Category Archives: Power

Progress and pitfalls in California’s clean energy quest

Government & Business, Power

Calpenhagen

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What a little pond scum won’t do

Harrison Dillon’s had a heck of a year. His company, South San Francisco-based Solazyme, recently won two federal contracts from the Departments of Defense and Energy, and secured almost a million dollars’ worth of state money (while the rest of us were getting IOUs for our tax returns). And just this week, after spending a week in Copenhagen spreading the word about Solazyme, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger held up Dillon’s venture as an example of the California green dream. Not bad for a guy who, six years ago, started his company in his garage (yeah, that still happens).

Dillon works with algae. And not the type that forms on stagnant ponds. He grows it in a contained environment and has figured out how to use it to make crude oil. That oil is then used to make diesel fuel, which almost any automobile can run on. Since algae siphons carbon dioxide out of the air, there is virtually a net-zero greenhouse gas contribution to the environment. Dillon hopes to bring down the cost of fuel made from algae to less than $80 a barrel within the next two years.

This is just one of the innovative California companies that has attended the Copenhagen climate summit the past two weeks. There are many others. The Golden State leads the country in patents in green technology, and it’s likely it leads the country in the sheer number of  representatives at this conference. California emits about the same volume of greenhouse gases as France, and, as is often touted by state leaders, if we were a country, we’d have the seventh largest economy in the world (Schwarzenegger said this in his speech; I’ve heard others say eighth. Suffice it to say our economy’s pretty big).

This week, I spent a snowy morning camped out in the coffee-scented breakfast room of the Scandic Webers Hotel, down the street from Copenhagen’s beautiful central train station. The cozy little inn is decorated with “Danish modern” furniture throughout, upon which the state’s most prominent business and political leaders sat, eating overcooked bacon and watery eggs.

The entire hotel was taken over by the California delegation: John Fielding, President of Southern California Edison, was having breakfast with Nancy Ryan, Policy Director of the California Public Utilities Commission. State Senator Fran Pavley joined them, with State Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner chiming in from another table. California EPA Secretary Linda Adams remained in her room, sick with the flu.

“This is my 12th COP (UN Conference of Parties),” Skinner told me. The Bay area assembly member had, in her “previous life,” been a national leader in the fight against global warming. She’d seen this process over and over but she’d never been to a COP that attracted this many people. This, she told me, was a perfect place for California to show the rest of the world what we’ve been up to: “We have to share. CA has an amazing story. Californians per capita pretty much have a flat level of electricity use since the 1970’s, whereas the rest of the US has grown by 50% per capita.” Skinner was on her way to an electric vehicle forum that day.

UCSB students learning outside the classroom

Other guests at “Hotel California” included a group of 24 students from UC Santa Barbara. They were led by Bob Wilkinson, a professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science. The students were thrilled to be a part of it all, and were talking about the sticking points in the negotiations as if they were the delegates, complete with UN lingo and acronyms. They also took a page from the playbook of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, the day before, offered to host a “subnational” conference in California. The students said they, too, were interested in hosting a local climate change conference on their campus, to share the expertise they garnered during their stay here. They’d already set a date for this April.

Government & Business, Power

Schwarzenegger to Rally Subnationals

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Meanwhile Rob Schmitz, our reporter in Copenhagen, sets the scene with a look at how the state’s anchor climate legislation is playing here at home, three years after its passage. That report airs Monday morning on The California Report.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to arrive in Copenhagen on Monday, ready to rally the world’s “subnationals” in the fight against global warming. This is the first time that UN climate talks have created a formal role for states, provinces, cities and the like, and California’s governor will be loaded for bear.

In the weeks leading up to Copenhagen, the Governor turned up the heat on climate rhetoric, with a series of related media events. On Treasure Island, a low-lying man-made rectangle on San Francisco Bay that he said “could be under water” by the end of the century, Schwarzenegger unveiled the state’s climate adaptation strategy with a video tour of California’s climate vulnerabilities, powered by graphics from Google Earth (if you just want the gist, there’s a shorter version available).

The Governor also seized the occasion to preview his trip to Copenhagen, saying we “can’t wait” for national and multi-national efforts to save us from the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change; that “subnational” actors like California–perhaps led by California–should stay focused on their own efforts to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the changes already on the way. The Governor’s speech to COP 15 delegates on Tuesday will be a chance to do some crowing about California’s climate leadership, on an international stage, before a media gallery that’s been estimated at somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 members.

