Summary:

A new report on California's infrastructure from the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a grade of "D" to the Golden State in terms of energy, partly because they say power systems in the state are not well-equipped to handle future disasters.

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Main Article:

The Golden State received a "D" in energy in the 2019 Report Card for California's Infrastructure just published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which provides grades in 17 categories, including, aviation, roads, transit, and drinking water.

Overall, the report gave California’s infrastructure a grade of C-, which means it requires attention despite being better than the country's average.

"Californians use infrastructure each day. Our roads, bridges, and transit networks allow us access to our iconic coastlines, lakes, and vineyards. Water systems deliver clean drinking water to our homes, communities, and businesses. School buildings provide a safe place for our children to learn. Wastewater collection and treatment systems protect our lakes, rivers, and beaches from raw sewage, E. coli and other toxins," the report states.

"Our infrastructure systems play a critical role in continued economic prosperity and the preservation of our quality of life. Unfortunately, our state’s infrastructure renewal and replacement programs have been significantly underfunded for a long time. While the state Legislature, municipalities, and California voters have made strides in recent years to raise additional revenue for our infrastructure, we have a lot of catch-up to do, and large funding gaps remain," it continues.

Additionally, we’re facing significant new challenges. In May 2018, California’s economy surpassed that of the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth largest. Over the next 20 years, California’s population is expected to grow by another 25% by over 10 million people. This economic activity and new population requires additional supporting infrastructure. Meanwhile, the climate is changing. California is already grappling with precipitation whiplash – extreme periods of drought followed by extreme periods of rainfall – and sea level rise and increasingly severe storms are also expected.

Energy 

California receives and generates energy through a variety of sources, primarily from natural gas, nuclear, and utility-scale solar and wind. Although under duress, California’s energy systems have generally met the needs of consumers. However, the threat of natural and anthropogenic stresses, including fires, seismic events, storms, and gas storage mishaps, as well as the elevated cost of service, threaten energy system sustainability. Aging equipment, inferior design, and poor right-of-way vegetation management have caused electrical and oil/gas infrastructure incidents and, in some cases, resulted in deadly wildfires. In another trend, the increased renewable energy contribution has had dramatic impacts on the overall capacity of the California electric grid. California now has a legislatively-mandated target of 100% clean energy by 2045, but the true cost of building infrastructure to support this goal is unknown. Meanwhile, natural gas continues to help meet peak electric and heating demands, but the state depends on in-state production and imports that requires extensive processing resulting in high pricing to the consumer.

As a solution to the energy problems, the report from ASCE recommends using new approaches, materials, and technologies "to ensure our infrastructure is more resilient – to more quickly recover from significant weather and other hazard events – and sustainable –  improving the 'triple bottom line' with clear economic, social, and environmental benefits."

One of their recommendations is to develop active community resilience programs for severe weather and seismic events to establish communications systems and recovery plans to reduce impacts on the local economy, quality of life, and environment.

And also to consider emerging technologies and shifting social and economic trends – such as autonomous vehicles, distributed power generation and storage, and larger ships – when building new infrastructure, to assure long-term utility.