't drive the 395, I think this is worth
24:28
giving a listen to if you're especially if you're in
24:29
California, they have a map that is awesome that shows the whole
24:32
map. And if you're ever up this way,
24:34
it's only a couple of minutes off of the 395.
24:37
You can actually go see. Oh, sure, both aqueducts, right?
24:39
There's two there. I take pictures with my kids and
24:41
it's crazy 'cause you can see it from the freeway and you're
24:43
like, oh, it's not that big. And then you drive up to it and
24:45
you're like, oh, this pipe is 8 feet round.
24:47
Oh yeah, and you don't. Really.
24:48
An enormous amount. Until you see how big it is, it
24:51
is an enormous amount of water and it's really, it's a, it's an
24:53
engineering marvel. It's a modern day engineering
24:56
marvel. And you're right, the first one
24:57
is a giant siphon. Yeah, no, it doesn't require any
24:59
pumping. It's.
25:00
Basically a giant siphon, which is really cool to see how this
25:02
works. It takes the potential energy
25:03
from the bottom. It just pulls the water all the
25:05
way through it. It's, it's really incredible
25:07
that it works. There's one there.
25:08
I'm like, what if I just drill a hole right?
25:09
Here So what happens? I get a nice drink.
25:11
Much air starts whistling exactly then it's like but then
25:13
it's like the the opening of the ark like all like the ghost of
25:16
Muholm comes flying out of it and rips my face off Anyway,
25:19
super interesting. It's called there it is take it.
25:21
I'll put a link in the show notes.
25:23
It's it's really fantastic and talks about this topic even
25:25
more. How about you?
25:26
What have you? What have you seen or read this?
25:27
Week, I'm going to call it this week.
25:28
Your recommendation is better than mine.
25:30
And and, and mine is great. OK, hit me 1974.
25:34
Is Chinatown the ultimate cinematic statement on
25:36
California's water systems? Control the water, control the
25:39
future. Disgraced detective Jake Giddies
25:41
investigates a simple case that quickly unravels into a
25:44
sprawling, murderous conspiracy in 1930s Los Angeles.
25:47
The villain, Noah Cross isn't just seeking wealth, he's
25:50
plotting to build dams and divert the public's water.
25:53
By secretly buying up the dry valley land during a
25:55
manufactured drought panic, he ensures his vast holdings will
25:58
become priceless once the water flows.
26:00
The film is a chilling fictionalized neo noir take on
26:03
the real life events of the early 20th century.
26:05
Where Los Angeles acquired water rights from the Owens Valley to
26:09
build the Los Angeles Aqueduct, allowing the city to boon at the
26:12
expense of the Owens Valley area.
26:14
Chinatown. With a library card, you can
26:16
stream it for free through Canopy and Hoopla.
26:18
Also available on Paramount Plus and for rent on every major
26:21
streamer. I mean, Chinatown is an
26:22
excellent movie. I kind.
26:24
I mean, it had like 11 nominations.
26:26
I think it won at least one. Such a good.
26:28
Movie. I mean, it is fiction, right?
26:29
It's not all entirely true, but it is very closely tied.
26:32
It's not even close to. True to to well, but it like
26:34
represents the events shortly after the happened, which I
26:37
think is is fun. It's inspired certainly by by
26:39
reality. I don't know if I'd say mine's
26:40
better. Chin sounds really good.
26:42
Really, yours is pretty great. Well, I'm going to go watch it
26:44
again because I haven't seen it film in a minute and it's it's a
26:47
great flick. That is the episode.
26:48
Thank you for joining us for all this nonsense.
26:49
Truly terrible podcast from our awful company.
26:52
This is on the web at Nonsense dot Productions.
26:54
I'm chilled. I'm Jeff Parker.
26:55
If you like this program, please follow Donald's describe and
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All the goodness of ice water. Locally brewed ice water.
27:15
Delicious. Oh, I see what you did there.
27:17
We're going to get so many letters from the Owens Valley on
27:19
this one. And we'll send it back a free
27:20
sample. Every Tuesday and Thursday
27:21
mornings, for more nonsense, please join us.
27:35
The aqueduct is an amazing piece of engineering.
27:37
I, I you cannot appreciate the scale of it though, until you
27:40
see it because like you'll park, you'll be like, oh, I'm going to
27:42
walk to it, It's over there. But because you have never seen
27:44
a pipe this you walk. For the rest of your life.
27:47
It's like 1/2 mile away. Yeah.
27:48
You're halfway there. And then you like Moses is
27:51
sitting on a rock. Been like, I'm not going any
27:52
farther. You want to go, you go.