Power

Nothing Ill About This Wind

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Harnessing nordic winds — The Middelgrunden offshore windfarm off the coast of Copenhagen

Friday on The California Report, Rob Schmitz looks at what we can learn from the world leaders in leveraging wind power.

See the photo on the left? You’re looking at three percent of Denmark’s wind power generation. This is the Middelgrunden wind farm, located in the North Sea, not far from Copenhagen. There, twenty 120-foot wind turbines produce 40 megawatts of wind energy.

I visited Middelgrunden this week in a small boat. Luckily for me, the winds, normally furious at this time of year, were moderate. I went there for a story on how Denmark was able to develop a wind power infrastructure that now produces a fifth of the country’s electric power. This is a larger proportion than any other country on Earth. For the Danes, wind power is big business.

Up until thirty years ago, Denmark was largely an agricultural country. Now, wind power-related exports are on par with agricultural exports. They make up almost 10% of the country’s total exports.

How did Denmark get to this point? The same way Japan became the most energy-efficient country on Earth: the 1970s oil shocks. In the mid ’70s, Denmark relied on oil for more than 90% of its energy. Oil embargoes brought the country to its economic knees. The government quickly instituted “Car-free Sundays,” when Danes were forbidden from driving. Shop owners were asked to turn off their lights outside of business hours. In 1979, the Denmark created its first Ministry of Energy, and it got to work on harnessing what was then considered an alternative energy: wind.

Jutting out into the treacherous North Sea, Denmark has lots of it. By 2020, Denmark plans to rely on wind for half of its electrical supply. And by 2050, the Danish government wants renewables to supply all of the country’s electricity. These are ambitious goals, but Jakob Lau Holst, COO of Denmark’s Wind Industry Association, believes it can be done.

“If you just stick to long-term government investment, you can develop a market for this,”Lau Holst told me today. He told me that much of Denmark’s industry has a hard time doing business in the US because incentives for renewables like wind “are there one year and gone the next. It’s a mixed message to the industry.” It makes one wonder what could be accomplished with more long-term goals–like California’s commitment to 33% renewables by 2020.

Government & Business, Power

Delegate’s Dispatch No. 2

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Louis Blumberg directs the California climate programs for The Nature Conservancy. He’s also been keeping us posted as an official observer to the UN climate conference. And yes, views expressed in his guest posts are his and not necessarily those of KQED or the Climate Watch staff.

Things Heat Up Copenhagen
By Louis Blumberg

Emotions erupted at the Bella Center today during the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Demonstrations, street theater, leaked documents, heated words, threats of walkouts and huge crowds all collided to increase the energy level throughout the massive hall. Frustration was driven in part, according to one of the key treaty negotiators, by the fact that little progress has been made.

At this point in the process, the open meetings have stopped and negotiators are meeting in private to work out their differences. This loss of transparency was exacerbated when demonstrators disrupted one of the last public plenary sessions of the week and the organizers threw out representatives from all non-governmental organizations–including me.*

As discouraging as this emerging gridlock is, my optimism remains because I see that three key pieces, which are falling into place, can produce a real deal:

– First, for the first time ever, key countries, including the U.S., China, India, Brazil and Korea, have all put numerical proposals on the table to reduce emissions.

– Second, as I reported before, the U.S. is providing real leadership, in part by proposing a $10 billion annual fund to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate change while continuing to grow their economies.

– Third, President Obama and 110 other heads of state will arrive next week for the final negotiation.

In the meantime, the process of creating a new international treaty amps up…

Yesterday I joined 200 activists in a standing ovation for EPA Director Lisa Jackson as she confirmed U.S. leadership by listing the administration’s actions to fight climate change, including this week’s official finding that greenhouse gas endangers human health. [Ed. Note: This creates authority for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases on its own, with or without enabling legislation].

African countries called for more forest protection. Delegates from one island nation faced with imminent destruction by flooding due to sea-level rise, threatened to walk out on the talks unless the developed countries exhort to cut emissions by 95 percent.

I, alongside a coalition of forest activists, struggled (in what may be a futile attempt) to close a new loophole in emissions reporting rules proposed by some European countries.

And finally, the energy, passion and idealism of demonstrators in costume–walking trees, polluters dressed in red, vegans for climate, and Mr. Green (you can figure that one out on your own)–were both captivating and inspiring.

