So I have some big news. I have joined forces with Wendover Productions, CGP Grey, Kurzgesagt and many more EDU friends to start our own video streaming platform. www.watchnebula.com. We currently have some original content from Isaac Arthur, Polyphonic and Real Life Lore/Second Thought online. I will be adding my own Nebula Original series in the next month or two. This platform was created to remove the creative shackles that the algorithm places on creators. I want to be able to make more military content without worry of demonetisation. I want to experiment with new ideas without worry about my views being affected. This platform is going to allow me to make more content for you!

California: ‘Let’s go carbon-free!’ Also California: ‘Let’s close down a carbon-free plant which supplies 15% of our power.’

Instead of curtailing overproduction, they should desalinate seawater with the excess. Fresh water IS something California needs more of.

As a California native I can confirm California’s suppositions of energy reliance is based of magical thinking and NIMBY

When you say “renewables” you are really talking about wind and solar. Geothermal and hydro don’t suffer from the battery dilemma.

Obviously the answer here is to dedicate 45% of our population to running on tread mills to produce energy.

2:30 Storage cannot be in MW - Power unit. Storage/energy unis can be in MWh.

California's goal for 2050 will be greatly assisted by the fact that, by that time, most people will have moved to other states.

I love a deep dive into pumped hydro's ability to be that battery that's required to add more renewables to the grid.

5 Billion to build a battery that will last maybe a decade, or 15 billion for a nuclear power plant that produces 5 times the energy every hour than what that battery can store, and will produce that for the next 60 years. Yeah not absurd at all....

Nuclear is a good measure for filling the gaps. And sure the waste is a problem, but letting that hold back what really is one of the best energy generation methods would be just dumb. Since it's a problem we can work around. Having a lot of the grid be renewable power sources is good and ideal. But we are simply stuck from a practical stand point when it comes to filling in the gaps. And if we have to go and use a non renewable method, nuclear is the best option.

What are they going to do in 20 to 30 years when millions of solar panels reach their end of life? Replace them at consumers cost? Abandon the entire project due to excessive costs? What about the recycling of the panels? Curently there is not one company or program to address this problem. And it WILL be a problem, a really big one. Good luck California.

Protest signs made from Hydrocarbons make me laugh.

A note about 12:48: you can't just move the solar graph up, the variation size would also increase.

It would really be foolish to remove Nuclear entirely. It has been stagnating in innovation since the 70's. It needs improvements but it also needs investment for those improvements.

Excellent video! Small Modular Reactors, including Molten Salt Reactors, can provide reliable and safe and cost effective energy with minimal long term waste. Nuclear waste always comes up as a criticism, but MSR reactors produce only a small fraction compared to traditional Pressurized Water Reactors. Almost nobody is talking about the rare resources required to make efficient solar panels or wind turbine motors. Where do they come from? What happens when those resources are unavailable due to geopolitical or natural disasters? Then there is the decrease in efficiency of solar panels over time and the waste stream when they (and wind turbines and batteries) are at end of useful life. We do need wind and solar NOW, but also need to accelerate the research and development of SMR and MSR reactors NOW.

There is one flaw in your assumptions which is that “battery” capacity needs to cover only one day of consumption. What if there are 2-3 or more of cloudy days? Germany added more solar panels but the overall production of electricity from solar declined. They checked the weather and sure enough they had more cloudy days. California sun is not guaranteed either.

Everyone is here being productive and critiquing your work. I'm still just laughing at "kill me now.pdf 23"

Closing down nuclear facilities is surely a questionable move which looks like more of a political decision rather than a choice made from an energy context. Nuclear power is easily the best and most stable form of energy available while being carbon-free. However there are reasons to be cautious about it but I believe nuclear power can be our best hope to have an alternative power supply. Nuclear power should be the last to close if we ever truly want a conpletely renewable-dependent world. Without it, we may have some rocky unstable days ahead of us.

