Lake Powell, the Colorado River's second-largest reservoir, in April 2010 (Photo: Gretchen Weber)

There’s some good news for the 35 million people in the Western United States who rely on the Colorado River for their water, says a new study from the Oakland-based Pacific Institute.

No, the supply isn’t increasing.  And yes, the population is still growing.

But according to the paper, entitled Municipal Deliveries of Colorado River Basin Water, more efficient water use by water agencies across the West is making the supply/demand gap a lot less painful than it could be.

“Although population growth has increased very quickly, the amount of water delivered has not kept pace,” said study author Michael Cohen. “That shows that people have been getting much more efficient with their use of water.”

According to the report:

• Since 1990, the number of people who rely on water from the Colorado River basin has grown by 10 million. But during that time, per-capita water use has declined an average of one percent per year.
• Water agencies in Southern California delivered four percent less water from the Colorado in 2008 than they did in 1990, despite delivering water to almost 3.6 million more people.

Cohen said he was surprised and encouraged by the study results, and while he credited some of the efficiency to short-term policies (such as temporary drought restrictions) and new standards (like more efficient toilets and fixtures), he said that a lot of the change is likely due to changing attitudes.

“People are becoming much more aware of the value of water in the West, becoming sensitive that it is, in fact, a limited resource, and a resource that should be used wisely,” he said.

Not everyone in California is embracing efficiency, however.  Of the 100 water agencies studied, those with the three highest per-capita water deliveries are in California; the City of San Marino and two districts in Coachella Valley.

“They think it’s appropriate to have lawns in the middle of the desert even though they have to water them two or three times a day,” he said.  By comparison, he said, there are other, less affluent parts of Coachella Valley where water usage is about average for the state.

“Lots of agencies say [water usage] is driven by climate, but here’s a pretty stark example of cities or agencies with the exact same climate, but very different water use patterns,” Cohen observed.

Of course, what this study does not look at, is the 500-pound gorilla that is agricultural water use, which uses 70% of the water from the Colorado.  Municipal deliveries comprise just 15%, although it is the fastest growing segment of water use.

It seems that whatever efficiencies can be implemented now in any sector will only serve to ease what’s likely to become an even starker gap between supply and demand.  According to the Bureau of Reclamation, demand has recently outstripped supply along the Colorado, and a new federal study released earlier this month finds that the river’s flow could decrease 9% in the next 50 years due to impacts of climate change.  Meanwhile populations are expected to continue to grow rapidly in many regions dependent on the river.

“The question is, how are they going to balance supply and demand in the future,” said Cohen. “I think this report shows that at least part of that answer lies in more efficient use within the cities themselves.”

The study, authored by Christopher M. Jones and Danial Kammen of Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL), analyzed thousands of different “types” of typical carbon footprints by looking at households in all 50 states, including six different household sizes and 12 different income brackets.  They used data from the US Labor Department’s Consumer Expenditure Survey.

The results of the analysis are summarized in a new “carbon calculator” that can help people estimate their carbon footprints and identify the areas where lifestyle changes would have the largest impact.  Users can also compare their footprints to similar households in their own area.

“Comparative feedback is an effective way to send signals to individuals,” said Jones. “”If people learn they are doing worse than their peers, that may lead them to reduce.”

In the United States, household consumption accounts for over 80% of total emissions, according to the study. In typical US households, the researchers found that one-third of those emissions come from transportation, a little more than 20% are from household energy use, and about 15 percent are from food.  The rest some from everything else: goods, services, housing construction, waste, and water.

However, when you drill down to specific household types, the numbers change.  For example, while the study found that an upper-income couple in San Francisco with no children has roughly the same emissions as a middle-income family with three children in St Louis, the source of those emissions varies greatly.  For the San Francisco couple, travel by car and air are the biggest chunk, while for the St Louis family, more emissions come from food and electricity.

So, when it comes to making effective changes, the two families would likely have different action plans.

“Our primary message is simple: If you are concerned about reducing your carbon footprint, or the carbon footprint of others through policy, it is important to focus on the actions that lead to the greatest reductions,” said Kammen in a press release.  “Our online tool can help people do just that.”

The new online tool lives at CoolCalifornia.org, which is a partnership of RAEL, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Next 10, the California Air Resources Board, and several other government agencies.  The group hopes use the website to connect people through social networking in order to spur action through its “built-in competition system,” said Jones.

Users can create profiles for individuals and for groups, share their progress, and make “pledges” of environmentally-responsible action.

“The most important motivation is our social motivation,” said Jones.  “We are most influenced by what others do and what others perceive of our actions.  So, if your peer group expects you to behave in an environmentally responsible way, you are more likely to.”

“We didn’t get to the point where we’re generating 20% of our electricity by renewables, but I believe we do have, or we’re very close to having, all the contracts in place,” he said Thursday.

Byron was at Stanford University on Thursday, speaking at a workshop titled, “Grid Integration of Renewables.”

According to Byron, the reasons for the unmet goal include the California Energy Commission not getting all the power plant siting cases through in a timely fashion, the slow pace of utility companies to enter into contracts, and the failure of some companies to complete their renewables projects.

However, he said, the groundwork is being laid for success in the future.

“We do have sufficient transmission plans and projects underway to meet 33% by 2020.”

