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Data centers want clean electricity. Can Georgia Power deliver it?

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Monday, April 22, 2024

Last week, Georgia Power won regulatory approval to fast-track construction of 1.4 gigawatts of fossil-fueled power plants and to contract for nearly a gigawatt more power from coal- and fossil-gas-fired power plants owned by other utilities. The reason? Fear that skyrocketing power demand from power-hungry data centers and factories soon to be built in Georgia could overwhelm its grid unless it expands new generation as quickly as possible. The plan has drawn the ire of environmental groups and consumer advocates, who say that choosing fossil-fueled power over cleaner alternatives will worsen climate change and increase electricity rates for customers. But it has also sparked concern from some of the same big companies planning the data center and factory expansions that Georgia Power says will cause its looming power crunch. That’s the message that Priya Barua, director of market and policy innovation for the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) — a trade group that includes major data center operators with aggressive clean energy goals, such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — delivered to Georgia Power in deliberations over the proposed plan earlier this year. CEBA is concerned that ​“some of the new load Georgia Power is forecasting may not materialize if Georgia Power increases the carbon intensity of its resource mix,” Barua stated in February testimony to the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), ​“since many of the customers bringing new load have clean energy targets” and want to locate in regions with cleaner energy options. If CEBA members choose to build data centers or factories elsewhere in search of cleaner electricity supplies, that could undercut the whole premise of the utility’s rush to build more fossil-fueled power plants — and drive up costs and emissions for existing Georgia Power customers, she warned. In the end, CEBA supported the stipulated agreement that Georgia Power and Georgia PSC staff reached last week — largely because the utility included a last-minute promise to create a program for companies to contract for solar and wind power, batteries to store clean power, and other carbon-free resources. Many other utilities across the country offer this kind of program, but it’s ​“a first for customers of Georgia Power,” Barua told Canary Media in an interview last week. Georgia Power made a number of other commitments to expand clean energy options in last week’s agreement. These include calling on third-party developers to propose thousands of megawatts of solar, wind, and battery projects over the coming years and creating programs that will support commercial and residential customers who want to install solar and batteries on their businesses and homes. Now the big question is whether Georgia Power will follow through on these alternatives to fossil power as it takes on longer-term planning for what it expects will be even greater demand growth from big commercial and industrial customers through 2035. As of now, the utility is ​“willing to work with us” on these cleaner options, Barua said. ​“We’re holding them to that for the 2025 IRP.” Georgia Power’s 2025 IRP and the bigger battle to come across the Southeast Barua was referring to Georgia Power’s next integrated resource plan, or IRP. That’s the master plan that utilities revise every two or three years to detail how much new generation capacity they anticipate needing over the coming 10 to 15 years and what mix of energy resources they will use to supply it. The plan approved last week, which was proposed in October and rushed through regulatory review, covers only the next three years. The load growth forecasted for the next decade — and the infrastructure that will need to be built to meet it — is roughly three to five times as much as what that plan contends with. Georgia Power will publish a draft of its 2025 IRP next January. That’s the ​“elephant in the room” in terms of how dirty or clean the utility’s future resource mix may end up becoming, said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association. ​“Looking a decade out is what 2025 will be a fight about.” That same fight will be playing out across the Southeast over utility plans that could commit the region to a major expansion of fossil-gas-fueled power over the next 10 years or so in response to rising demand from data centers, factories, and the electrification of vehicles and buildings. Duke Energy, one of the country’s biggest utilities, is seeking to build nearly 9 gigawatts of fossil-gas plants to serve North Carolina and South Carolina customers through 2032, nearly triple what it planned back in 2022. The federal power entity Tennessee Valley Authority is expected to propose a plan sometime soon for up to 6.6 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants to replace closing coal plants and meet rising electricity demand through the end of the decade. Environmental and consumer groups say that the Southeast is already falling behind on decarbonizing its power generation at a pace needed to meet the country’s Paris Agreement commitments and to combat climate change. Any new gas plants in the region threaten to put those goals further out of reach, they warn, by displacing the opportunity for cleaner resources to fill the gaps. As of 2023, Georgia Power generated 48 percent of its power from fossil gas, 23 percent from nuclear power, 15 percent from coal, 2 percent from hydropower, and 7 percent from other renewables. Its 2023 IRP update noted that it plans to add about 10 gigawatts of new renewable resources by 2035, nearly double the 6 gigawatts it planned back in 2022. But those estimates could change when Georgia Power releases its 2025 IRP proposal early next year. Between the unveiling of the new IRP and a final decision expected next summer, clean power advocates plan to push Georgia Power and regulators to make good on the clean-power promises set out in last week’s agreement. “We’d like to use this as an opportunity to have something more concrete in the next full IRP,” Barua said, ​“so we aren’t in this position again with utilities where they aren’t really considering solutions [to rising power demand] beyond peaker plants.” The critique of Georgia Power’s approach to solar and batteries  When it comes to the fine print in last week’s agreement, Southeast environmental groups are less sanguine than CEBA is. They especially object to the way that the Georgia PSC’s decision allows the utility to fast-track more fossil-fueled generation than batteries and solar. The agreement permits Georgia Power to build only 500 megawatts of batteries in the next three years and procure another 500 megawatts of energy storage from independent power developers. What’s more, the agreement stripped out the relatively small amount of solar — 200 megawatts — that Georgia Power had proposed. In a statement last week, the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy blasted both Georgia Power and the Georgia PSC, calling the agreement a giveaway to the utility, which can expect to earn a healthy rate of return on the fossil-fueled power plants it was authorized to build, and saying it does ​“little to protect ratepayers and even less to advance clean energy like solar and wind.” “Frankly, most of the utility plans are backward-looking,” Bryan Jacob, the alliance’s solar program director and Georgia liaison, said in an interview last week. ​“They’re the same type of centralized generation resources that our parents and grandparents had and don’t look at alternative ways to meet this new load growth with a new set of technologies.” In particular, Georgia Power has so far largely given short shrift to the potential for solar power and batteries to serve as an alternative to gas-fired power plants, he said — even though the economics favor the cleaner option. Subscribe to receive Canary's latest news Across the Southeastern U.S., utilities are experiencing growing peaks in electricity demand, especially during cold winter mornings and hot summer evenings, when customers’ heating and cooling needs outstrip supply. Gas-fired power plants that can be ramped up quickly to meet these peaks in grid demand are the go-to resource for utilities. But solar power stored in batteries can also do the job — not only without emitting carbon and other pollution, but also at a cost that’s often cheaper than building and fueling gas-fired power plants over their lifetimes.