The frenetic pace is both tiring and energizing and will only increase as we move toward the conference closing on December 18. But there is much more to come before then. Stay tuned.

*Ed. Note: We’re using the term “delegate” somewhat loosely here. Blumberg is a member of The Nature Conservancy “delegation” in Copenhagen but technically he’s an official observer, as are all NGO reps. That’s why he can be tossed out of sessions.

Government & Business, Power

Capturing Carbon in California

CoalPlantLauren Sommer’s two-part radio series on carbon capture in California airs this week on The California Report. You can also view her slide show at the end of this post.

The idea seems simple enough: In order to get energy, we burn carbon. In most cases, that carbon comes out of the ground in the form of natural gas or coal. So instead of releasing the resulting carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, why not put it back into the ground?

Of course, carbon capture and storage/sequestration (CCS) is much more complicated than that. Nonetheless it’s a strategy that’s being pursued aggressively by both international leaders and US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who would like to see it deployed in ten years.

There are obstacles on both the “capture” and “storage” side of the equation. In terms of technology, however, “storage” is much further along, thanks to the oil and gas industry, which is already using CO2 in oil recovery. Injecting compressed CO2 into oil fields forces more oil to the surface in a process known as enhanced oil recovery. As many in the industry will remind you, they have three decades of experience doing this.

Keeping it underground is another matter. In the western US, the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WestCarb) is setting up a number of pilot projects to study how CO2 can be safely stored underground. As Technical Director Larry Myer explained to me, one of the primary goals is to simply work out the regulatory, siting, and liability issues.

As with any waste issue, choosing the site is the most important–and often most difficult–issue. California’s Central Valley has plenty of underground saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas fields that could hold CO2. But the trick is finding a site where the geology can securely store it and where there’s little risk of groundwater contamination. On the plus side, scientists know that CO2 is slowly immobilized underground, which lessens the risk over time. But how long that takes is still under study.

As for the “capture” issue, there are three ways to separate CO2 from power plant emissions.

  • In today’s Climate Watch story, I describe Oxyfuel technology, in which natural gas is burned in pure oxygen. Since the outputs are steam and carbon dioxide, the CO2 can be easily siphoned off. But that requires building new power plants from scratch.
  • The second option seeks to deal with the carbon dioxide before the fuel is burned; a “pre-combustion” approach. Or for all you wonks out there: Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC). The downside to this process is that it requires gobs of energy, which makes it expensive.
  • Finally, there’s the “post-combustion” approach. That’s where the CO2 is “scrubbed” from flue gas after the fuel is burned. Existing plants can be retrofitted with this technology, but it also comes with large energy penalty, just like IGCC.

A price on carbon, through either a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax, would change the economic case for CCS, but there are a lot of strikes against the technology. So why pursue it?

The argument goes like this: In order to achieve steep emissions cuts–say an 80% reduction worldwide by 2050–it may be an important tool (or stabilization wedge).  The world will continue to use fossil fuels in the near term and despite the enormous growth of renewable energy, it’s still a drop in the bucket. That’s why many believe that CCS is a crutch the world needs to wean ourselves from fossil fuels.

Power

Invasion of the Electrics

If the electric car was indeed “killed,” as a popular documentary suggested not long ago, the floor at the Los Angeles Auto Show this week would suggest a mass resurrection not seen since Night of the Living Dead. Climate Watch contributor Alison Hawkes reports on some implications for the power grid. Her radio report airs Friday on The California Report.

By Alison Hawkes

Electric vehicles may be few in number over the next few years, despite the hype around the release of off-the-assembly line EV models in 2010. It takes several decades to flip the American vehicle fleet.

Robert Susich offsets his charging with rooftop solar. "This is the way of the future," he says. Photo: Alison Hawkes
Robert Susich offsets his charging with rooftop solar. "This is the way of the future," he says. Photo: Alison Hawkes

But there’s little doubt that EVs are coming, pushed on by anxiety over foreign oil and unexpected spikes in gas prices, growing environmental awareness, and government incentives. Starting at the end of December, EV buyers get a federal tax credit of between $2,500-to-$7,500 per vehicle, depending on the battery size. There are other tax credits for plug-in conversions and even electric motorcycles and electric three-wheelers. Now who doesn’t like a tax credit?

All this may sound promising but energy planners have some serious head-scratching to do as Americans begin switching their transportation fuel from gasoline to electricity.

