Commentary: California should create more water -- much more

[hunter]

13. Reservoirs are useless if there isn't enough rain or snow to fill them.

Look at Lake Mead or Lake Powell.

California already has a very large reservoir capacity and has reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to building new reservoirs.

The Sites Project may be the last.

Building more reservoirs and praying for the rain to fill them is a kind of cargo cult mentality, similar to the belief that rain follows the plow. It doesn't. The ancestors of many Central Valley farmers believed the rain follows the plow myth which is how they ended up in California when the Dust Bowl proved them wrong. Now they are saying "build more reservoirs!"

The same can be said of California's solar and wind capacity. We are installing more with the same cult like fervor.

Early solar and wind projects displace gas power kilowatt-for-kilowatt. As the capacity of the power grid is reached, adding more solar panels and wind turbines doesn't displace any gas generated power. Additional solar panels and wind turbines are increasingly useless

If I was Emperor of California I'd save water by shutting down the factory farm dairy industry. I don't consider cheap hamburger and dairy products any kind of human right. I'm not overtly hostile to almond farming so long as groundwater extraction is carefully regulated.

As Emperor I'd also restore a lot of existing farmland to a somewhat natural state, mostly land that should never have been farmed in the first place.