Last week, Georgia Power won regulatory approval to fast-track construction of 1.4 gigawatts of fossil-fueled power plants and to contract for nearly a gigawatt more power from coal- and fossil-gas-fired power plants owned by other utilities. The reason? Fear that skyrocketing power demand from power-hungry data…

Last week, Georgia Power won regulatory approval to fast-track construction of 1.4 gigawatts of fossil-fueled power plants and to contract for nearly a gigawatt more power from coal- and fossil-gas-fired power plants owned by other utilities. The reason? Fear that skyrocketing power demand from power-hungry data centers and factories soon to be built in Georgia could overwhelm its grid unless it expands new generation as quickly as possible.

The plan has drawn the ire of environmental groups and consumer advocates, who say that choosing fossil-fueled power over cleaner alternatives will worsen climate change and increase electricity rates for customers. But it has also sparked concern from some of the same big companies planning the data center and factory expansions that Georgia Power says will cause its looming power crunch.

That’s the message that Priya Barua, director of market and policy innovation for the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) — a trade group that includes major data center operators with aggressive clean energy goals, such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — delivered to Georgia Power in deliberations over the proposed plan earlier this year.

CEBA is concerned that some of the new load Georgia Power is forecasting may not materialize if Georgia Power increases the carbon intensity of its resource mix,” Barua stated in February testimony to the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), since many of the customers bringing new load have clean energy targets” and want to locate in regions with cleaner energy options.

If CEBA members choose to build data centers or factories elsewhere in search of cleaner electricity supplies, that could undercut the whole premise of the utility’s rush to build more fossil-fueled power plants — and drive up costs and emissions for existing Georgia Power customers, she warned.

In the end, CEBA supported the stipulated agreement that Georgia Power and Georgia PSC staff reached last week — largely because the utility included a last-minute promise to create a program for companies to contract for solar and wind power, batteries to store clean power, and other carbon-free resources. Many other utilities across the country offer this kind of program, but it’s a first for customers of Georgia Power,” Barua told Canary Media in an interview last week.

Georgia Power made a number of other commitments to expand clean energy options in last week’s agreement. These include calling on third-party developers to propose thousands of megawatts of solar, wind, and battery projects over the coming years and creating programs that will support commercial and residential customers who want to install solar and batteries on their businesses and homes.

Now the big question is whether Georgia Power will follow through on these alternatives to fossil power as it takes on longer-term planning for what it expects will be even greater demand growth from big commercial and industrial customers through 2035.

As of now, the utility is willing to work with us” on these cleaner options, Barua said. We’re holding them to that for the 2025 IRP.”

Georgia Power’s 2025 IRP and the bigger battle to come across the Southeast

Barua was referring to Georgia Power’s next integrated resource plan, or IRP. That’s the master plan that utilities revise every two or three years to detail how much new generation capacity they anticipate needing over the coming 10 to 15 years and what mix of energy resources they will use to supply it.

The plan approved last week, which was proposed in October and rushed through regulatory review, covers only the next three years. The load growth forecasted for the next decade — and the infrastructure that will need to be built to meet it — is roughly three to five times as much as what that plan contends with.

Georgia Power will publish a draft of its 2025 IRP next January. That’s the elephant in the room” in terms of how dirty or clean the utility’s future resource mix may end up becoming, said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association. Looking a decade out is what 2025 will be a fight about.”

That same fight will be playing out across the Southeast over utility plans that could commit the region to a major expansion of fossil-gas-fueled power over the next 10 years or so in response to rising demand from data centers, factories, and the electrification of vehicles and buildings.

Duke Energy, one of the country’s biggest utilities, is seeking to build nearly 9 gigawatts of fossil-gas plants to serve North Carolina and South Carolina customers through 2032, nearly triple what it planned back in 2022. The federal power entity Tennessee Valley Authority is expected to propose a plan sometime soon for up to 6.6 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants to replace closing coal plants and meet rising electricity demand through the end of the decade.

Environmental and consumer groups say that the Southeast is already falling behind on decarbonizing its power generation at a pace needed to meet the country’s Paris Agreement commitments and to combat climate change. Any new gas plants in the region threaten to put those goals further out of reach, they warn, by displacing the opportunity for cleaner resources to fill the gaps.

As of 2023, Georgia Power generated 48 percent of its power from fossil gas, 23 percent from nuclear power, 15 percent from coal, 2 percent from hydropower, and 7 percent from other renewables. Its 2023 IRP update noted that it plans to add about 10 gigawatts of new renewable resources by 2035, nearly double the 6 gigawatts it planned back in 2022. But those estimates could change when Georgia Power releases its 2025 IRP proposal early next year.

Between the unveiling of the new IRP and a final decision expected next summer, clean power advocates plan to push Georgia Power and regulators to make good on the clean-power promises set out in last week’s agreement.

We’d like to use this as an opportunity to have something more concrete in the next full IRP,” Barua said, so we aren’t in this position again with utilities where they aren’t really considering solutions [to rising power demand] beyond peaker plants.”

The critique of Georgia Power’s approach to solar and batteries 

When it comes to the fine print in last week’s agreement, Southeast environmental groups are less sanguine than CEBA is. They especially object to the way that the Georgia PSC’s decision allows the utility to fast-track more fossil-fueled generation than batteries and solar.

The agreement permits Georgia Power to build only 500 megawatts of batteries in the next three years and procure another 500 megawatts of energy storage from independent power developers. What’s more, the agreement stripped out the relatively small amount of solar — 200 megawatts — that Georgia Power had proposed.

In a statement last week, the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy blasted both Georgia Power and the Georgia PSC, calling the agreement a giveaway to the utility, which can expect to earn a healthy rate of return on the fossil-fueled power plants it was authorized to build, and saying it does little to protect ratepayers and even less to advance clean energy like solar and wind.”