Here in Europe many people work from 8AM to 4PM and also we have way less problems with traffic because of public transport and urban planning. If the work starts half an hour earlier at 7:30 AM, most people will be home by 4PM which means that in May renewables will provide lots of energy for a whole hour after people come back from work. However, during winter you will always have problems because the Sun sets before 4PM. At 6:50 it is not just that batteries are not providing energy as opposed to nuclear power, there is also the fact that nuclear power plants last 40-60 years once you build them. Car batteries for instance are done after less than 20 years, solar panels and wind turbines don't last over 20 years either, which means that during the period one nuclear power plant lasts, you will have to pay for 2 or 3 sets of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries in order to keep up with that nuclear power plant. At 12:45 it is assumed that somehow the added renewables suddenly became steady instead of intermittent. Since solar is intermittent the graph for solar must be multiplied by about 50 instead of just adding to solar generation 90% of total energy demand. The way it was done in the video (adding to solar 90% of total energy demand) assumes that all the added solar energy isn't intermittent. If done the correct way (multiplying solar by 50) the dips and peaks would be much larger, the losses would be much bigger than what was shown in the video. At 13:40 I don't understand why anybody thinks small hydro is better than large hydro. Large hydro facilities are way better than the small ones. The small ones have much worse ratio of electricity that they produce / destroying the environment. Mini hydro power plants are death to the environment considering how little energy they produce. This is typical delusion of many people living in the West that smaller is always somehow magically better and the notion that everything which is new must be good and everything that is old (large hydro power, nuclear power when it comes to this topic) is bad. That's why people like Elon Musk, Elisabeth Holmes, Trevor Milton manage to trick people. They prey on people believing in everything which is futuristic, fashionable and fancy looking. That's why the new campaign for nuclear power (and renewables) in the US had to be about cold fusion, thorium reactors, mini nuclear power plants, small hydro power stations or something of the sort. It has to sound futuristic, fancy and if possible, it should be small. I myself on the other hand am convinced that the best way of generating electricity are nuclear power plants and bigger hydro stations (I and everyone in my country is harshly against small hydro! This delusion for small hydro probably stems from them never having to deal with small hydro and their detrimental consequences). I have also seen an American guy be against trolleys and instead he is pro buses with batteries because the wires look ugly to him. Superficial look is more important than the destruction of the environment. And I understand why he thinks this way. Of course he thinks this way because the lithium for these batteries will not be mined in his country. Which is another thing that people rarely talk about. The destruction of the environment that mining some of these elements cause. On the other hand there are people who always prefer the old technology no matter what. I have heard people who want the trains to go back to fossil fuels, despite the fact that electric engines have way smaller losses when converting energy into useful work compared to fossil fuels, electric engine trains can go much faster and are better for the environment and global warming than the trains which run on fossil fuels. When it comes to global warming and fighting it, the most influential graphs that I have seen on the matter are how France decarbonised the grid with nuclear power plants without even trying to lower the greenhouse gas emissions, versus the results of countries that consciously tried to make the grid clean by only investing in solar and wind.

You should talk about progress in long-term power storage, such as using excess power to pump water to a higher elevated reservoir and then using a hydroelectric power as converting the water back into power.

The British Company Moltex is building a nuclear plant (shock horror) in Canada which will burn the high level waste fuel from an old nuclear plant next door. It's zero CO2 with a very low waste profile. The cost built on site is cheaper than a gas fired plant. When they go to factory modules it will be cheaper than coal - the cheapest (dirty) source there is. Moltex plants are cheap and safe because they have designed out the hazardous components which need expensive engineering to make them safe. They also use a thermal store to iron out the daily load fluctuations but that wont give months of energy storage.

Can you make a video talking about alternative energy storage methods besides batteries?

At 12:40 when you scale the graph, you dont actually scale it. What you are doing is adding a baseline. As an example: you did cos(x) +1, when you were supposed to do 2*cos(x). The variance of energy production from solar will increase proportional to production.

Great video explaining the supply and demand problem we have to solve with renewables. Smart grids will play a key role but so will micro grids and storing electrical energy in the batteries of our electric cars known as vehicle to Grid / House (V2G or V2H) as we do currently at our experimental facility at Helios Eco Lab. Always thinking of the 'Big' grid / national/global wide solution can sometimes obscure the opportunities of a multitude of small solutions. A multitude of small has the benefit of engaging the individual user and making them more aware of their consumption and how they can manage this consumption in a better way. This is the first time since the start of the industrial revolution that a multitude of decentralised energy 'Prosumers' (co producers and consumers) as opposed to mega centralised projects becomes viable.

Please do a video about nuclear energy and the major benefits it has over all other types of production! Nuclear doesn't have nearly enough positive PR as it should. They're closing so many stations all over the world just because they are expensive. However I would argue that it is worth it given the fact that it is the safest, most reliable and best way of getting lots of clean energy that the world needs!