For starters, how do you avoid building extra power plants? Who pays for infrastructure upgrades to electrical substations and transformers? How do you get EV drivers to charge during off-peak hours when the energy supply is now wasted?

Pacific Gas & Electric’s smart grid director Andrew Tang says utilities have faced similar problems before with the advent of air conditioners in the 1970s and plasma screen TVs in the 1990s. New technologies add to the demand on an already tight energy market. “It’s a form of load growth and we’ve managed to deal with it without having sudden power outages,” says Tang.

But, Tang admits, EVs could bring a heavier strain on the grid than any seen before. One EV can draw as much energy as a house. Put another way, that’s doubling a household’s demand for power. Fortunately, it sounds like the utilities have some time, and capacity, to see how the EV market develops.

PG&E is expecting to support some 250,000 vehicles by 2020, which may not seem like much for a 70,000 square-mile service territory. But they won’t be spread out evenly. The northern California utility is expecting EV drivers to congregate in certain neighborhoods, potentially sending substations and transformers into overload (read: blackouts) if not properly managed. Tang said PG&E did a study of hybrid electric vehicle registration over the last four years and found that Fresno’s portion of hybrids was 2.4 percent, while Berkeley’s was 18 percent. “That’s much more concentration,” says Tang. “We think that’s a fair proxy of what we could have with electric vehicles.”

So the California Public Utilities Commission is now exploring ways to regulate EV’s. The basic question is how to influence consumer behavior so EVs do not add to peak energy demand. No one wants blackouts, and no one wants to build more power plants. One idea bandied about is a differentiated rate system that encourages EV drivers to charge during off-peak hours at deeply discounted prices, called a “time of use rate.” Another idea promoted by the PUC’s independent Division of Ratepayer Advocates is a five-dollar monthly fee on EV drivers that would go into upgrading grid infrastructure, like adding or upgrading local transformers, as needed.

“If electric vehicles need (additional) infrastructure, they should pay for it and not spread the cost across all ratepayers,” says DRA’s deputy director Dave Ashuckian.

EV drivers may bristle at being treated differently than other power users, especially when they feel they’re doing society a favor by switching to a cleaner fuel source. Early adopters may be happy to help optimize the grid. But if EVs go mainstream, energy planners know the public is going to want a more convenient system.

Automated smart metering (you’re not in charge of your charging) may help. The hybrid plug-in Chevy Volt coming next year is supposed to come with a smart meter.  But planners eventually foresee public charging stations that will allow EV drivers to juice up quickly (through high-wattage charging equipment) and when they need to, during daytime peak hours. Already some California companies that want in on the emerging charging station business are fighting the idea of PUC regulation of their potential market.

A California PUC staff white paper reported that the benefits of lowered greenhouse gas emissions with an electrified transportation system are realized only when some 76 percent of EV drivers charge off-peak. And only if any extra power demand is met by renewable energy sources – not coal or oil. That’s a tall order.

Ed. Note: One thing EV’s already have going for them: a lobby. This week it was announced that after 16 years, deputy director Eileen Tutt is leaving CalEPA to become executive director of the California Electric Transportation Coalition.

Government & Business, Power

Sketchy First Look at California Cap & Trade

On Tuesday the California Air Resources Board put out a sneak preview of the carbon cap & trade system mandated by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). Couched as a “preliminary draft,” the 132-page plan is intended as a broad outline for a final Cap-and-Trade regulation scheduled to go before the board late next year.

As such, the draft lacks a few key components, such as how many allowances the state plans to auction off to industry, versus give away. Air Board chief Mary Nichols says her agency is still waiting on recommendations from an expert committee on how to best handle allowances.

Environmentalists have been pushing for polluters to pay for allowances up front. In an email to me on Tuesday, in anticipation of the draft, Bernadette del Chiaro of Environment California wrote that her group is “slightly disappointed that ARB staff are punting on the issue of auctions. ARB in the scoping plan said they are committed to getting to 100% auctions. I hope the draft rules at least repeat this commitment.”

The draft appears to stop short of an outright commitment, reiterating that “transition to a 100 percent auction was a worthwhile goal.” In a conference call with reporters, Nichols said she anticipates at least a partial auction. Also undetermined is how to deploy the funds that emitters may pay for allowances. Nichols said a $10 per ton price for carbon could produce a two-to-four-billion-dollar pool of money, which could be used for such things as “buying down” utility costs for low-income families or creating incentives for development of renewable energy technology. Nichols declined to project what a cap & trade system would end up costing households in California.