Frankly, most of the utility plans are backward-looking,” Bryan Jacob, the alliance’s solar program director and Georgia liaison, said in an interview last week. They’re the same type of centralized generation resources that our parents and grandparents had and don’t look at alternative ways to meet this new load growth with a new set of technologies.”

In particular, Georgia Power has so far largely given short shrift to the potential for solar power and batteries to serve as an alternative to gas-fired power plants, he said — even though the economics favor the cleaner option.

Subscribe to receive Canary's latest news

Across the Southeastern U.S., utilities are experiencing growing peaks in electricity demand, especially during cold winter mornings and hot summer evenings, when customers’ heating and cooling needs outstrip supply. Gas-fired power plants that can be ramped up quickly to meet these peaks in grid demand are the go-to resource for utilities.

But solar power stored in batteries can also do the job — not only without emitting carbon and other pollution, but also at a cost that’s often cheaper than building and fueling gas-fired power plants over their lifetimes.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

New Jersey Will Issue a Drought Warning After Driest October Ever and as Wildfires Rage

New Jersey is issuing a drought warning after its driest September and October ever

BRICK, N.J. (AP) — With wildfires burning after its driest September and October ever, New Jersey will issue a drought warning, a step that could eventually lead to mandatory water restrictions if significant rain doesn't fall soon.The state Department of Environmental Protection held an online hearing Tuesday on the conditions. But they would not answer questions, including whether any part of the state is in danger of running out of drinking water or adequate water to fight fires, which are burning in nearly a half-dozen locations. The Associated Press left a message seeking comment from the department after the meeting.About an hour after it concluded, the department announced a press briefing for Wednesday “to discuss the state entering Drought Warning status as prolonged dry periods continue statewide.”The New Jersey Forest Fire Service says conditions in the state are the driest they have been in nearly 120 years.State geologist Steven Domber said water levels are declining across New Jersey.“They are well below long-term averages, and they're trending down,” he said. “They will continue to drop over the coming weeks unless we get significant rainfall.”He said about half the public water systems in New Jersey are experiencing close to normal demand for water, but 40% are seeing higher demand than usual.It could take 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain to meaningfully improve conditions in New Jersey, officials said. But forecasts don't call for that.The combination of higher than normal temperatures, severely diminished rainfall and strong demand for water is stressing water supplies, said David Robinson, the state climatologist. He said New Jersey received 0.02 inches (a half-millimeter) of rain in October, when 4.19 inches (10.64 cm) is normal.So far in November, the state has gotten a quarter to a half-inch (1.27 cm) of rain. The statewide average for the month is 4 inches (10.16 cm).Since August, the state received 2 inches (5.08 cm) of rain when it should have gotten a foot (0.3 meters), Robinson said.“A bleak picture is only worsening,” he said.The state was under a drought watch Tuesday morning, which includes restrictions on most outdoor fires and calls for voluntary conservation. The next step, which the state is considering, a drought warning, imposes additional requirements on water systems, and asks for even more voluntary water-saving actions. The final step would be declaration of a drought emergency, under which businesses and homes would face mandatory water restrictions.Several leaders of public water systems urged New Jersey to go straight to a drought emergency. Tim Eustace, executive director of the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, said the Wanaque Reservoir is at about 45% of capacity.“Using drinking water to water lawns is kind of crazy,” he said. “I would really like to move to a drought emergency so we can stop people from watering their lawns.”New Jersey has been battling numerous wildfires in recent weeks, including at least five last week. The largest has burned nearly 5 1/2 square miles (14.24 square kilometers) on the New Jersey-New York border and led to the death of a New York parks worker. That fire was 20% contained as of Tuesday morning.Conditions are also dry in New York, which issued a drought watch last week. Mayor Eric Adams mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and otherwise conserve water.Just 0.01 inches (0.02 cm) of rain fell last month on the city’s Central Park, where October normally brings about 4.4 inches (11.2 cm) of precipitation, National Weather Service records show. City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said it was the driest October in over 150 years of records.Jeff Tober, manager of Rancocas Creek Farm in the bone-dry New Jersey Pinelands, said his farm has gotten 0.6 inches (1.52 cm) of rain in the last 87 days.“It’s been pretty brutal,” he said.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

For farms and rural businesses, a fresh and funded harvest includes the sun

A federal initiative helps rural business owners and farmers slash expenses by funding solar and other energy innovations.

