California’s Powerhouse: Innovation in the Fight for Water & Energy
Description
(0:00 ) Open
(0:56 ) The University of California System
(6:27 ) But California Has Problems, Yo!
(10:47 ) Project Nexus: Solar FTW!
(22:05 ) cj’s recommendation: There It Is, Take It!
(25:26 ) Jeff’s Recommendation: Chinatown
California has serious challenges, including a worsening water crisis and the threat it poses to the state that grows most of America’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts. The state’s growing electricity demands has created, among other things, a food-versus-energy conflict from the deployment of large solar farms that replace farmland.
Fortunately one of California’s numerous superpowers is their public University system. Innovations from the UC system have shaped the modern world, from the Internet and RISC chips to CRISPR, PET scans, blue LEDs, and reverse osmosis desalination. And now the UC system has brought us a promising solution in Project Nexus, which installs solar panels over water canals to generate clean energy while saving billions of gallons of water.
Inspired by similar efforts in India, California’s first solar-covered canal is now online, offering a potential path to statewide deployment. Fortunately the UC system remains central to solving many of the state’s biggest challenges.
Solar-panel-covered canals have their day in the sun in California
Using solar panels like THIS is a no-brainer! California’s doing it
Project Nexus | Water & Energy Integration for the Future
The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space
Canal Solar Power Project - Wikipedia
United States
