...wrote a book a little book about them which some people may remember.
The failed faith in so called "renewable energy" seriously is going to create climate refugees all over the world, because it didn't work, isn't working and won't work.
I suspect this will certainly include the American South West, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah...
It's not like the world has experienced the disaster in as graphic a fashion as to understand, yet, that a reactionary return to the early 19th century approach to energy only entrenches the use of dangerous fossil fuels and is not going to address climate change. We certainly still have partisans for this form of ignorance even here at DU. But we are rapidly getting there. The disaster is getting there so rapidly that it cannot be ignored. The mineral limits of wind turbines and solar cells, and batteries are increasingly discussed in the scientific literature, even by anti-nukes as dumb as Benjamin Sovacool.
From the fact that there are two posts in this thread's count that I can't read, I would suspect that one or two of these types who made it to my much loved ignore list, the kind of people who thrive on their own ignorance and, are, in fact are as proud of it, and shout it out like antivaxxers, have piped in, but no matter.
In the 20 years I've been writing here, I'm beginning to see a change here on the left, because we are not as hostile to changing our minds as are conservatives and reactionaries. While I ignore the anti-nukes, all of whom hold, in my view, conservative views, inasmuch as facts can have no effect on changing their minds, including scientific facts, I seem to have not required the "ignore button" here as often as I once did, and now I do get positive feedback.
The scale of the tragedy is rising, and now the death toll from continued dependence on dangerous fossil fuels is not just the chemical pollution resulting from combustion (air pollution) but, as noted in the reference in the OP - and many other places - so is the heat related death toll.
I do believe it may be possible to restore California. The State, which once had huge oil and gas gas resources, and is in fact still fracking away, has now significant plutonium resources. The reactors at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon operated for a long time, and there's a significant used nuclear fuel resources there. As I have followed the development of nuclear technology, and as I've had these marvelous conversations with my son as I followed his career in materials science, I am coming to believe we can actually print small reactor cores, quickly and efficiently, wherever used nuclear fuels are available.
It is possible to do this in a "breed and burn" type system.
At Diablo Canyon, they used primitive desalination techniques already. Desalination has a lot of risks, of course, but I have argued in this space that California, particularly as it has coastal mountains. To me, since carbon dioxide is concentrated in seawater, supercritical water/oxidation desalination and/or vacuum distillation desalination are an excellent approach to recovering carbon dioxide as a side product and perhaps some minerals, uranium included. (The big problem, as always, is what to do with the salt.)
Nevertheless, California is in a position to save itself, assuming it can overcome anti-nuke ignorance which has regrettably characterized the State since the 1970's.
There are about 4,000 tons of used nuclear fuel at San Onofre alone, meaning about roughly 40 tons of plutonium, and 3800 tons of uranium. The energy content of these fuels, already isolated, and in many ways ready for use, is enormous, about 300 exajoules, enough to power the entire United States for about 3 years if completely fissioned, which I believe is entirely possible, again in a breed and burn scenario. Almost all of the new nuclear reactors being developed are of this type, and I personally believe that over these, significant improvements can and will be made.
California, and perhaps even other States in the Southwest can be saved; it's feasible I think. I've even gone as far in this space as to imagine refilling Owens Lake, never mind, restoring the destroyed acquifers, and the wilderness destroyed by the idiotic "renewable energy" schemes, even the Hetch Hetchy Valley. The biggest challenge, much as it has been in the Covid case, climate change itself, is to overcome ignorance.
So long as ignorance is allowed to continue in its many triumphs of late, including but surely not limited to faith in so called "renewable energy," we are placing the future, not only of California, but everywhere else on this planet, at risk.
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