In Switzerland they use dams to store energy and when there is surplus they pump water up the dam making it a huge battery.

What you miss is that you do not scale your system for just any January but instead for a historically cold one. Otherwise you will have problems in a 1 in 50 Winter

One of the possible solutions to the storage question may be the Liquid Air or Cryogenic Battery being Utility 5MW scale tested in Manchester UK by HighView Power. It is eminently scalable and can complement ordinary Batteries by occupying the niche above, longer duration and more power. The Liquid Air Battery absorbs excess wind and solar generation thus avoiding curtailment of these systems. I am impressed and believe it’s one of the storage answers.

California wants carbon free energy Also closes their nuclear plants 🤦

This really is an awesome video. One of the best youtube creaters I know (or just the best!)!

There is another option for energy storage that we have developed here in the UK. Quietly under the radar a company called Highview Power have been through building test plants over the last decade made work an old idea of compressing air in a cryogenic system to store energy over long periods. This cryogenic system is not as efficient or as quick as a battery storage unit but it has many advantages that make it a good partner to battery where long term storage is required. The way it works is by using spare electricity to compress air and cool it as a liquid in storage units; this has the advantage of easy scalability as you just build more storage tanks to match say winter needs. When the demand is higher than the renewables can produce you just re-expand the stored air generating electricity filling the gap. The other advantage the Highview Power system brings to energy storage is it uses off the shelf components & technology and reduces battery demand that can be redirected to cars, buses and lorries were there are fewer options. It is the scaleability and mechanical nature of this cryogenic storage system that brought it to my attention many years ago and made me a fan. It's been a long time but I think it has found its moment. This is the link to their site were the tech is explained better than I can... www.highviewpower.com/

Kill me now (15), Milk of poppy for the pain (5) 🧐 12:12

San Francisco has electric buses getting their power from overhead lines. They proudly flaunt signs "Zero emissions vehicle". On one such bus, someone lined out the word "Zero" And wrote in "Outsourced". There is a smoke stack somewhere providing the power

Instead of battery storage for excess energy (chemical energy), how about potential energy storage? When the sun shines or the wind blows, pump water uphill into a dam. Use the hydro generation to supply the grid all the time, rain or shine. Thus, the dam acts as the storage medium and a low-pass filter in the system (like a huge capacitor). Ignore the losses in the pumping system, because those losses can be traded off against the energy that was not converted into potential energy. The reliability of traditional motors and generators far exceeds the reliability of semiconductor switching power supply systems.

You should make a video on energy usage and what technologies can reduce it. For example: if air conditioning is a huge energy consumer, what is a carbon free solution for this? or a technology that reduces drastically the energy consumption of air conditioners? Great video by the way!

Wait until they start plugging in all the electric cars which need to charge in the evening your usage graph will change

California imports their coal plant electricity from adjacent states. California just shifts the CO2 to out of state

vertical axis wind exceeds eficiency of pinwheels for wind energy as it captures swirling wind better. plus low speed wind better.

You fail to take into account the fact that solar power can be throttled in real time I have an off grid solar power system running my house, and in summer I produce much more power than I need, once the batteries are fully charged, the charge controller simply reduces current and allows the PV rail voltage to increase, no need for me to physically disconnect individual panels or buy more batteries sure the energy is wasted if I don't use it, but there's no chance of an overload with such a system

2:20 556 MW is NOT a storage capacity. It's the power the facility is able to provide. Rated at four hours, the total capacity is 2,27 GWh.

politicians: we want to reduce carbon emissions also politicians: lets close down all our clean nuclear power plants

Use Quebec grid as a battery. One technically easy solution would be to use a dam to store energy from summer to use it in winter. I believe a dam construction would pollute less than creating a battery field. Also dam on the north have less vegetation decomposing a release less methane than southern location. To use them effectively would require some investment in the interstate grid. If you can sell your excess energy to your neighbor states where they have huge dam, then they can store water for winter instead of using it. It would require to double the number of turbines and power lines for any given dam to increase the output during peak season. This is for already built dam. In Quebec the electricity comes from 99% hydro power and it is very very cheap, even the house are heated electrically during winter (-20°C). Some of these reservoir required up to 25 years to fill. They can be started and stopped when it is needed. They are huge, long term, eco-friendly batteries. Provide solar energy to Quebec during summer so they can give it to you back during winter.