In Athens, Wisconsin, the lush green fields surrounding Stoney Acres Farm support a diverse farming operation, including cattle, pigs, wheat, and organic produce. Once a week during the summer, third-generation farmer Tony Schultz hosts a “Pizza on the Farm” night, selling pies made with his tomatoes, basil, vegetables, and pork. Even the pizza crust is made from his homegrown wheat. Sitting on the roof of the barn as visitors enter the property is a 23kW array of solar panels that power the farm’s operations. While solar originally was low on Schultz’s investment priority list, it became financially feasible once he took advantage of grants from the USDA’s Rural Energy for America, or REAP, program. This federal initiative provides grants and loans for projects like his. REAP funded about 40% of the two solar installations that now provide most of Stoney Acres Farms’ power.  The panels cut his monthly power bill from $800 to $200 or less per month, Schultz says. He’s surprised solar companies aren’t getting the word out better, but he wants fellow rural business and farm owners to know about the grants. “Even if you don’t care about your carbon footprint, it’s an easy investment,” Schultz said. “My initial cost has already been repaid and then some because of the REAP grants. It’s something that gives back.” Harvesting energy savings in rural communities REAP is a federally funded program that provides grants and loans to help rural businesses put in a wide variety of clean and energy-efficient technologies. The program partially funds projects that can range from solar panels and battery storage to efficient greenhouse HVAC systems and produce refrigerators. REAP was initially funded through the Farm Bill, which allocated $50 million per year to support renewable energy and efficiency projects for small farms and rural businesses. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 quadrupled that amount, adding $2 billion over 10 years. Farmers and rural small business owners can now apply for grants of up to $500,000 for energy efficiency projects and to $1 million for renewable energy systems. The REAP grants can break down financial barriers to renewable energy, said Emma Searson, a policy & advocacy campaigner with Solar United Neighbors (SUN), a national nonprofit dedicated to helping people access solar. SUN provides guidance and support to farmers and rural small business owners applying for REAP funding. “With that funding, those projects suddenly make more sense for a small farmer or rural business owner,” Searson said. “And it’s a powerful equity tool. Rural areas often have limited access to clean, affordable energy technologies, but the REAP program gives extra weight to applications from underserved rural communities.”  Beyond the obvious financial advantages, solar projects can come with a host of other unplanned benefits, Searson said. Energy security and resilience are crucial for farmers, who risk major losses if the power fails during weather events. Many in rural areas also value independence — producing energy on-site aligns with their values of self-reliance. It also helps demonstrate environmental stewardship to customers. A crowd gathers for a concert at Stoney Acres Farm. Stoney Acres Farm Generating energy can also promote financial stability, which can allow businesses to invest back in their business. In some cases, it can even create extra income by allowing them to sell power back to the grid. When solar-hosting businesses produce more energy than they need, the excess electricity is sent back into the power grid for use by others, and the businesses can credit on their utility bill for the energy they contributed. For Schultz, while the cost savings of solar was his initial motivator, he’s also noted other unexpected perks. “People are impressed when they see our solar panels — they’re part of our identity,” he said. “Our solar installation validates Stoney Acres as a sustainable family farm.” Avoiding outages, selling energy back  Near Sedona, Arizona, vintner and winery owner Eric Glomski creates wines that reflect the Verde Valley at Page Springs Cellars. He’s also proud that the winery is now completely powered by renewable energy, thanks to solar arrays and Tesla commercial battery storage funded by REAP grants. The grants covered roughly 25% of the system’s cost, and Glomski said that after just six years, the winery has already recouped the investment. Energy independence was a huge motivator for the transition to solar. “The weekends are our biggest revenue generators at the winery,” Glomski said. “If we lose power and need to close for a day during the high season, the business loses almost $15,000.” He also appreciates the energy flexibility — the batteries allow him to store energy to use during peak hours when rates are high, and the winery often sells energy back to the grid. Eric Glomski of Page Springs Cellars. Page Springs Cellars The most tangible benefits of the solar implementation were on the winery’s bottom line, Glomski said. But it’s also had intangible benefits for the vineyard’s revenues and reputation. “People want to put their dollars with businesses that take sustainability seriously,” he said. “And we’ve gotten so much visibility from our focus on renewable energy — we’ve had newspaper and magazine features, even won awards.” Other unexpected benefits have included the increased sense of pride that employees take in the business. Glomski highlights the story of an employee who educated herself about the winery’s sustainability practices and now gives eco-tours of the winery to visitors. “The solar panels were a big part of that,” he said. As Page Springs Winery enjoys the benefits of the REAP program, Glomski hopes that other farmers in his region will follow suit. “I know farmers who spend $30,000 [or] $40,000 a year on pumping water,” he said. “If they could use the REAP program to fund solar as their energy source, it would make a big difference in their bottom line.” Even though REAP has become more popular and grants more competitive, Searson still emphasizes that the program is a critical resource. “REAP is a remarkable and impactful opportunity for farmers and rural small businesses,” she said. “It can make solar or other energy efficiency projects financially attainable. These technologies can make a huge difference for your business or farm in the long term.” Solar United Neighbors (SUN) has developed a 10-week program that helps walk farmers and rural small business owners through the REAP application process. Those interested in assistance can join online: Ready, Set, Solar! LEARN MORE This story was originally published by Grist with the headline For farms and rural businesses, a fresh and funded harvest includes the sun on Nov 12, 2024.

Concerned about your data use? Here is the carbon footprint of an average day of emails, WhatsApps and more

Vast datacentres are being built worldwide, amid growing concerns about the environmental costs. So should we all be considering a data diet – if not complete digital sobriety?Nearly 20 years ago, the British mathematician Clive Humby coined a snappy phrase that has turned into a platitude: “data is the new oil”. He wasn’t wrong. We have an insatiable appetite for data, we can’t stop generating it, and, just like oil, it’s turning out to be bad news for the environment.So the Guardian set me a challenge: to try to give a sense of how much data an average person uses in a day, and what the carbon footprint of normal online activity might be. To do that, I tried to tot up the sorts of things I and millions of others do every day, and how that tracks back through the melange of messaging services, social networks, applications and tools, to the datacentres that keep our digital lives going. Continue reading...