You can download a PDF file of the complete report at the CARB website (under “What’s New). A public meeting is scheduled for December 14 in Sacramento, to get feedback on the Preliminary Draft Regulation released this week.

Also on Tuesday, the Governor’s Office announced that Quebec, one of California’s partners in the Western Climate Initiative for regional carbon trading, has set a target “to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and the introduction of a clean-car emissions standard equivalent to California’s Vehicle Tailpipe Emissions Standards.”

The WCI includes seven western states and four Canadian provinces. Any progress from the state’s WCI partners is welcome at this point, as most have been reluctant to set their intentions into law.

Check out our interactive map of California’s largest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases.

Power

California’s Biggest Carbon Emitters

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Carbon addiction is the same as any other in at least one respect: the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. For greenhouse gases, reducing emissions requires knowing what you’re putting out to begin with.

The Conoco Phillips refinery in Rodeo, north of Oakland, is a relatively small player at 1.9 million metric tons of CO2 per year. Photo: Craig Miller
The Conoco Phillips refinery in Rodeo is a relatively small player, as refineries go, at 1.9 million metric tons of CO2 per year. Photo: Craig Miller

It was toward this end that this week the California Air Resources Board released the first comprehensive data on large-scale industrial carbon emissions in the state. Not surprisingly, the top emitters tend to fall into two categories: power plants and oil refineries, with cement manufacturers not far behind.

Individually, major oil refineries have the largest carbon footprint. Two of Chevron’s refineries–in Richmond and El Segundo, BP’s Carson refinery and the Shell refinery in Martinez, all clocked in at more than three million metric tons (tonnes), CO2-equivalent, for 2008.

Use the interactive map below, prepared by Climate Watch intern David Ferry, to locate the largest industrial emitters and see how they sort out by industry (We’ve been having difficulty with embedded maps vanishing from the blog, so if you don’t see the map below, just click on the link to it).

(Click here for a larger map and a list of all the largest emitters.)

View KQED: California’s Biggest Industrial CO2 Emitters of 2008 in a larger map

Cumulatively, electric power generation is California’s biggest emitter, despite the virtual absence of coal-powered plants in the state. The ARB report lists nearly 20 utility or industrial cogeneration plants in the million-plus club. Several plants put out more than two million tonnes, including Dynegy’s gas-fired plant at Moss Landing, the LaPaloma McKittrick plant, Southern California Edison’s Mountainview plant in Redlands, and the L.A. Department of Water & Power’s Haynes Generating Plant.

The federal EPA considers anything above 25,000 tonnes to be a large emitter. But with carbon emissions, “large” is a relative concept. California imports power from other states and we can get a clue to “large” from the carbon output numbers on some of the mostly coal-fired plants feeding the California grid from states like Utah and Wyoming. Some fossil fuel plants in those states weigh in at a hefty six, ten–even 15 million metric tons. Los Angeles still depends on out-of-state fossil plants for roughly half of its electric power.

A few large cement plants are also in the million-plus column. To find out why, listen to Amy Standen’s report for Quest.

Of course, all this careful accounting leaves aside the elephant in the room: transportation, which has a bigger footprint in California than all electrical generation combined, including imports from other states–and is about equal to total industrial emissions.

The industrial tally released this week is subject to revision and will be used to set caps and allowances for the carbon trading (cap & trade) system mandated by the state’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, commonly known as AB-32. There’s more on the emissions report and what it means in Paul Rogers’ story for the San Jose Mercury News.

Power

Marketplace Parses Climate Questions

The public radio program Marketplace continues its ambitious series on climate change, later this month. New reports will air November 16-20 as part of “The Climate Race”, a multidimensional look at “how global warming is already affecting us and the tough choices we have to make.” While the geographic scope of the series ranges well beyond California’s borders, it underscores that much of the nation grapples with the same issues that confront us here in the West. The first four reports, aired last week, are worth catching up with online.

Part 1: “Climate Change in Our Own Backyards” is a snapshot of how climate change is already affecting residents of Helena, MT.  Fewer cold snaps have allowed the mountain pine beetle to run rampant, devastating the area’s surrounding pine forests, and leaving a tinderbox of dead trees for miles across the landscape.  Reporters Sam Eaton and Sarah Gardner talk to residents about how this reality has changed the way people think about climate change and what challenges lie ahead.

