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California risks a huge decrease in hydro-power as the dry spell is not going to end anytime soon. The state starts the fourth successive year of dry season that, most specialists say, is a consequence of the highly-debated environmental change. After the water level tumbled, now it has become troublesome for the state to satisfy water requirements for public use and agriculture. Thus, issues of hydropower will be a great deal more challenging for the state to handle.
California’s energy head analyzed the Sierra Nevada district and observed a decrease in snowpack to truly low levels. The unfavorable impacts of below- normal snowfall would be felt by the whole West area. The region has gotten around 12 percent of the normal snowpack and this would have a noteworthy effect on the dams and rivers.
So as to fulfill the energy demands, the state will need to resort to fossil-fuels in order to produce electrical power as the contribution of hydropower will decrease. It has officially set objectives to chop down carbon footprint and until this point has reached its goals.
But this year the snowpack has touched historically low levels and thus the state will have no choice but to rely upon fossil fuelsto satisfy its needs of energy and power.
Robert Weisenmiller, Chairman of the California Energy Commission, stated:
“We’re not concerned about not having power. What we’re concerned about is the power is going to come from different sources not as benign as hydroelectricity.”
The Pacific Institute, a research organization situated in Oakland, California has directed a study showing $1.4 billion extra charge on customers because California needs to satisfy its requests for power utilizing natural gas-fired plants rather than hydroelectricity.
Washington and Oregon are in a bad situation as well. Dry spell crises have been announced in numerous areas as the snowpack is at record lows.
Robert Oglesby, official executive of the state energy commission, declared he didn’t expect the decrease of hydropower to set back California’s objective of producing 33 percent of power from renewableenregy by 2020. According to him, hydroelectric dams are not formally included with solar and wind in California’s renewable energy sources. .
Dams generated 12 percent of the state’s power in 2013. Natural gas produced 61 percent.
The figures for hydroelectric power will go down for California in 2015 yet won’t vanish completely, Oglesby said. That will mean higher service bills for consumers who need to buy more costly energy.
Image Source: CBS Local