Nearly 20 years ago, the British mathematician Clive Humby coined a snappy phrase that has turned into a platitude: “data is the new oil”. He wasn’t wrong. We have an insatiable appetite for data, we can’t stop generating it, and, just like oil, it’s turning out to be bad news for the environment.So the Guardian set me a challenge: to try to give a sense of how much data an average person uses in a day, and what the carbon footprint of normal online activity might be. To do that, I tried to tot up the sorts of things I and millions of others do every day, and how that tracks back through the melange of messaging services, social networks, applications and tools, to the datacentres that keep our digital lives going.My own carbon tally gets off to a bad start, and it is not even my fault. The email from my editor asking me to try to quantify quite how much data a single person uses in a day is itself contributing to my footprint. If the editor took 10 minutes to write the email – likely, given it was quite detailed – and it took me three minutes to read, and if it was sent from a laptop and received on one, then we have generated 17g of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions already, according to estimates by Mike Berners-Lee, a professor at Lancaster University’s Environment Centre, and the author of How Bad are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything.My frantic emails to people asking to speak to them for this story pump out more carbon at a prodigious rate. And though 17g of CO2 is insignificant compared with the 384.2m tonnes of net emissions the UK as a whole is responsible for each year, it all adds up.All those emails and videos and games don’t just appear on our screens by magic. Everything we do digitally involves the vast transfer of data through the internet from one place to another, brokered through datacentres. Datacentres are vast premises full of computer servers that store data. The idea behind them is to reduce what the data industry calls “latency”, the time between you typing in a web address or clicking on an app button, and the content you are requesting being delivered to you. Everything on the internet, every link you click, every video you watch, is physically stored in a datacentre somewhere.Digital sprawl … datacentres and industrial complexes in Medemblik, the Netherlands. Photograph: Merten Snijders/Getty ImagesDatacentres are big business, and vast numbers of them are being built around the world. In the UK, Amazon has just announced plans to invest £8bn over the next five years building new datacentres and maintaining those it already has, “supporting 14,000 jobs annually”. That comes on top of £3bn already spent in the UK by Amazon’s cloud computing arm since 2020. Google is spending $1bn on a new centre at a 133,500 sq metre (33-acre) site in Hertfordshire, and at the end of last year Microsoft committed to £2.5bn of investment in the next three years, more than doubling its datacentre footprint in this country.The reason for this is simple: demand is increasing at alarming rates. Americans used 100tn megabytes of wireless data in 2023, a record-breaking increase of 36% on the previous year – that’s enough to download Candy Crush Saga 265bn times.It is a lot of data, and a lot of energy is required to serve that data to us, plus a lot of water to keep all those servers cool. In fact, Ireland, the Netherlands and Singapore are so worried about the energy impact of datacentres that they have imposed moratoria on new developments. When Google announced its environmental impact earlier this year, it revealed its own greenhouse gas emissions had risen 48% in the last five years, and 13% in the last 12 months, largely driven by increased datacentre demand to service its AI needs. Now big tech companies have come up with another solution to try to solve the looming energy crisis: their own nuclear power plants. Microsoft has struck a deal to recommission the Three Mile Island site in Pennsylvania, Google recently announced plans to build six or seven new small reactors to meet its anticipated energy needs. There’s no way round it: a steady stream of environmental harm is coming from our everyday actions – activities that we often don’t think about in relation to the target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C.“You will run into this pretty much anywhere during the day,” says Alex de Vries, who researches the carbon footprint of our day-to-day lives at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. “Digital applications are so deeply embedded in our lives nowadays, it’s really hard to avoid. The thing is, when you’re using them, it’s not like you have something popping up in the screen telling you, like: ‘Hey, be aware, this activity has this carbon footprint.’”Ethernet and power cables plugged into the back of a computer server machine at a datacentre. Photograph: Ellen Isaacs/AlamyDe Vries also runs the Digiconomist website, which tries to track – where possible – the environmental impact of these things. That “where possible” is an important caveat. “It’s incredibly hard to figure out that information,” says de Vries.In the absence of reliable figures from the companies themselves, educated guesses are often all we can rely on. Case in point: estimates of the proportion of world energy use that the internet makes up range from 3.7% to 10%, depending on who is counting. One estimate by Zero Waste Scotland suggests all our online activity generates an average of 8.62kg of CO2 a week (about 448kg a year), or about 30 miles in an average-sized petrol car. But a German estimate (which also includes the emissions created by the production digital devices themselves) says we expend around twice that, roughly 850kg a year.People struggle with two key problems when trying to wrap their heads around their data usage and resultant carbon impact, says De Vries. One: everything is digital, and therefore not tangible. “If you’re holding a pen and a piece of paper, you can get some idea of what might be necessary to make this product,” he says. “But if you’re using a digital application, what’s really going into that to make all of that happen? A lot of people simply will have no clue what that looks like.”The other issue is that the tech companies are really good at making things work. “You probably don’t even