LA Weekly

Yesterday morning the Los Angeles Business Council (“sort of like the Chamber of Commerce only more altruistic,” says one of its spokespeople), hosted a breakfast so business leaders could quiz H. David Nahai, current president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Board of Commissioners, on the specifics of the DWP's renewable energy program.

A developer and a RAND scientist sat among the interrogators; a realtor moderated.

And whatever is wrong in Los Angeles today, however mismanaged its agencies, rotten its public school system and clueless its developers – whatever skepticism I personally harbor about the sincerity of the city’s efforts to clean up the deadly air around its blighted port (or its power to do the same) -- there was something thrilling about sitting in the 17th-floor Regency Club and hearing not about how the city should raise its “renewable portfolio standard” (RPS), or how business must learn to cope with the financial hardship of such changeover, but that, hell or high water, the DWP will get 20 percent of its power from non-polluting wind, solar and geothermal by 2010.

“Our green program has not been as vibrant as it could have been,” Nahai admitted. “But now we’re on an inexorable path. We have an irreversible commitment.”

This is not just because the Los Angeles City Council decided the DWP should make that commitment. It’s not just that the good people at the DWP suddenly realized in December of 2005, when they set this goal, that Wyoming’s dirty air is our dirty air: Climate change has taught us we all live on one small planet. It’s that three bills to reduce greenhouse gases have cleared Schwarzenegger’s desk, and more anti-carbon bills will no doubt emerge the Democrat-controlled federal House and Senate, and every utility in the country could soon face fines for continuing to get their power from dirty-burning coal. Add to that nutty natural gas prices and supplies that mess with the state’s electricity rates (California gets almost 40 percent of its electricity from natural gas – and if you think natural gas is clean and ecologically neutral, think again, real hard), and the shift toward renewables becomes “an investment worth making,” Nahai said. “The time is right to move forward aggressively on a number of fronts.”

But it’s not going to be easy.

The LADWP currently derives only around two to five percent of its power from solar, wind, geothermal and small hydroelectric sources. In times past, the utility’s deciders have seen many a contract with a renewable-energy provider fall through; this time around, they’re trying to develop their own projects in addition to buying green power from other places. A couple of projects are in the works, including 100 megawatts in geothermal power from the Salton Sea and 120 megawatts from the Pine Tree Wind Farm, scheduled to begin bird-mincing – I mean, operations – later this year (“There were some delays in that project,” Nahai said, “but we’re over the worst of them.”) But none of them provide anywhere close to the 1,440 megawatts needed to supply 20 percent of the utility’s power. And 2010 is only three short years away.

“Have you looked at putting photovoltaics [solar panels] over all city parking lots?” one of the panelists asked. Nahai gave some kind of upbeat response, but to me the very question seemed overwhelming.

But that 1,440 is 20 percent of the utility’s generating capacity. Twenty percent of its peak demand is more than 1,000 megawatts. And what if we didn’t ever need 5,200 megawatts? What if our peak demand was more like, 4,000 megawatts? Wouldn’t that 20 percent figure be easier to hit?

As city leaders in Austin, Texas learned when they set their own renewable-energy goal, conservation and efficiency can displace a whole coal-fired power plant.

Chicago cleared the 20-percent-renewable hurdle in part by retrofitting tens of millions of square feet of public buildings with efficient equipment for heating and cooling, lighting and ventilation. The retrofits have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 30,000 tons each year – enough to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of 15,000 people.

In Portland, a separate non-profit, Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. (PECI), conducts energy audits on buildings around the city.

So how about something like Kill-A-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor in every home? Studies have shown that they work: For the residential watt-squanderer, nothing beats feedback. People use less electricity if they’re constantly reminded how much they’re using.

That may be easier and faster than carpeting every roof with solar panels. Because there’s another consequence to all the legislative and energy-market pressure:

“I don’t want to admit it,” Nahai said. “But we’re dealing with a seller’s market.” Since 2004, the price of photovoltaic technology – individual cells that take (sun)light (in Greek, photo), and turn it into volts – been steadily inching up.

L.A.’s playing catch-up here. But with a mayor who pushes and environmental agenda and a city council that takes pride in its many projects to green the city, we may be able to fire up our fluorescent light bulbs without worry so much about our impact on the polar bears. Here’s hoping.

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