Author: Edward Ring

Edward Ring is the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. The California Policy Center is an educational non-profit focused on public policies that aim to improve California’s democracy and economy. He is also a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness. Ring is the author of two books: "Fixing California - Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism" (2021), and "The Abundance Choice - Our Fight for More Water in California" (2022).

Ringside: The Energy and Water Footprint of AI

September 17, 2026 6:00 amSeptember 17, 2026 6:01 am

Whether artificial intelligence should be regulated, and if so, how, has almost overnight become one of the biggest political issues of our time. And with AI comes a surge in construction of massive data centers, for which we should minimize...

Ringside: Comments on the ‘Water Quality Control Plan’ for the Delta

September 9, 2026 4:39 pmSeptember 9, 2026 4:39 pm

The August 2026 final draft of the State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) “Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Watershed” has been released. Written comments will be accepted through September 18, and the board will also take oral...

Ringside: Where Does California Get its Energy?

September 2, 2026 4:50 pmSeptember 3, 2026 7:40 am

Finding quality, consolidated information on energy use in California is surprisingly difficult. The California Department of Energy provides detailed information on electricity production, and a variety of reports on, for example, refinery inputs and production. But there is no report available from...

Ringside: Without Sediment Removal in the Delta, Catastrophic Flooding is Coming to California

August 27, 2026 8:14 amAugust 27, 2026 8:14 am

In the cities and farms immediately south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the worst flooding of the 20th century happened in 1997. Several days of unrelenting rain pummeled the slopes of the Sierras, and with the snow line unusually high at...

Ringside: Iron Air Batteries – Niche, or Next Big Thing?

August 19, 2026 2:52 pmAugust 19, 2026 2:52 pm

Iron air batteries appear poised to play, at the least, an important niche role in the emerging electric age. A very recent example of this is the $750 million equity financing that Form Energy secured this week, raising the total investment in...

Is Covering California’s Aqueducts and Canals with Solar Panels Economical?

August 13, 2026 6:30 amAugust 13, 2026 8:15 am

Earlier this week, a respected YouTube channel covering the future of technology and energy released a video exploring the viability of solar panels covering California’s canals and aqueducts. The videos are hosted by Ricky Roy, a California-based mechanical engineer whose channel is...

Ringside: Debunking the Allegedly Prohibitive Cost of Desalination

August 5, 2026 12:00 pmAugust 5, 2026 12:00 pm

Earlier this summer a guest op-ed appeared in the Orange County Register, “Learning the right lesson from San Diego’s desal water surplus.” But the “lesson” presented was only partly accurate. What the authors, both affiliated with the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC),...