Thank you for this great content. looking forward to your next video.

should just build more mechanical batteries e.g. pumping water up hill. has the long term stability necessary and is scalable

You know, it baffles me just how much information you have to curate and summarize for each of your videos. It does not go unnoticed. Then you present it in such a well thought out script AND go into all the math to help those of us who speak engineer to help us understand the scale of what you're presenting in the video. Bravo, you bright Paddy, you. Lol at the "kill me now" file name

Why not use pumped storage? Pump water into massive lakes in the summer and use it in winter for hydro. Cover the water in reflective balls, which has already been done elsewhere, to minimize evaporation.

One factor over looked in equating solar farms production in winter versus summer: if the existing and new solar arrays were switched to 'tracking' over fixed the increase in production would change the projected sizing by greater than a 25% reduction.

"policymakers won't want large hydroelectric dams watering down their efforts" nice pun, intended or not

Me: how’s that research going? RE: 12:11

The problem of the battery storage is very simple to solve in CA. All you need to do is use the excess energy generated during the day to pump ocean water into the Salton sea which is disappearing anyway. During the night this water can be drained again to reverse the pumps and generate electricity.

Why not use pumped storage? Water doesn't become less efficient over time, has huge amounts of storage, and can help store the extra energy when solar/wind production is high.

I noticed an error. When you visibly "scaled" renewable energy, you just shifted it. You did a + C, not an × B. Multiplying renewables would create larger peaks and deeper valleys, not just raise the line to meet the demand curve.

How advance we would be if people didn't become deathly afraid of nuclear due to Godzilla films.

Honestly the cost of curtailment is probably a lot lower than the human cost of pollution. Plus the variable supply problem is fixable, making hydrocarbons work in the long term is literally impossible

Moss landing is a bit of a special case where a battery system makes immediate economic sense. The moss landing power grid is virtually an island relative to the main CA power grid, due to the geography of the location. There is minimal interconnect and natural gas pricing during summer peaks makes it economically sound to install a large battery system that is capable of bridging the gap during peak periods. This won't replicate across California, but it is a good way for utility companies and other commercial concerns to test the technology at a profit rather than at a loss. There are other location in Southern California that are also suitable due to limited natural gas capabilities (limited flow, limited storage). Smaller battery systems are also starting to get used to augment natural gas generation. The battery systems can be used to support the turbine without having to burn natural gas inefficiently during startup and shutdown, allowing peaker plants to have almost the same efficiency as base-load dedicated NG generation. So much so that large NG generation builders like GE are now focused far more on hybrid NG peakers than they are on NG baseload. Baseload is going the way of the dodo. -Matt

Something to keep in mind when a power company speaks of batteries, they're often speaking of stored energy. Often this is a pond on top of a hill to which they pump water using the excess energy. then they will later send the water through turbines to recover the energy using gravity. A lot cheaper than Tesla batteries.

At 13:30, you can't just start scaling Solar+Wind by sliding it up and down the grid without changing the volatility scale. That volatility would also grow 10x if you scaled the capacity 10x. Also if you're going to count environmental damage of hydro, you have to count the environmental damage of solar and wind killing wildlife by cooking or smashing them or by habitat displacement.

There are a number of natural sites in the western USA that can be used as pumped storage. These would be "closed loop " (not connected to flowing streams). The Mwh of storage would far exceed battery capacities considering these sites vary from 1 GWof capacity to up to 10 GW capacity. I found one in California that would utilize two existing reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada, that could generate over 180 GWH daily. No new dam construction required.

Please don t turn on the lights at night, heat or air-conditioning or charge your car until further notice. Welcome to California.

Battery charge retention can be expected to diminish by about 2% annually. The cradle to grave environmental consequences of scaling up solar, wind, and LiFePO4 storage are rarely accounted for. Closing Diablo Canyon is dumbest thing ever. We should be adding nuclear capacity.

The only answer that I see as viable at the moment is nuclear powered by thorium.

Thanks. Very informative. Technical but mostly understandable. Would like to hear more about the nuclear option today without all the paranoia that goes along with that.

Great video and ironic that this is exactly related to the August 2020 Power outages that occurred in California

The key here is that California may not be using coal or oil IN STATE, but they are benefiting from coal and oil based energy by borrowing it from 'other' states. Not so self sufficient Cali.

