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Legoland California announces opening date of new dinosaur land

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Legoland California announces opening date of new dinosaur land


CARLSBAD, Calif. (KGTV) — Legoland California is set to unveil a new dinosaur-themed land later this month following its achievement in breaking the world record for hosting the largest dinosaur costume party

More than 1,000 people dressed in head-to-toe dinosaur costumes participated in a lively dance at the park to celebrate Sunday morning.

Sandy Huffaker/LEGOLAND California Resort.

Legoland Dinosaur costume record contest at Legoland California on Sunday, March 3, 2024.(Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Legoland)

Dino Valley, the latest addition to the Carlsbad park, will open its gates on March 22.

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As part of the festivities marking its 25th anniversary this year, the park is also gearing up for the debut of the Lego World Parade in the summer.

North America's first-ever Lego World Parade

Legoland California Resort

The parade, the first of its kind in North America, will showcase a firetruck, a pirate ship and floats inspired by different Lego characters.

The new Dino Valley land will be located near the entrance of the park. Here’s what to expect when it opens:

  • Duplo Little Dino Trail: This new four-seater ride will take visitors through the Duplo Dino safari with cameras available for children to play hide & seek with dinosaurs.
  • Explorer River Quest: Passengers will cruise down a river and interact with all kinds of Lego dinosaur models.
  • Coastersaurus: This long-standing ride will be unchanged, featuring a 1,100-pound Brachiosaurus and a 10-foot tall Parasaurolophus.
  • Interactive Dino Area: Kids can dig up fossils and meet with the newest characters.





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California

Elias: California water agency supply estimates should be more realistic

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Elias: California water agency supply estimates should be more realistic


The thousands of drivers traversing Interstate 5 on any given day this winter can see for themselves: Nothing even remotely like a water shortage currently plagues the State Water Project.

This is completely obvious from the major viewpoint off the east side of the interstate between Gustine and Patterson, from which it’s clear that all major canals of the project just south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are full to capacity or nearly so.

It’s much the same a few dozen miles to the southwest, where the water project’s largest manmade lake, the San Luis Reservoir, is chock-full. Sand-colored margins that grew steadily larger during the decade of drought from 2010 to 2020 have long since been inundated, with the artificial lake shining bright blue on crisp, sunny winter days.

Water officials also promise the San Luis Reservoir will soon be expanded. So why does California’s Water Resources Department persist in providing preliminary farm water allocations that can only be described as small?

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It may be due to insecurity, a sense that the Pacific Ocean is due for a long-running “La Nina” condition that could produce a new drought and lower State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project water volumes to the dangerously dry levels of seven and eight years ago.

It may also simply be bureaucrats reminding farmers that they control the lifeblood of America’s most productive agricultural region, also one of the five largest industries in California.

The reality, though — especially after heavy “atmospheric river” rains in mid-November and December drenched Northern California — is that farms will receive far more water than the 5% of requested amounts promised them in late December, when state officials behaved as if the November downpours would be the water year’s last precipitation.

Yes, it is the duty of water officials to husband California’s water supplies to make sure neither cities nor farms ever run completely dry. But 5% made no real sense. It’s as if the bureaucrats who work for Gov. Gavin Newsom wanted to put the lie to his post-election pledges to pay more heed to the Central Valley and its interests, whose sense of being disrespected was one reason that region was the only major part of California carried by President Trump in last fall’s election.

This adds up to a need to change some practices, including a few outlined by Karla Nemeth, the Water Resources Department’s director. “We need to prepare for any scenario, and this early in the season we need to take a conservative approach to managing our water supply,” she said.

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That makes planning crops difficult, though, if not impossible, for farmers unless they depend greatly on ground water, a resource becoming increasingly depleted while ground levels above aquifers subside, which they have, as anyone can deduce from seeing onetime irrigation pipes that now rise several feet above current ground levels.

Compromising a bit would be better in years following a few seasons of heavy rain, today’s situation. Another way to put this might be to ask why state bureaucrats push a number and then essentially wink at farmers to tell them what they’re hearing is nowhere near what will eventually govern.

That’s what happened last year too, when the initial estimate of what farmers would get was 10% of requests and the ultimate amount was 40% — still using conservative allocations to make sure, unnecessarily, that reservoirs and canals remained full all year round rather than just partially full.

Even now, after a 2024 that was much drier than 2023 and an early winter with virtually no rain in Southern California, drinking water reservoirs remain nearly full. Diamond Valley Lake, near Hemet, the largest such potable water storage facility in Southern California, was at 97% of capacity shortly after Christmas.

All this makes the time high for California water bureaucrats to cut out their act and provide farmers and other citizens with realistic supply estimates, rather than constantly reserving the right to leave water districts and their people and industries high and dry, even when supplies are copious.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com, and read more of his columns online at californiafocus.net.

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Northern California’s dry January only put a minor dent in region’s water supply

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Northern California’s dry January only put a minor dent in region’s water supply


The incoming storms follow what has been an exceptionally dry January for the Bay Area, with the lack of rain having an impact on the region’s water supply.

Healdsburg residents Tom and Molly Nicol visited Lake Sonoma to see where its water levels stood before they rise again with the rain from this weekend’s atmospheric river.  

