Ivanpah's hundreds of thousands of mirrors, called heliostats, track the sun so they can reflect light to the beacon in the middle throughout the day.
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Cliff Ho
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U.S. Department of Energy
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Topline:
Photvoltaic solar panels are now so much cheaper than the energy being generated at the Ivanpah facility in the Mojave Desert that the plant is set to close. Whether that's a success or a failure depends on how you look at it.
Success: Taxpayers who helped fund the plant will get most of their money back, and the plant generated clean energy for 11 years.
Failure: But the technology — in which mirrors concentrate sunlight in order to heat a liquid that powers a steam turbine — isn't the cheapest way to harness solar energy. Photovoltaic solar panels win that contest.
Read on ... for why it may not be that simple, though.
This article originally published on Marketplace on April 7, 2025. Listen to Marketplace each weekday at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on LAist 89.3-FM.
It’s a solar power facility called Ivanpah. It’s been supplying enough juice to power 140,000 homes for more than a decade. But it doesn’t generate electricity directly like rooftop solar panels do. It’s surrounded by a bunch of mirrors in concentric circles.
“Those mirrors reflect the heat of the sun to a receiver that’s mounted at the top of a big tower,” said Ed Smeloff, a clean energy consultant. “And then that receiver heats up, and the fluid in the receiver is used to drive the energy through a conventional steam turbine.”
“The cost of the project compared to other renewable technologies looked reasonable,” said Smeloff. “That, of course, has changed dramatically over the last 15 years or so.”
Whether that counts as a failure depends on how you view the mission of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, said Jigar Shah, its former director.
“It was clearly successful in that we gave them money and they commercialized the technology here in the United States,” he said. “It didn’t catalyze a trillion dollars’ worth of investment. So from that perspective, it wasn’t successful. Whereas, the solar PV [photovoltaic] investments that we made did catalyze a trillion dollars of investment.”
He also said taxpayers will get most of their money back. The Department of Energy declined to say exactly how much.
“Long term, the reason we’re doing all of this is to get the technologies that succeed to get successful at scale,” Shah said.
Concentrated solar power won’t die when Ivanpah shuts down. There are still people and companies who think the plant has value.
“I was there two months ago. It’s a beautiful facility. It works,” said Morse. “Clean, carbon-free. You really want to shut that down?”
He said sure, PV solar panels are cheaper in the daytime. But a concentrated solar plant can pump that superheated liquid it generates into an insulated tank so the plant can provide electricity at night.
But Morse said the future investments, like the one Ivanpah needed to get off the ground, are more uncertain as the new trade war and the shrinking of the federal government make investment less likely.
The $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled for launch Aug. 30.
Why it matters: Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, the observatory is expected to reveal new information about the expansion of the universe and discover multitudes of planets orbiting distant stars.
The universe is a strange place — filled with exploding stars, ancient galaxies, and unseen worlds. Now, astronomers are about to get a brand new tool to explore it.
For new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, follow NPR’s Short Wave podcast.
The $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled for launch Aug. 30. Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, the observatory is expected to reveal new information about the expansion of the universe and discover multitudes of planets orbiting distant stars.
Roman, as it is known to its friends, has an unusual history. About 15 years ago NASA was making plans to build a space telescope that could, among other things, search for exploding stars known as Type 1A supernovas. These supernovas were used as a kind of cosmological measuring stick to uncover a mysterious force called dark energy that was causing the universe to expand — a discovery that earned the Nobel Prize in 2011.
Cosmologist Daniel Scolnic at Duke University says finding more of them would be key to better understanding that expansion.
As NASA was developing plans for this new telescope, a call came in from the government office in charge of surveillance satellites.
"The National Reconnaissance Office reached out to NASA," Scolnic says, "saying, 'We have this amazing satellite sitting in a hangar that we're not using. And what what do you guys think about instead of pointing downwards, we point upwards, and you guys use it?'"
