Mayor Villaraigosa announces L.A. solar energy incentive plan based on UCLA Luskin research

flickr credit: powerhouse museum The City of LA to encourage businesses and residences to install their own solar panels. By Minnie Ho Originally published in UCLA Newsroom J.R. DeShazo, the director UCLA's Luskin Center for Innovation, has long studied how governments can promote and help implement environmentally friendly energy policies. Now, his recent research on solar energy incentive programs, conducted with Luskin Center research project manager Ryan Matulka and other colleagues at UCLA, has become the basis for a new energy policy introduced by the city of Los Angeles. On Monday, March 15, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced an ambitious program to move the city's energy grid toward renewable energy sources over the next decade. Included in the plan is a provision — based in large part on the Luskin Center research — for a "feed-in tariff," which would encourage residents to install solar energy systems that are connected to the c…
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  • March 31, 2010
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EPA Fortune 500 List

The Green Power Partnership works with a wide variety of leading organizations — from Fortune 500 companies to local, state and federal governments, and a growing number of colleges and universities. The following Top Partner Rankings highlight the annual green power purchases of leading organizations within the United States and across individual industry sectors. These green power purchases help reduce the environmental impacts of electricity use and support the development of new renewable generation capacity nationwide. Purchase amounts reflect U.S. operations only and are sourced from U.S.-based green power resources. Organizations can meet EPA purchase requirements using any combination of three different product options (1) Renewable Energy Certificates, (2) On-site generation, and (3) Utility green power products. (more…)
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  • March 30, 2010
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Carbon Offsetting

What is Carbon Offsetting? "Carbon offsets allow purchasers to neutralize the carbon dioxide produced from their businesses and everyday activities - their 'carbon footprint' - by supporting a variety of emissions reduction initiatives." The Environmental Defense Fund How does Carbon Offsetting Work? Carbon offsetting is the act of mitigating (canceling out) greenhouse gas emissions. Individuals and businesses can purchase offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal travel or production processes. Carbon offsets can be more efficient and immediate than other measures an individual can take to fight global warming, while reducing the same or more carbon dioxide emissions. How can I start reducing my carbon emissions? The first step towards carbon neutrality is reducing the carbon emissions produced, by using alternative energy, alternative transportation, reusing, recycling, and supporting local farms and businesses. Aft…
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  • March 30, 2010
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Is Hydrogen Fuel the Answer?

Today, powering fuel cells with hydrogen can create more greenhouse gasses than powering directly from fossil fuels, because hydrogen is most often made using traditional gas- or coal-fired electricity. Today, renewable sources produce only 2% of the world’s electricity. Consider the math for a PEM based fuel cell car: Burning coal to generate one megawatt-hour of electricity produces about 2100 pounds of carbon dioxide. Using that electricity to make hydrogen would yield enough fuel for a fuel-cell [PEM] car to travel about 1,000 miles. But driving those 1,000 miles in a gasoline-powered car that gets 40 miles per gallon would produce just 485 pounds of carbon dioxide. From “Hell and Hydrogen”, David Talbot, Technology Review, March/April 2007

Of course, most cars today do not get 40 mpg, either…The point is, fuel-flexible SOFCs using traditional fuels like natural gas make less CO2 than hydrogen-burning PEMs (PEMs cannot operate easily from hydr…

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  • March 29, 2010
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