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California’s electric grid nexus with the environment

  • Geoffrey Niswander and George Xydis ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 29, 2023

Abstract

California’s electric grid has established and allowed for a large swathe of land with varying topography, geology, and biota to become inhabited and maintained at a level of modernization that most Americans have become accustomed to in the 21st century. However, while the residents, commerce, and overall populations of both have increased and progressed, the energy infrastructure that supports them has not. Instead, in some instances, the transmission infrastructure has ignited fires in the state’s wildlands – some with devastating effects – the point sources of power production have aged and not necessarily kept up with a shifting climate or demanded load, and new sources of power generation and energy storage have not penetrated the energy marketplace fast enough or to great effect. This paper delineates just a portion of some of California’s trials in the coming years as it transitions to a decarbonized electric grid and light-duty fleet. Most calculations were carried out using data prior to December 31, 2019 and generically treats succeeding data (2020–2021) as unrepresentative of former years or unlikely to be accurate of the years succeeding the Corona Virus Outbreak of 2020.


Corresponding author: George Xydis, Energy Policy and Climate Program, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; and Department of Business Development and Technology, Aarhus University, Birk Centerpark 15, 7400 Herning, Denmark, E-mail:

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Author contributions: The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Research funding: None declared.

  5. Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.

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Received: 2023-04-03
Accepted: 2023-08-18
Published Online: 2023-09-29

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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