NASA said yes. It took some substantial modifications, but now that old satellite is set to become NASA's next major space observatory.
Scolnic says that the new observatory could fundamentally change the scientific model that astronomers use to understand our universe.
"In the last few years, there have been measurements saying that model might be wrong — and that's something that Roman will absolutely nail, whether the model's right or wrong," he says.
Another goal of the telescope is to spend a month surveying all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Julie McEnery is Roman's project scientist. She says even though Roman has broadly the same sensitivity and sharpness of vision as the currently orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, its design lets it do things much faster.
"That one month of observations to survey our Milky Way galaxy would take about a century with Hubble," says McEnery.
Instead of focusing on a single object, Roman is designed to make catalogs of large swaths of the sky, and McEnery says these catalogs will be available to everyone, not just academics.
"You can be a teacher in a high school in Kentucky and your students have the opportunity to see Roman data at the same time as a professor in Princeton," she says.
One professor eager to get his hands on Roman data is Scott Gaudi at The Ohio State University. Along with colleagues, Gaudi developed a technique for detecting planets around distant stars. It's called gravitational microlensing, and it measures the way those planets bend the starlight that passes them by.
Albert Einstein described the idea in 1936 but thought it would be impractical. New technology has proven him wrong — and Gaudi expects Roman will find tons of planets that way.
"We're looking for planets that are just completely undetectable by any other method," Gaudi says. That includes planets at the center of our galaxy, "that are very analogous to our own solar system planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune."
In addition to new planets, Roman should also reveal new galaxies, helping astronomers to get a better idea of the large-scale structure of the universe.
But predicting what will be Roman's greatest accomplishments over the course of its five-year mission is a tricky business.
"The history of astronomy really has shown that when you get a new capability, and especially a survey capability, you learn something new, something unexpected," says Wendy Freedman, an astronomer at the University of Chicago. "Often that turns out to be the most exciting part of a new facility. So I am completely open to what this telescope will find."
Robert Garrova
explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos. He also covers mental health.
Published August 29, 2026 5:00 AM
The LA Field Recording Club crew on an outing.
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Courtesy George Jensen
)
Topline:
The sounds of Los Angeles are bringing together people from all walks of life to record and archive them, from the buzzing of a bees’ nest in Griffith Park to church bells echoing over goose honks in Echo Park.
The backstory: George Jensen founded the Los Angeles Field Recording Club a little over a year ago. He said it has attracted sound lovers with all levels of recording sophistication, from people recording on their phones to professional recorders worth thousands of dollars.
Why now: The Los Angeles Field Recording Club is hosting a listening session tomorrow, Aug. 30 in Highland Park.
Read on ... for details on what the club is listening to.
The sounds of Los Angeles are bringing together people from all walks of life to record and archive them, from the buzzing of a bees’ nest in Griffith Park to church bells echoing over goose honks in Echo Park.
And you can listen to these recordings tomorrow in Highland Park.
George Jensen founded the Los Angeles Field Recording Club a little over a year ago. He said it has attracted sound lovers with all levels of recording sophistication, from people using their phones to folks with professional recorders worth thousands of dollars.
A longtime radio guy with shows on dublab and KCHUNG radio, Jensen fell in love with preserving audio moments in the city and beyond after capturing the serene sounds of a cove in Big Sur.
“There’s a certain fluctuation of sound happening — a pulse you might say — in this city," Jensen told LAist. "Once people sit and be still for a moment, they hear it.”
About 20 club members meet up once a month at places like the purportedly haunted Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, a scrap yard in Sun Valley and a section of Griffith Park, where someone recorded a cacophony of bees buzzing around their nest.
Jensen, who works as a prop fabricator in the TV and film industry, said people are drawn to field recording for many reasons: Some love nerding out over the gear; others need the sound to embellish an art or music project.
The club's next endeavor, he said, is an interactive sound map where field recordists can archive their audio online for all to enjoy.
The club’s outings end up being a bit of an antisocial social club, Jensen joked.