I live in California, the big problem that everyone seems to forget is that the cost of electricity for the rate payer has skyrocketed in recent years. Cost of electricity is so expensive here that I've looked into just installing a natural gas generator to see if that is more economical compared to being connected to the grid.

A stepped lake design would probably be better, as you wont have to worry about replacing the "battery" and instead repair it. The thermal runaway problem will also be solved as all you have to deal with is friction, and friction fires on their own are very short lived, as there typically is no fuel nearby, water could also quell the extra heat, extinguishing it. However, you have to deal with erosion and evaporation, meaning you could have far more or less power than you expected (in runtime or KWh instead of simply generation)

Interesting video, thanks! A few questions and food for thought. Why is hydro not able to provide storage services instead of base-load. From your graph, it looks like it could be part of the answer? Also, adding a battery at the gas peaker facility seems a good idea, even if the gas peaker remains operational, doesn't it? This way, they maximize the use of the grid connexion asset and can try and reduce gas production (even if it remains operational). Also, you highlight the difference in solar production between summer and winter but what's the difference in peak demand between summer and winter? Finally, hopefully demand management and reduction in energy consumption will also play a part. No comment on nuclear closure, the topic is too complex (the problems with nuclear are of a different nature, yes but it is carbon free and carbon emission are the emergency, yes but given its reliance on cooling can it continue producing on the very hot days when we need it the most, yes but as a carbon free technology, isn't it a waste to close it down etc. etc. etc.)

12:52 The scaling should "extremefy" not just add a flat value (by moving it up)

I don't get why they would shut down the nuclear plant. Seems like keeping it open would fix some of the problems in this video. They already spent the 13b to build it, might as well use it.

Most of the battery research has been focused on vehicular batteries, which need to have high energy density and be safe in collisions. With increased demand for stationary batteries, they can try things like high temperature sodium batteries. Also as one other post pointed out on water desalination, some tasks have their own storage, and can be done only when there’s surplus energy. Hydrogen generation is one, if that becomes a thing. Maybe carbon fiber manufacture is another. I know it’s energy intensive. You need to compare the efficiency of storage with the cost of the storage and the cost of the energy. So less efficient energy storage might be cost effective.

Now that we've crossed the threshold where renewable power is cheaper than fossil fuel power, taking a more hands off approach to the energy market might well be the solution. You can never go wrong with subsidizing research, but in terms of generation mix, storage capacity vs overgeneration...these seems like the kind of problems that markets are actually good at finding optimal solutions for.

2:25 567 MW is just the maximum power that batteries can deliver. The batteries will last 4 hours at this demant. The actual energy they can hold is 2268 MWh, which is 567 MW * 4 hours rating

At 12:10 onwards you scaled solar capacity by shifting the line up, but kept the variability in output unscaled. The highs and lows should also be exaggerated in proportion as well, assuming that the panels are installed in the same area. I'm not sure that this visualization truely represented the scope of the engineering challenge presented by solar and wind. Scale is _hard_.

Can you do a video on the feasibility of electrolysis and using hydrogen as a peak-delivery power source? I am considering this as a masters or independent research project as I have not found much info on it

PhD EE, PE: In the US it only took 120 years with 1000’s of people and multinational companies involved to develop the most reliable energy distribution and utilization system in the history of the planet. We can tear it down but don’t expect it to be replaced easily or overnight.

"policymakers do not want large hydro facilities watering down their efforts". Nice pun

Nuclear has come a long way since the last generation of plants. Nuclear waste can be re-used in certain reactors and meltdowns are an impossibility in some. It's cheap, stable and is much safer than coal.

12:15 up to 14:05 that's a decent analysis. However, I would not call closing down the nuclear ( 14:10 ) a questionable move, as it is not flexible, so it would not supply necessary flexibility, but rather consume it. The biggest misunderstanding is at 14:25 - You don't need to install additional capacity to charge batteries. You can instal additional capacity just to use it whenever supply from intermittent renewables does not match the demand. Batteries are needed for the very same purpose. To sum it up - I applaud the tremendous effort of collecting all the data. However, the video is not free of flaws unfortunately. PS: 30 million USD for 10 start-ups is not a big investment ;)

In other news, 91% of California delta water flows straight to the ocean, rather than being stored, and dam construction has been blocked consistently for 40+ years. Hydro is essentially the water version of wind power that you can store. They say this causes “environmental damage”. Let me ask what is worse, storing water in a lake, or storing solar/wind in a battery? Im pretty sure fish won’t make a habitat inside a battery, and we aren’t going to be irrigating our crops with battery acid.