know what is in [an application],” says De Vries. You press the button, and the Netflix series starts.Companies such as Netflix are disarmingly honest about their data usage: if you keep your video quality on “low”, you use a paltry 300MB an hour of data on a streaming service such as Netflix. If you want to watch things in HD, though, you ramp up to 3GB an hour when looking at the most detailed scenes. If you are a movie connoisseur, your 4K streaming uses up to 7GB an hour.But while few would argue we should spend less time in front of streaming services, the environmental impact of all that binge-watching appears to be comparatively low. A 2020 analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that watching an hour of Netflix was equivalent to boiling a kettle once: about 36g of CO2.There are other variables to take into account, though: the energy consumption of the device you are watching on, for example (Netflix says 70% of its viewers use televisions, which are more energy-hungry than mobile phones); or how the electricity you are using is generated (nuclear or wind is less carbon-emitting than coal or gas).If you want to gossip about the latest episode with your friends, that also comes with an environmental toll. The average WhatsApp group chat uses 2.35kg of CO2 a week, Zero Waste Scotland calculated. (To blunt the impact slightly, rely more on emojis – which are stored locally on your device – than reaction gifs, which have to be downloaded afresh from datacentres.) Listening to music online also comes at an environmental cost, although it is estimated that you can stream music for five hours before you will emit more CO2 – 288g – than is involved in making a CD in a case. Like many tech companies, Spotify has committed to reaching net zero emissions, in its case, by 2030.Construction work is continuing in Slough, Berkshire, on two huge datacentres for the Yondr Group, a developer, owner and operator of datacentres. Photograph: Maureen McLean/AlamyBig tech companies buy carbon credits and offsets to try to mitigate the impact of their activity, but it’s often seen as a poor attempt at atonement for the environmental impact they cause. There are also questions about the extent to which firms’ reported datacentre emissions are capturing the whole picture. A recent Guardian analysis found that real emissions between 2020 and 2022 from datacentres owned by the four big tech companies, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple, were likely to be 662% higher than officially reported.The tech industry’s warm embrace of generative AI has complicated things even further. It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. Type certain searches into Google and you will be given an “AI overview”, as Google calls them, which summarises key information from the results the search engine finds and presents it in a simple set of bullet points, alongside associated links. And you can’t turn it off. “AI Overviews are a core Google Search feature,” the company says.“Generative AI hasn’t necessarily added very many new use cases,” says Sasha Luccioni, AI and climate lead at AI company Hugging Face. “It’s adding more compute and more environmental impacts to existing use cases.” The problem is that we don’t fully know how much. “None of the corporates, and none of the proprietary models, have published any numbers,” she says. De Vries’s research suggests that AI-powered search results use 10 times the power that non-AI searches do.All this is before you get into the conscious use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude chatbot – where you are going to their websites or opening their apps, and taking part. Here, we are also in the dark about how much data, and therefore how much energy and water, generative AI uses. The best information we have is from informed third-party estimates: training GPT-3, a precursor to the current model, used an estimated 5.4m litres of water, according to one academic study, and produced as much CO2 as would be generated by flying between New York and San Francisco 550 times.I recently published a book on AI and as part of that, I have been touring and giving talks about AI’s impact on our world. In my favourite set of slides that I present there is a party trick. To highlight concerns around copyright in generative AI, I ask ChatGPT’s image generator, Dall-E, to produce a depiction of whichever place I’m in, in the style of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night.The gimmick always gets a laugh and serves its purpose: it shows how often the AI system has seen that painting by the ability to mimic its brushstrokes. But I always feel guilty. Because each time I do that, whether in Chipping Campden or Vilnius, I’m using data. About halfway through my book tour, I started adding a couple of slides immediately afterwards on the environmental impact of AI.So besides stopping generating bootleg Van Goghs, what should those of us conscious about our environmental footprint do? Luccioni advocates for “digital sobriety”: being mindful about how we use AI. “You don’t need to be using these new AI tools for everything,” she says. “There are applications that are useful, but there’s a lot of cases where you really don’t need them.” The same approach holds true for everything digital: think twice, text once.High scoring? Playing video games at home. Photograph: matrixnis/Getty ImagesYour data dietEstimating how much data your daily activities use is an art not a science, but here are best estimates of how much you are gobbling up online. Listening to a podcast: 20-100MB an hour Watching Netflix: 3GB an hour at HD quality Online shopping: Consider the data size of any images you browse, which can be big, before even thinking of the environmental impact of your delivery WhatsApp text message: 1-5KB a message, on average WhatsApp voice call: 400KB-1MB a minute WhatsApp video call: 2.5-15MB a minute Average pre-AI Google search: 500KB for a text-based search Average post-AI Google search: No one knows … Sending an email: Depends on the size of the message, but about 75KB on average Sending an email with photo attachment: As above, plus the size of the attachment Downloading an album on Spotify: Depends on your audio quality, but around 72MB for an hour-long album Playing a game of Fortnite: Between 45 and 100MB an hour