Byron was joined at Stanford Thursday by an international cast of renewables experts, including  New Mexico’s Senator Jeff Bingaman, the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Bingaman outlined the biggest challenges facing the growth of renewable energy at a national level.

“There’s three things to keep in mind about the current Washington environment, and none of it is good news,” he said.

With the 2012 election already looming in the Capitol, Bingaman said, it will be unlikely to get a bipartisan agreement to “do what we need to do.”  Additional barriers, he said, are a “strong ideological resistance” to an active role of government in transitioning the energy economy and a a dire federal budget situtation.

Bingaman said that 2/3 of federal support to the energy economy is through the tax code, but for renewables, the number is closer to 80%.   However, the incentives for solar and wind are relatively short-term, he said, with the wind credit set to expire in 2012 and the solar one in 2016.

“These incentives are not as effective as they could be if they were permanent or long-term,” said Bingaman.

Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson presented his research finding that the world already has most of the technology it needs to move to a 100% clean energy economy by 2030.  Not only could it be done, he said, but doing so could save 3.5 million air pollution deaths per year.

But, as President Obama said in November about cap-and-trade, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”  And many argue that one of the ways to skin this cat — reducing California’s emissions — is good old-fashioned energy efficiency.

KQED’s Amy Standen explores one voluntary program in California that helps homeowners save energy and money.  Funded by untility companies such as PG&E and federal stimulus dollars, Energy Upgrade California aims to make more than 50,000 homes across the state more energy efficient.

(Amy’s radio piece first aired on Monday on KQED’s Quest, and it will be rebroadcast today on The California Report.)

For more about California’s efforts to reach 33% renewables by 2020, check out our series “33×20: California’s Clean Power Countdown,” produced in collaboration with Quest.

(Photo: Craig Miller)

This post originally appeared on California Watch, a KQED content partner and a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting.

By Susanna Rust

Say goodbye to your 100-watt incandescent light bulbs. On Jan. 1, it’ll become increasingly challenging to find one on a store shelf in California.

That’s because the state has ordered a phaseout of the high energy-consuming light bulb.

The state is pressing to have the old incandescents replaced with newer, more efficient bulbs, such as compact fluorescents, halogens and light-emitting diode light bulbs, or LEDs.

And beginning in 2012, 100-watt incandescents will be off the shelves completely.

As is typical, California is getting a jump-start on a trend that will begin nationwide in a few years. Three years ago, the federal government enacted legislation to phase out the old bulbs. National phaseout will begin in 2014. Other countries, such as Australia, Ireland and Cuba have already banned them.

There are drawbacks to the new bulbs, however.

Fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, contain mercury, which can be harmful to the environment and to human health. Therefore, the bulbs must be handled differently than other household waste.

Local hazardous waste centers, and some hardware stores, will take spent fluorescent bulbs for recycling. The other bulbs contain chemicals such as bromine and iodine. These do not require special recycling.

Consumers looking to find a replacement for the old 100-watt bulb will likely choose the energy-efficient 72-watt bulb, which will provide an equal amount of light but uses less power.

“The consumer will still be able to use the product and have the same results to light an office, a desk lamp, a hallway. A 72-watt light bulb will still provide the same service as the old 100-watt bulb,” Adam Gottlieb, a spokesman for the California Energy Commission, told the Scripps Howard news service. “Consumers really need to know they won’t see any difference. The difference they’ll see is a more energy-efficient bulb.”

The California Energy Commission website has a user-friendly FAQ page about the new light bulb standards and how the rules affect consumers.

(Photo: Craig Miller)

California’s commercial buildings suck up more than a third of all the electricity used in the state–and that’s too much.

That’s among the conclusions of a new report from the San Francisco-based think tank Next 10. The 12-page report points out that on average, such buildings could cut energy use by 30% just by upgrading insulation, and another 18-to-20% with more efficient lighting.

Though California leads the nation in its stingy use of electricity overall, the report notes that efficiency standards for new construction are “well below what is possible” and what standards are in place are not met by 40% of new buildings. Study co-author Tracey Grose says that’s partly because even if state-of-the-art equipment is installed, it isn’t always used as intended. There are no energy efficiency standards at all for existing buildings. In general, the study finds that energy use in most buildings could be cut by 80% with some basic upgrades.

The report, compiled by the consulting firm Collaborative Economics in Mountain View, and largely a compilation of existing work, also implies that there’s a built-in way to pay for some of these improvements. The authors cite studies showing that commercial tenants are willing to pay higher rents for “greener” space. The report also cites figures from the Building Owners & Managers Association, that some basic improvements in energy efficiency offer a three-to-one return on investment.

Power consumption varies widely within the commercial sector. Next 10 notes that restaurants are the biggest kilowatt hogs per square foot, followed by supermarkets and hospitals (when’s the last time you had to wear a sweater while grocery shopping because the frozen food section was chilling the whole store?).

According to the report, while raw consumption has continued to rise, efficiency in these buildings has leveled off in recent years. Overall, the nearly 6.8 million square feet of commercial space accounts for 37% of California’s electricity use, compared with 40% for commercial buildings nationwide. The latter accounts for more than a quarter of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report.

Next 10, which describes itself as an “independent, non-partisan organization” has been a vocal promoter of the economic benefits from greening the state’s economy.