Results tagged “energy”

The end of Daylight Savings Time means more than just gaining an extra hour of sleep. To many, it's changing out fire alarm batteries and checking up on earthquake supplies. And now with water and energy conservation as a big theme in L.A., the LADWP is advising the public to not forget about adjusting automatic sprinklers as it could save you a citation. And considering that sunset will be at 5 p.m. tonight, you might want to change your lighting timer.

The Department of Energy today released a list of awardees to receive stimulus funds for research on energy. 37 projects around the country were chosen because of their potential to "change the way we use and produce energy," the department said. Seven of those projects are in the state, two in Southern California.

With a big smile on her face, North Hollywood resident Marta Duron has spent the last two evenings at North Hollywood Park. It's a first for her to be there after dark, but with newly installed solar lighting poles along the jogging path, she plans on taking advantage more often. "It makes it safer and more people are out at nighttime, even late at night" she said. "It's a major difference."

Actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. will help unveil 28 new solar-powered light poles at North Hollywood Park tonight. It is being touted as a green energy and safety improvement for the park, which abuts the east side of the 170 Freeway. At night, portions of the park are extremely dark as very little light bleeds in from the surrounding neighborhood.

But don't get too excited, the money from the feds going to the transit line is not for extending it northbound towards Burbank airport or anything close to that. Today's announcement from is about reducing energy consumption. The White Explains in a press release:

As firefighters get an upper hand on the Station Fire in portions of Acton, officials with the L.A. Department of Water & Power feel relieved enough to announce a decreased threat to two of their 500 KV lines. If those lines were to be cut off from the city's power grid, there was the potential of blackouts due to the mixture of hot weather with increased power consumption and reserve power plants not being able to handle that demand on energy.

The Station Fire is not only threatening homes across the region and broadcast towers on Mount Wilson, but also the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's two 500 KV transmission lines northeast of the Acton. "These high-voltage power lines are critical to maintaining a steady supply of power to the city, especially as demand for energy rises throughout the day," the department made in a statement noting that all in-basin power plants have been activated to generate energy.

For the second month in a row, Los Angeles as a whole--residents, businesses, government--have reduced water usage to record breaking levels, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today. Major strides in energy savings have also been made this year.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigasa may want Los Angeles to be the greenest city in the country and San Francisco may be popularly referred to as one of the greenest, but when it comes to solar power, San Diego is king when it comes to California big cities, according to a report released by Environment California. The city leads with 2,267 solar roofs. By contrast, San Francisco has 1,493 with Los Angeles trailing behind at 1,432. "But when it comes to per capita installations, little Nevada City, Calif., topped the list, with nearly 1 in 5 households hosting a solar system," noted the LA Times. "City of Industry, outside Los Angeles, had the most capacity per capita, with 1.5 kilowatts installed per person. The bad news: Solar power still accounts for less than 1% of energy nationwide."

It always felt like an obvious thing to do, but now we know the potential. According to state's Flex Your Power program, "if you use air conditioning, a ceiling fan will allow you to raise the thermostat setting about 4°F with no reduction in comfort. And here’s the best part: most ceiling fans use less electricity than a light bulb. Remember to turn fans off when you leave the room, since they work by creating a breeze to cool people, not rooms." This tip comes from a list of seven easy tips, including a favorite of ours that a lot of people seem to forget about: "Closing the blinds or curtains on south or west-facing walls can cut down on solar heat gain during the day."

Plans to build a $1 billion power plant in Carson--touted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the "cleanest and greenest" in the nation when it was announced in 2006--have just recently been "quietly abandoned," the Contra Costa Times reports, citing "inhospitable" ecological conditions at the proposed site, and "resistance from local environmentalists."

Metro has done it again and this time broken a record for Los Angeles. Yesterday they unveiled the largest solar panel installation within the City of Los Angeles on top of their Support Services Center--basically a bus maintenance facility--in downtown.

Long standing programs to help low-income individuals and families save money on their utility bills and to purchase energy-efficient appliances and equipment are not totally being taken advantage of by 900,000 Californians. That's why this week utility companies like Southern California Edison and LADWP are making an effort to push these programs. Basically, if your total household has a total income of less than a certain amount, you're eligible (see a chart and info here). And it's not based on last year's tax returns or any of that--if you recently lost your job, then your income is zero. Qualifying people can receive a 20 percent discount on their utility bills for electricity and gas. Another program will install energy-efficient appliances and equipment at no cost to eligible customers. And hey renters, this is for you, too.

Los Angeles is one of the many global cities participating in Earth Hour tonight. The annual event, which seems to be gaining popularity with each year, calls for everyone to turn off any non-essential lights for just one hour, and that hour is tonight from 8:30-9:30 local time.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has long been a champion of environmental causes, but now she may find herself pitted against one major faction of the movement as she launches a fight to designate a large portion of Southern California's desert as a national monument.

Say goodbye to that bonus hour you picked up back in the fall--overnight tonight we've got to set our clocks ahead an hour for Daylight Savings Time. You can also use this as an opportunity to do a six-month check-up around your place to be sure your smoke alarms are properly powered, and that you've got fresh water for the household (and your pets) in case of an emergency.

90 miles east of Los Angeles sits this billboard telling Mayor Villaraigosa to cut it out. But why do people far away from LA care? It's the controversial Green Path Power Project, a plan that would bring geothermal, solar, wind and other renewable energy from the Salton Sea area of Imperial Valley to Los Angeles via a new yet-to-built electrical transmission line.