“Yeah, when the water is up to the bottom of those trees over there, you know it’s full,” laughed Tom. “And you can see that it’s dropped a little bit from the last storm we got in December. So it’s down a little, but it’s full.”

There is still room in the lake, with a good chunk of winter yet to come.

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“That’s the thing. You need more storms,” explained Jeffrey Mount with the PPIC Water Policy Center. “We need somewhere in the order of five to seven big storms. That makes up the bulk of our precipitation. Just the difference of two storms can be the difference between an average year and a wet year.”

Mount cautions that this winter’s full story is yet to be written.

“We can tell what kind of year it’s gonna be by the end of February,” he said of California’s water year. “That’s it. And then we kinda know what it’s gonna be like.”

So where do things currently stand? After significant rains in November and December, the dry January has landed Northern California right back at an average winter. But looking at reservoirs like Lake Sonoma, the situation is better than average. 

For that, Californians can thank the current streak of wet winters, which could turn into something very out of the ordinary.

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“Shasta and Oroville are well above their historical averages,” Mount said of the state’s largest reservoirs. “So we’re about average, and our reservoirs are in really good shape right now. That’s the one thing. Even in the dry parts of the state.”

It is the continued payoff of the good year, and then an average year. Throw in another average year and — as far as recent decades — that’s a pretty decent three-year stretch.

“Yeah, and in two ways,” Mount explained. “One is we don’t get back-to-back wet years. It just doesn’t happen in the system. We usually have intervening dry years. 2017 was very wet. 2018 was dry, 2019 was wet. So yeah, ’23 and ’24 were really unusual. And if we come up with an average year on top of that, that is unprecedented in the 21st-century, is the best way to describe it. We haven’t seen that.”

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Largest ever treasure under the California desert: 50 tons per day for centuries

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Largest ever treasure under the California desert: 50 tons per day for centuries


A vast and sun-drenched area of California’s Mojave Desert is about to deliver a renewable energy breakthrough. Spanish solar developer RIC Energy has announced plans for the state’s largest green hydrogen facility, which would generate a staggering 50 tons of green hydrogen a day. This over-sized endeavor was conceived as a key to unlocking the desert’s potential for California’s transition to renewable energy and revolutionizing the future of electricity generation in the state.

How the Mojave Desert will produce 50 tons of green hydrogen daily

The Mojave Desert has ideal conditions for renewable energy deployment because of its abundant sunlight and wide-open areas. At the core of this ambitious project is the manufacturing of green hydrogen through electrolysis, which uses solar-powered electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

Unlike conventional fossil fuel-based hydrogen production methods, which produce significant CO2, this method is carbon-free. Producing 50 tons of energy daily, this facility will change the energy business. This output will fuel vehicles, heat industrial processes, and balance out the electricity grid.

The project imagines a future illuminated by renewable energy lighting up the globe and transforming fossil fuels from the cornerstone of globe’s energy systems to a relic of the past. It also provides a reliable source of constant and stable energy by capitalizing on the sun-soaked desert land of the Mojave.

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This breakthrough demonstrates how we can make the most of eco-friendly design, solar power technology, and modern water management. When combined, they create a very low environmental impact while increasing energy production.

Decarbonizing the desert: Mojave’s 50 tons of green hydrogen with no environmental harm

The Mojave project isn’t just a renewable energy facility; it liberates an immense, sustainable resource. Referred to as “the biggest treasure underneath the California desert,” these 50 tons of green hydrogen output have long-term benefits that could span centuries.

All project partners, including Cadiz Ranch, a privately owned water company, have committed to using innovative water conservation techniques to provide the facility’s water needs sustainably. This allows for green hydrogen production without endangering the fragile desert ecosystem.

What is unique about this project is its scale and sustainability. Hydro-producing 50 tons of green hydrogen daily for decades (just like this Nevada desert, which has liquid hydrogen flowing underground) will make the Mojave installation a key pillar of California’s renewable energy plan. It also highlights large-scale green hydrogen production as a viable, long-term solution to increasing energy demand that does not aggravate climate change.

Energy independence: Mojave hydrogen is the key to California’s future

The Mojave Green Hydrogen project has significant benefits and serves as a model for replication for the rest of the world seeking the same energy transition. This project demonstrates that merging cutting-edge technology with the natural world can create sustainable energy systems.

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This project will also benefit California economically. By reducing dependence on foreign energy sources and locally producing hydrogen, California would not only have energy, but the state would also create jobs in construction and operation, putting California at the forefront of the green hydrogen economy.

Green hydrogen has also been strongly criticized for the costs involved in its production and for replacing existing infrastructure with new installations. The Mojave project, however, tackles these challenges head-on. Developers can now optimize this by hosting the installation in a location with substantial solar resources.

The project also aligns with California’s climate goals, which calls for the state to become carbon-neutral by 2045. The Mojave installation demonstrates that renewable energy infrastructure can be an asset in building a cleaner and more comprehensive energy future by providing reliable, emission-free electricity generation.

The 50 tons of green hydrogen produced daily will be a monumental leap for global sustainable energy, using the Mojave Desert’s vast energy potential. It establishes a gold international standard for renewable energy, serving as a model of innovation and collaboration in the fight against climate change (like this pink hydrogen, which was produced for the first time in history). Aside from being an energy source, it shall also be a long-term legacy of sustainability and progress for future generations.

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