Part 2: “The Planet Will Survive, But Will We?” explores episodes of severe climate change in the Earth’s distant past, and explains what ancient tree stumps can tell us about climate past, present, and future

Part 3: Is There Energy to Slow Climate Change?” focuses on energy and the political, social, technological, and economic challenges we face as we consider moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy supplies.  This report zeroes in on West Virgina and the debate between the coal industry and wind power advocates.  In Part 4;  “How Do We Live With a Warmer Planet?”, Eaton and Gardener look at what lies ahead for business, agriculture, and society, as temperatures continue to rise.

Photographs and audio slide shows related to the radio stories are available on the series web page:  “Futuristic Farming” offers a look at a farm that takes water efficiency to new heights, and “Climate Past” features stunning shots of Mono Lake and an interview with paleoclimatologist and geomorphologist, Scott Stein. The “Climate Race” page also includes links to resources, an interactive map of the United States with statistics about how climate change is affecting regions and what changes are expected by the end of the century, and audio clips from experts on topics such as how climate change is expected to affect health and agriculture.

Climate Watch will be sharing resources with Markeplace to cover the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, next month. KQED’s L.A. Bureau Chief Rob Schmitz will team up with Eaton for coverage of the two-week conference. Schmitz, who recently reported a series of Climate Watch stories from Japan, speaks Chinese and has extensive experience in international reporting.

Power, Water

USGS: Americans More Water-Conscious Overall

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Lake Mead in September 2009 Photo: Craig MIller

Despite the addition of 81 million people over the period, Americans were using less water in 2005 than they were in 1975, according to the latest numbers released from the USGS.

The per-capita decrease of 30% since 2000, down to 1383 gallons per person per day, is a level not seen since the 1950s.  Of course this doesn’t mean that each person in the United States is using more than a thousand gallons per day at home–that number is somewhere between 54 (if you live in Maine) and 190 (if you live in Nevada).  The USGS number is derived from dividing total water withdrawals by total population.  In 2005, the total withdrawal was 410 billion gallons per day (5% less than in the peak year, 1980) and the total population was approximately 310 million.

An analysis by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute finds that the changes in national water use are due to improvements in efficiency, particularly in industrial use and irrigation. However, the largest category of water use–that used for producing energy–is growing (by 3% between 2000 and 2005), and the analysis cites this as a worrying trend as the population increases, particularly in dry parts of the country.  In 2005, 49% of all water withdrawals were for cooling power plants.

“Far more water is required for nuclear and fossil fuel energy systems than for most renewable energy systems,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, in a statement about the new numbers.  “Water availability will increasingly limit our energy choices as climate change accelerates and population continues to grow.” California’s two commercial nuclear plants are located on the coast and use sea water for cooling.

More efficient farming seems to be one of the bright spots in the report.  Irrigation withdrawals in 2005 declined to the 1970 level of 1.28 billion gallons per day, even though the amount of irrigated land in the nation has increased by millions of acres since 1970.  It seems that American agriculture is, in fact, doing more with less, thanks to more efficient sprinklers and drip irrigation systems. Even so, agriculture still claims about 77% of “developed” water in California, according to Ellen Hanak, water policy analyst with the Pubic Policy Institute of California.

The Pacific Institute commentary added some sobering notes:

The United States, although relatively water-rich, faces a range of threats to its vital supplies of freshwater. Overuse has turned the Colorado River into little more than a trickle. Overuse and contamination threaten the massive Ogallala aquifer, which runs from Texas to South Dakota and is an important source of irrigation and drinking water. Political and economic conflicts are growing between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia over water use. And other serious threats to our water resources – including climate change, environmental destruction, and population growth – remain unaddressed.

Household water use across the country is growing proportionately to U.S. population growth.  While people are becoming more water-efficient at home, these behavioral changes are being balanced out by a shift in population to hotter, drier areas, such as the Southwest.

The Pacific Institute’s Circle of Blue Water News has interactive maps showing which states have decreased their water withdrawals between 2000 and 2005 and total water withdrawals by state for this time period, as well as charts tracking U.S. water withdrawals since 1950.

11/18/09 Update:
Listen to audio of Peter Gleick discussing the report’s findings on today’s broadcast of NPR’s Morning Edition.