News Headline

Adaptation Can Compound Climate Change Impacts on Energy and Water

Source
EOS

Publication Date
2021-02-15

In 2014, as California was in the midst of one of the worst droughts in its recorded history, Julia Szinai was working for an electric utility. The worst years of the drought were still ahead, but the impacts of the dry spell on California’s energy system were already clear to Szinai. As water levels dropped, so too did hydropower generation—an energy gap that was filled by fossil fuels. “That increased costs and emissions for the state,” Szinai reflected later, “and really drove home the point that the electric sector is really closely tied to the water sector, and both were quite vulnerable to climate change impacts, like droughts, that are going to be more common.”

Content
https://eos.org/articles/adaptation-can-compound-climate-change-impacts-on-energy-and-water