California also has a problem that they've exported their manufacturing out of state. At least 1/3 of California's net planetary scale consumption occurs elsewhere. If coal powers the factories that manufacture your car on the other side of the planet, that's still your carbon footprint.

The way you illustrated the scaling of solar up to the demand wasn't correct, it should be stretched, not offset.

How about converting the compounds into inflammable gas in winter or for the night. So, in the day it will supply for homes and the electricity would be used to create gas or liquid such as Hydrogen (maybe an efficient version of electrolysis) which would be kept in a leakage-proof tank and in the night to run the turbine. Batteries are a necessity for small individual users but we can convert the energy in other forms for large scale industries.

A very one-sided argument - instead of storing energy in conventional batteries store it in dams of water. California will needs more large storage dams for consumption that is exceeding supply. During low energy usage times pump water up to dams at higher levels, and during peak consumption periods generate hydro-electricity by running the stored water through turbines to dam/s at lower levels. Water is not consumed during the pumping and generation (except for natural evaporation), it is only used to store the excess energy. and voila - extra water for consumption and storage capacity for excess energy at the same time (and no pollution)

'capacity' of batteries has been confused with storage/output, just as is done with windfarms. Ask anyone with a boat/yacht about having to manage the flow and retention of juice in a battery to keep them functioning and not dying fast

Heat and air conditioning are by far the largest part of our electric bill. The reason California became so popular is the weather.

What about thermal storage for HVAC? Make ice or hot water when there's excess energy, use that to cool or heat the building when energy is in high demand.

Liquid Air Energy Storage, for example, Highview Power, offers a lower cost storage solution with reasonable efficiency .

Geez. It's almost as though politicians have no clue what their policies actually do.

We have to deploy nuclear plants as France did in 80s. Now they enjoy the cheapest and least carbon electricity in Europe

The real key to this whole system is individual homes batteries. A more distributed grid with solar and battery powered homes would lessen the demands on grid generation and ease with storage. Where I live, the power company charges $0.40 per kilowatt hour. A solar installation on my home with a battery so that I no longer need the grid is $0.21 per kilowatt hour. As the consumer, I am incurring the cost of the solar system on my own willingly, because it's cheaper than the grid alternative. As the price for these products continues to drop, individual homeowners will voluntarily choose to generate their own power.

Diversity is always key to our future, we have to work together. while Nuclear is expensive and has its problems, I do think we have a good enough understanding of it now that we should be able to make it safe. couple that with a nicely diverse renewable power selection and I think we would have a winning combo. as for storage of excess power, that's still for future research which hopefully will continue to receive more and more funding and should uncover more efficient and larger capacity energy storage :)

I got it! They could scoop up all the poop in SF's sidewalks, and burn it for energy.

Important to also note that South Australian battery backup is designed for emergencies... Not regular power use.

These cost details are fine as a baseline for a general idea but work is proceeding apace on a wide variety of fronts on energy storage so it's a rapidly moving target. There are videos & documents about these all over the interwebby. Costs of energy storage will continue to drop at a rapid rate so this video will soon be an interesting historical vintage one like those great old films about computers with their whirling Turing clockwork and their ferrite cores.

You always need more generation than load, because of expansion/city growth and power spikes that you might not have expected that was even as simple as half a kilowatt more, that can cause brownouts and electronics shutdown, and some systems simply cant recover from that, at least not without costly, manual, intervention

"Batteries are not suitable for long term storage." Emphasize lithium. Molten metal batteries, or better yet, physical / mechanical means are more than capable of providing long-term muni-scale storage. Pumping water into a dam or storage facility and extracting energy through turbines is one example. Lifting multi-ton blocks and extracting energy from allowing them to drop (converting potential into kinetic energy) would be another. I can't help but think water processing could be combined with ocean desal at a muni-scale to solve both water shortage and energy storage issues.

If cali made IV generation nuclear power plants it could be possible without adding a few trillion more debt.

Just wait until everybody drives home in their electric car and plugs it into the grid, in the summer, at 6pm.

So use pumped hydro and add geothermal power. And have smart homes turn on the A/C, or furnace and smart appliances during excess energy periods. For example smart homes would turn on during 10am to 4pm on even number address. then 11am to 5pm the smart homes on the odd address would turn their appliances' on.