Convincing CA voters on ballot props

In the political world, there has been a lot of discussion lately about newspaper endorsements — or non-endorsements — and whether they matter for voters. They don’t for those who pick candidates based on party. But can they influence voters on ballot propositions? CalMatters politics intern Jenna Peterson looks at where California’s six leading newspaper […]

An attendee browses through a voter guide at an event co-hosted by CalMatters and India Currents at Shosha Restaurant in Sunnyvale on Oct. 25, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters In the political world, there has been a lot of discussion lately about newspaper endorsements — or non-endorsements — and whether they matter for voters. They don’t for those who pick candidates based on party. But can they influence voters on ballot propositions? CalMatters politics intern Jenna Peterson looks at where California’s six leading newspaper editorial boards landed on the 10 propositions on the November ballot. The editorial boards all supported Prop. 3 to enshrine same-sex marriage in the state constitution, and opposed Prop. 33 to enable local governments to expand rent control. Two boards stood alone on two measures: The Southern California News Group was the only one to endorse Prop. 34, which targets a sponsor of rent control measures, while the Sacramento Bee was the lone supporter of Prop. 35 to lock in revenue from a health care plan tax for Medi-Cal patients. Read more about this election’s newspaper endorsements (including our handy chart) in Jenna’s story. In other election news: Prop. 6: The constitutional amendment to limit forced prison labor is flailing in the polls and supporters are running out of time. So they’re pulling out all the stops with a series of events featuring different groups of backers: On Tuesday criminal justice reform advocates, local elected officials and Democratic Assemblymember Liz Ortega of Hayward rallied in Oakland to focus on Prop. 6’s potential impact on rehabilitation and the Latino community. And in Los Angeles today, women, including U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, plan to discuss how the measure will help female inmates. Ballot titles: Every election, there are complaints that the proposition titles are too slanted or just too confusing. But the 10 on California’s ballot are slightly less complicated than the national average, according to a “readability” study from Ballotpedia. California’s props are written at a college reading level, while the average is one grade level higher. And Prop. 32, to increase the minimum wage, had one of the three shortest titles of 159 ballot measures in 41 states. In case you were wondering, the ballot measure with the highest grade level is a $25 million bond issue in Maine and the lowest is a Florida constitutional amendment for the right to hunt and fish. Mail ballots: The U.S. Postal Service is out with a statement that says it’s confident that extra measures will guarantee that ballots arrive in time, and that the performance this year will be at least equal to 2020, when 98% were delivered within three days and 99.7% within five days. Still, the postal service is urging voters to mail ballots before Election Day and at least a week before they’re due in election offices. Reminder: In California, ballots that are postmarked by Nov. 5 and arrive by Nov. 12 will still be counted. The Secretary of State’s office said Tuesday that more than 5 million California voters have signed up to track their ballots. VotingMatters: CalMatters has a new local lookup tool to find out what you’ll be voting on for the November election. We’re also hosting a series of public events across California. The next ones are today at the Belmont and East Palo Alto libraries. Sign up here. There are more ways to read our Voter Guide, including fully translated versions in Chinese and in Korean, as well as in Spanish. Learn about the propositions on TikTok and Instagram. And keep up with CalMatters coverage by signing up for 2024 election emails. Focus on Inland Empire: Each Wednesday, CalMatters Inland Empire reporter Deborah Brennan surveys the big stories from that part of California. Read her newsletter and sign up here to receive it. Other Stories You Should Know GOP plays the wealth card State Sen. Brian Jones at a Senate Appropriations Committee session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Sept. 1, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters In their latest attempt to stop a potential gas price hike, Republican legislators are calling out the apparent wealth of members and leaders of the California Air Resources Board. On Nov. 8 the board — 12 of 16 members appointed by the governor — is poised to vote on proposed updates to California’s low-carbon fuel standards, which seek to reduce transportation emissions and air pollution, but will also likely lead to an increase in gas prices. Citing information from publicly available economic interest statements, which elected officials and public employees are required to submit, GOP state Senate leader Brian Jones of San Diego said Tuesday that 10 of the 14 voting members are “considerably wealthier than the average Californian,” and that the board’s executive officer, Steve Cliff, “is a millionaire.” Jones added that Gov. Gavin Newsom and board members can easily afford gas should prices rise. Jones, in a press release: “Should we really be surprised they look down on the struggling middle class and working poor? Their ‘we know what’s best for you’ attitude is infuriating for hardworking Californians who are already scraping by just to fill their tanks at current prices, let alone after this new hike.” A spokesperson for the resource board told CalMatters that six board members aren’t compensated by the state and two receive less than $60,000 per year. The board also issued a statement arguing that its mission focuses on “environmental injustices in overburdened communities.”  The statement: “The amended proposal is estimated to save Californians by increasing options for consumers while protecting public health and saving residents $5 billion in health costs by reducing the impacts of pollution.” And in case you’re wondering: Jones’ $147,446 annual salary as a legislative leader is about $52,000 more than the median household income in California. His own economic interest form also indicates Jones received between $1,000 to $10,000 last year in income as a partner of an interior decorating business. Look up other legislators on the Fair Political Practices Commission’s site. Are workers safe from bird flu? Raul (Che) Pedroza Cedillo milks cows at Frank Konyn Dairy Inc. in Escondido on April 16, 2020. Photo by Ariana Drehsler, AFP via Getty Images Two years since bird flu hit California poultry farms, the virus’ new target, cattle, poses a threat to dairy farmers and workers, writes CalMatters health reporter Kristen Hwang. Since August, there have been 178 confirmed bird flu cases at California dairies. In Tulare County, the nation’s biggest milk producer, the state’s first human cases were reported in early October. To date, California has reported 16 human cases of bird flu — nearly all of the country’s cattle-to-human transmissions. So far, no workers have been hospitalized; they have reported flu-like symptoms and pink eye. Local health departments and farms have distributed more than 1 million pieces of personal protective equipment. But worker advocates say California isn’t doing enough to protect dairy workers. Only 39 people have been tested for the bird flu strain infecting cattle, according to the state’s public health department. One other wrinkle: A spokesperson for the United Farm Workers union said workers often avoid testing because they can’t afford the 10-day isolation period with no pay if they are positive. Learn more about how bird flu is impacting dairy farms in Kristen’s story. In other health news: Attorney General Rob Bonta has reached a temporary agreement with a Catholic hospital in Eureka that allegedly refused to provide an emergency abortion, Kristen reports. Providence St. Joseph Hospital agrees to comply with a state law banning hospitals from denying emergency care.  And lastly: Community land trusts Laurel Lamont, the founder of the housing organization Upward Community, in front of the apartment complex where she resides in Temecula on Oct. 11, 2024. Photo by Kristian Carreon for CalMatters Community land trusts are mushrooming across California as a way to preserve affordable housing, despite a state fund not getting a dime out the door. Find out about a program in Temecula from CalMatters Inland Empire reporter Deborah Brennan. California Voices CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: The California Air Resources Board’s vote on low-carbon fuel rules is going to be highly contentious given the complexities, uncertainties and anxieties surrounding gas prices. Two views on California biofuel rules: The state must proceed with the rule changes — otherwise dairy farmers could leave the state, writes Sal Rodriguez, a dairy farm manager in Fresno County. The proposed changes will burden drivers and subsidize questionable types of fuel, writes Danny Cullenward, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Other things worth your time: Some stories may require a subscription to read. Californians head to NV and AZ to knock on doors for Harris // Los Angeles Times Newsom announces $830M in homelessness spending — with strings // KQED Crush of spending in CA, NY is political penance for Democrats // Politico Billionaire VC unloads on Musk and Trump at SF tech conference // The San Francisco Standard LA County wants to crack down on corruption. Is it worth $21M? // Los Angeles Times Egging incident haunts CA state Assembly candidate // Politico USAA raises home insurance rates for 265,000 Californians // San Francisco Chronicle World’s largest wildlife crossing spans CA freeway // Los Angeles Times Tech companies trim hundreds more Bay Area jobs, yet layoff pace slows // The Mercury News SF mayoral hopeful Lurie turns family fortune into political gold // The San Francisco Standard Feds to spend $42M to buy out Palos Verdes landslide homes // Los Angeles Times

What to Do With SF’s Great Highway? Here’s the Skinny on Prop. K.

San Francisco voters will decide this year whether to authorize the Great Highway to go car-free, and maybe become a park. The post What to Do With SF’s Great Highway? Here’s the Skinny on Prop. K. appeared first on Bay Nature.