When we go vote on March 3rd, the most contested and fought-over choice we make will be whether to vote yes or no on Measure B (Yes | No). So much has happened with Measure B in the last few months, and this week, both the LA Times and Daily News urged voters to say NO.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is going on a quick trip tonight to Washington D.C. to lobby the Obama administration to make sure Los Angeles gets a good slice of the federal stimulus package that's making its way through the Senate today, according to the LA Times. He hopes to get funding for the Subway to the Sea and the solar energy plan, which the controversial Measure B on the March 3rd ballot is part of. Also, he wants the money to go directly to cities and not the state, who still hasn't come up with a budget solution forcing them to give IOUs to residents on their tax refunds.

On the heels of President Obama asking the EPA to reverse Bush's clamp-down on state-level fuel efficiency standards comes word that not all job-related news in California is bad news--yes, it's part of that silver lining.

In a press conference held at 8:00 this morning, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the continuing concerns for the City of Los Angeles created by the Sayre Fire, which is being battled by a "unified command" of the LA Fire Department, the LA County Fire Department, the US Forestry Service, and the LAPD.

The Sayre fire, which began around 10:30 last night in Sylmar has caused several transformers in the hills above the San Fernando Valley to explode, and as a result, the DWP has taken action to ensure the public's safety and to help the firefighters battle the blaze. According to a press release from early this morning:

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began taking major power transmission lines near the Sayre Fire out of service at 5 AM today as the fire moved west toward the I-5 Corridor in Sylmar. Transmission lines were taken out of service due to the threat posed by the fire in order to assist firefighters and protect the public's safety. The I-5 corridor through Sylmar serves as a major utility corridor for the LADWP and other utilities, bringing imported power to Los Angeles from power plants in the Pacific Northwest and Southwestern US. As the fire moved toward the high-voltage transmission lines, the LADWP turned off these lines to ensure the safety of firefighters and the public.

Daylight Savings Time ends tonight--well, technically it's Sunday morning--when we all need to roll our clocks back an hour at 2 a.m. Those people who are out and about celebrating Halloween weekend and/or Dia de los Muertos (or just plain "It's Saturday, woohoo!") may take advantage of the extra hour to get in a few more sips before last call comes around for the second time that night, while some people will opt to use that extra hour for catching some extra Z's. No matter how you spend it, just make sure you check all your clocks before you have to be somewhere, lest you be the goof who shows up an hour early to work first thing Monday morning. The end of Daylight Time was shifted to the first Sunday in November (as opposed to the last Sunday in October) last year to help us save energy.

After yesterday's announcement of an $160 million settlement in the case where the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power "knowingly overcharged State and local governmental agencies for electricity (as the State Attorney's Office put it)," the city agency released a statement online only (mysteriously, it wasn't e-mailed). Basically, they say everything is fine and dandy and not to worry about your bills:

Don't worry (yet), the DWP's overcharging scandal only involves governmental customers such as Metro, LA County and LA Unified School District. “The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had been imposing illegal and unjustified overcharges on their governmental customers for several years,” said Attorney General Brown in a statement. “The L.A. school district and the other governmental agencies desperately need every available dollar in these hard economic times.” A total of $160 million will be refunded to the agencies.

15 California State University campuses, including five from the LA region, will receive solar power generated energy in a private-public partnership with SunEdison who will install panels on rooftops, parking canopies and other ground-mounted displays at campuses. This initiative will increase the university system's use of alternative energy from 20% to 25% (small steps, small steps), the LA Times says. Locally, the Los Angeles, Fullerton, Pomona, Channel Islands and San Bernardino campuses wil be included in the program.

Why exactly is this? Prop 7, the renewable energy initiative, is a doosy of a measure. It has quietly slipped under the radar of sexier ballot measures (such as the high speed rail Proposition 1 for a bullet train from LA to San Francisco) and more controversial items (such as Prop 8's marriage equality issue). But the tenets of Proposition 7 should not be ignored as it may very well have long lasting impacts on the state.

Pasadena has gone all green on garbage by purchasing power generated by methane gas emitted from decaying garbage in an Arizona landfill. The 20-year contract will bring in 30,000 megawatt hours annually to power the equivalent of 5,000 homes. Additionally, Pasadena has two other landfill contracts, one that has brought in 74,000 megawatt hours in 2008 already. Reporter and blogger Dan Abendschein notes that "by 2011, those landfills are slated to generate nearly twice as much energy as city purchases of wind, solar, and geothermal power combined, according to the staff reports." In a follow-up blog entry, he's questions if there's enough garbage to go around if every city started doing this. "Pasadena, I believe, is benefiting from being ahead of the curve on this kind of project."

The No on Prop 7 ads have been airing for awhile now (you know, the ones that say "stop another costly flawed energy scheme"?) and this week, the Yes on Prop 7 side launched their own (one of them is above).

Today, our computer is not about to explode like it was for the past two days in the sweltering heat. "The National Weather Service forecast highs for Thursday of between 69 and 79 near the Los Angeles County coast, 86 to 94 inland, 84 to 94 in the San Fernando Valley, 87 to 92 in the San Gabriel Valley, 88 and 93 in the Santa Clarita Valley and 82 and 91 in the Antelope Valley," reported the Long Beach Press-Telegram.