Sun Valley CNG Fueling Station Opens

Being stuck behind a school bus belching toxic diesel fumes may become a thing of the past for those in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The second-largest school district in the country today had a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fueling station in Sun Valley.

The station is the second for the district; the first opened in 2001 in the South Bay.

Currently the LAUSD has 40 CNG-powered school buses operating out of the Sun Valley transportation hub. It plans to add another 60.
With 172 CNG buses, the LAUSD boasts the largest such fleet in the state thanks in part to funding from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“As we replace our aging buses with new safe, energy-efficient, and lower-emission school buses, we will also continue to build infrastructures that support our greening efforts,” said Transportation Branch Director Enrique Boull’t.

CSUN Sustainability Overview

For our final class project, the Save the Planet team interviewed two of the key players in the California State University Northridge sustainability movement: Dr. Ashwani Vasishth, the recently appointed head of the new CSUN Sustainability Institute, and Tom Brown of the Physical Plant Department. We also talked to some students about recycling.

Burbank Signs Natural Gas Deal

From the San Fernando Valley Business Journal website

The City of Burbank has extended for an additional 14 years a partnership for compressed natural gas from Clean Energy Fuels Corp.

Clean Fuels opened its first natural gas station in 2002 and under the modified agreement will design, build and operate a new station at the Burbank Public Works Yard to support the city’s growing fleet of natural gas-powered refuse trucks.

The effort will significantly support the City’s efforts to meet its sustainability goals and reduce its carbon footprint, while enhancing both the health and environmental benefits of all its citizens,” said James Harger, Clean Energy Senior Vice President.

Waxman Wants Key Energy Post

The Sacramento Bee reported yesterday that U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, whose 30th District includes much of the West Valley, is attempting to replace Rep. John Dingell of Michigan as the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Click here to read Sacramento Bee article in its totality.

City Council Proposes Solar Ballot Initiative

The Los Angeles City Council is proposing a new initiative that is tentatively being called the Los Angeles Basin Solar Power, Green Energy and Jobs Development Mandate for Los Angeles Initiative. The motion for the initiative passed handily in the October 15 council meeting and is being looked at by the Rules and Government committee.

The initiative would mandate that the DWP produce 3 percent of its energy demand from solar power; create a solar jobs recruitment and training program; and offer bid preferences and other incentives to support the creation and expansion of solar-related industry in the City.

But they're going to have to come up with a snappy acronym if the thing is ever going to go anywhere! LABSPGEJDMLAI is just not going to cut it.

No mention of how this initiative might be duplicating mandates set forth in AB32.

Solar Tax Credits Also Extended

The Solar Electric Power Association also weighed in on provisions in HR1424 that will have a positive impact on that form of alternative energy.

According to their press release, the solar investment tax credit provisions in the bill include:

1) Extension for 8 years of the 30% tax credit for both residential and commercial solar installations;

2) Elimination of the $2,000 monetary cap for residential solar electric installations, creating a true 30% tax credit (effective for property placed in service after December 31, 2008);

3) Elimination of the prohibition on utilities from benefiting from the credit;

4) Allowance for Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) filers, both businesses and individuals, to take the credit; and

5) Authorization of $800 million for clean energy bonds for renewable energy generating facilities, including solar.

Green Goes to the Dogs

Want to make sure your faithful companion has an environmentally friendly, not to mention totally cool, place to hang out? Check out what is being billed as the first "eco-friendly doghouse."
The project was conceived as part of the Project Playhouse fundraiser for HomeAid-Los Angeles/Ventura County in which four "playhouses" were designed and built by local companies and put up for auction. Some proceeds from this particular structure will also go to The Rescue Train, an animal rescue organization.

You can bid at the online auction thru Oct. 19. The playhouses are in residence at The Lakes shopping center in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

The Fallacy of Renewable Energy Credits

We’d all like to get “off the grid,” but most businesses and residents in the San Fernando Valley are married to the DWP for our electrical power, and many of us don’t have the financial resources to invest in our own personal solar generating systems.

Have no fear, renewable energy credits are here!

With this scheme, one first determines, through the use of a simple computer program, your “carbon footprint” or how much pollution you are spewing into the atmosphere. Based on the calculations, you can then purchase “renewable energy credits” from a broker like Manhattan Beach-based 3 Phases Renewables to become “carbon neutral.”

In effect, RECs, also known as "green tags" or "renewable energy certificates," subsidize renewable energy producers.

One REC represents one megawatt hour of emissions-free electricity (the average person in the US each year consumes more than 12 megawatt hours of electricity). Though the purchaser of the credit doesn't actually use the electricity themselves, the clean power is fed into the electric utility grid somewhere in the world where it is used by others. It’s a way of compensating for the environmental impacts of consuming un-green electricity.

But while this may have an effect on the environment somewhere, it doesn’t have the same local effect as when you and I cut back on our personal energy expenditures, be it electricity or gas.

Thinking globally is nice, but acting locally is the only way to make a real difference for your friends, family and neighbors.

~Linda Coburn

Solar Powered Cinema

The Fairfax 5 Theaters in Fairfax, Calif., is now partially powered by solar energy with the completion on Sept. 9 of a 27-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system.

The historic theater, built in 1952, is owned by Cinema West. Dave Corkill, founder of the company, recently turned the Fairfax 5 into Marin County's first all-digital projection theater and believes it is the first multiplex cinema in the U.S. to go solar.

Over the 30-year life of the SPG Solar PV system, it is expected that in addition to more than $627,000 in energy cost savings, it will also offset more than 2 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

The system has 42 solar modules on the building's roof. Nearly half of the system's cost was recouped through the use of a State rebate and a federal tax credit.