Proposition K would start a process that could, about a year later, permanently close a large section of San Francisco’s Great Highway to car traffic so that the city could later turn it into a park. The measure would not fund the design or creation of the park. The measure would affect a section of roadway called the Upper Great Highway, a 2-mile stretch along Ocean Beach on the city’s western edge, from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard. Proposition K marks the latest chapter in a saga that began early in the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, the Board of Supervisors closed the Upper Great Highway to vehicle traffic so that residents could walk and bike there while social distancing, to slow the disease’s spread — a move that was widely popular. In 2022, the board approved a pilot project that kept the street closed to cars on weekends but open to them during weekdays. The pilot project is set to end at the close of 2025, at which point the board would decide whether to change the road’s use. If passed, Proposition K would decide the Upper Great Highway’s fate instead. Listen to a summary of what this ballot measure would do. Support Five San Francisco supervisors co-sponsored Proposition K’s placement on the ballot: Myrna Melgar, Dean Preston, Rafael Mandelman, Matt Dorsey and Joel Engardio, who has been the most vocal of the measure’s advocates. Engardio represents the Sunset District, which contains the Upper Great Highway. Proposition K is a “once-in-a-century opportunity” to transform the road into an iconic oceanside park that could bring the Sunset to life, Engardio has said. Proponents say that the highway’s pilot project has been a success, drawing an average of 4,000 visitors per weekend day. Making the road a permanent park could boost business opportunities, reduce automobile pollution in the area and create more safe space for pedestrians and cyclists to enjoy the beach, they say. The park would also increase coastal access for people with mobility challenges, such as wheelchair users and those with physical disabilities. Proposition K has secured support from prominent political figures, including Mayor London Breed, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, state Sen. Scott Wiener, BART Board director Janice Li and former District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar. Friends of Great Highway Park, a group that hosts events and activities on the roadway during weekends, has advocated loudly for the proposition. Other supporters include a diverse array of organizations focused on urban planning, environmentalism and local politics, like Livable City, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Sierra Club, SPUR, the San Francisco Democratic Party, San Francisco YIMBY and GrowSF. Opposition Since the proposition’s announcement, it has divided residents on San Francisco’s west side. Opponents expressed frustration that Engardio did not consult them before deciding to place it on the ballot. They argue that it’s unfair for voters citywide to decide their neighborhood’s future. Opponents say the Upper Great Highway is vital for north-south travel, and permanently closing it to vehicles could worsen traffic and divert it into residential areas, as well as lengthen commutes — a recent study by the city’s transportation agency found a minor potential impact on commutes. Some merchants worry that these inconveniences would discourage long-time customers from continuing to patronize them. District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan represents the Richmond District, home to many Great Highway commuters in the city’s northwest. She opposes the ballot measure, arguing that it’s too extreme; she has proposed converting only half the road into recreational space and keeping the rest of it open to cars. Some prominent local groups representing Chinese and other Asian American residents oppose Proposition K, including the Edwin M. Lee Asian Pacific Democratic Club, Chinese American Democratic Club and Chinatown Merchants United Association of San Francisco. Aaron Peskin, Board of Supervisors president and a mayoral candidate, also opposes Proposition K, calling it divisive and an “unfunded mandate.” Mayoral candidates Daniel Lurie and Mark Farrell oppose Proposition K, too. Other detractors include Open The Great Highway, a group formed to oppose the road’s closure, and several neighborhood groups, including Planning Association for the Richmond, Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods and Neighborhoods United SF. What it would do Proposition K would not immediately and permanently close the Upper Great Highway to cars and transform it into a park. Instead, the measure’s passage would begin a long bureaucratic process, involving numerous local and state government agencies, that would lead to that outcome. Because the measure would not create funding for the park, officials would have to find a way to pay for it. If voters passed Proposition K, then the San Francisco Planning Department would propose changes to the land-use rules governing the Upper Great Highway so that it could become a park. The Board of Supervisors would publicly review that proposal, and residents and concerned citizens could attend hearings and offer comment. The board would likely approve the proposal, as rejecting it could be seen as “not implementing the will of the voters,” said Jonathan Goldberg, legislative aide to Supervisor Engardio. That would be “unheard of,” he added, and could expose the city to risk of lawsuit. To proceed, the city would also need approval from state regulators. At that point — possibly 10 months to a year after Proposition K’s passage, at the soonest — the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department could start designing the new park, a process that might take several years, Goldberg said. In the meantime, the department could apply to close the road to vehicle traffic permanently, so that it could be used entirely for recreation. The Recreation and Parks Department did not respond to requests for comment about its role in implementing Proposition K. Cost The San Francisco Controller’s Office analyzed what it would cost City Hall to manage the Upper Great Highway after permanently closing it to car traffic — a scenario that Proposition K’s passage would enable, but not immediately bring about. The office’s analysis did not include the costs associated with obtaining regulatory approval for the closure. It also omitted design and construction costs for a new park. By closing the Upper Great Highway to car traffic, the city would save an estimated $1.5 million in one-time infrastructure expenses, Deputy Controller ChiaYu Ma wrote in the office’s analysis. That factors in $4.3 million that the city would avoid spending on canceled road construction and traffic signal replacements, offset by $860,000 to $2.7 million in new costs for traffic calming measures and traffic lights to divert vehicles from the Upper Great Highway to alternative routes. Keeping the road closed to cars may cause increased expenses for trash collection and other operations, Ma said. But overall, the city would save $350,000 to $700,000 each year in reduced road and traffic light maintenance, as well as sand removal. Campaign finance As of Oct. 7, the “Yes on K” campaign committee had raised $608,553, according to data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Much of that money has come from leaders in tech and finance, including $350,000 from Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman; $75,000 from Emmett Shear, a partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator; $50,000 from Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs, a public blockchain platform developer; and $49,900 from the Benjamin Spero, managing director of Spectrum Equity, an investment firm. The “No on K” campaign committee had raised $110,645. Matt Boschetto, a candidate in the District 7 supervisor race, created the committee. By a quirk of election laws, the measure-focused committee lacks the per-person $500 contribution limit that applies to committees focused on getting candidates into office.  Boschetto cannot legally use the funds from “No on K” for his supervisorial campaign. Boschetto’s father, Michael Boschetto, had contributed $50,000 to “No on K,” while the Boschetto Family Partnership added $10,000 and Matt Boschetto himself gave $5,000. Anti-Proposition K group Open the Great Highway is the target of an ethics complaint, which alleges that it fundraised without first registering as a political action committee. History and context Proposition K is highly controversial. Both supporters and opponents have contested how it is presented to voters, from its title on the ballot to its official financial analysis. It has been the focus of numerous political demonstrations and media roundtables, and candidates in many supervisorial races have invoked the issue in their campaigns. In 2022, San Franciscans considered a ballot measure that would have ended the Upper Great Highway pilot program and allowed cars back on the road seven days a week, as well as let cars resume driving on John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure, with 65.11% voting against it. Closing the Upper Great Highway could leave the city’s Chinese American community feeling isolated, said Supervisor Chan at a recent debate on Proposition K, hosted by local radio station KALW. Chan, the only Asian American on the Board of Supervisors, said that Chinese residents frequently use the thoroughfare to travel between the Richmond and Sunset districts, both of which have historically served as cultural hubs for the community. But, of all drivers who take the Upper Great Highway, just 5% use it to commute between those districts, according to a 2021 study of pre-pandemic traffic data. Most drivers use it to get to the South Bay, the study found. The section of road south of the Upper Great Highway, which is called the Great Highway Extension and connects the Sunset District to Daly City, has already been slated for closure due to coastal erosion. The Upper Great Highway faces a moderate risk of erosion, with its southern portion particularly affected. Votes needed to pass Proposition K requires a simple majority of “yes” votes to pass.

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