“At the beginning, everybody meets each other... and then you go be by yourself and be quiet,” he said.
Los Angeles Field Recording Club Listening Session
Where: Figueroa Unanimous Radio, 5820 North Figueroa St, Los Angeles (behind the Bearded Beagle shop) When: Sunday, Aug. 30 at 6 p.m.
He added there's a meditative quality to field recording that hooks people.
“I think once people do it, they realize that you kind of stop and listen," Jensen said. "You become in the present. You’re forced to.
"I think there’s, like, a certain therapeutic thing that comes with it,” he said.
Keep up with LAist.
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published August 29, 2026 5:00 AM
X performing at American Bandstand in the 1980s.
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Michael Hyatt
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Michael Hyatt
)
Topline:
Michael Hyatt photographed X during the L.A. punk band's ascent in the first half of the 1980s.
Why it matters: Hyatt had rare access to the pioneering group at the dawn of L.A. punk, photographing the group on the road and at shows.
Why now: Hyatt’s works are compiled in a new book, X: On the Road & At the Crossroads, 1980-2024, with an accompanying exhibition opening at Beyond Baroque on Sept. 5 — where X singer Exene Cervenka will join Hyatt for a reading.
Read on ... for photos of X and the stories behind them.
Michael Hyatt was photographing the new L.A. punk scene tearing up Hollywood when he got an offer few would refuse.
It came shortly after the band X released their seminal 1980 debut, Los Angeles. Singer Exene Cervenka and bassist John Doe had liked a photo Hyatt had taken of the Plugz.
“They asked me if I would photograph X,” Hyatt said.
For the first half of the ‘80s, Hyatt photographed X wherever he could. On their first national tour where he also drove the jury-rigged tour van. At the Whisky just months after the unexpected death of Exene’s sister. On a downtown L.A. rooftop, days before the band’s big Greek Theatre show.
Exene.
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Michael Hyatt
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Michael Hyatt
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“I never pose people. I find a location, a backdrop and just let them be human beings,” Hyatt said. “People reach a point where they forget the camera — that's when the good photographs happen.”
Hyatt’s works are compiled in a new book, X: On the Road & At the Crossroads, 1980-2024, with an accompanying exhibition opening at Beyond Baroque on Sept. 5 — where Cervenka will join Hyatt for a reading.
Exene Cervenka and John Doe in the Louisiana countryside in 1980.
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Michael Hyatt
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Michael Hyatt
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A band built on chance encounters
X’s story reads like a constellation of happenstances hurtling toward inevitability. In 1976, Doe and guitarist Billy Zoom answered each other’s ads in the Recycler. That same year at a Beyond Baroque poetry night, Doe met Cervenka and saw punk lyrics in her writing. Ray Manzarek of the Doors, after seeing X live, offered that very night to produce their debut album in 1979.
A year later, Los Angeles helped cement L.A. punk, with a sound and sensibility markedly different from contemporaries the Germs and Black Flag.
A release party marked by tragedy
For the album’s release party, Hyatt said, X played two back-to-back shows in April at the Whisky a Go Go. Before they went on stage, Cervenka was told that her sister had been en route to the show when she was hit and killed by a drunk driver.
Three months later, Hyatt took this portrait of the band after another show at the Whisky.
X at the backstage area of Whisky a Go Go in July 1980, three months after the sudden death of Exene's sister.
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Michael Hyatt
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Michael Hyatt
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“I placed Exene against that plywood panel,” Hyatt remembered. “My goal, maybe on an unconscious level, was to capture the emotion related to the tragedy that happened three months prior.”
The iconic rooftop shot
A photo of X taken two days after their 1981 Greek Theatre show.
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Michael Hyatt
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Michael Hyatt
)
In August 1981, X played in front of a crowd of 5,000 at the Greek Theatre.
“ They had reached the height of their powers,” Hyatt said.
He wanted to capture that zeitgeist. So two days later, he met the group at the rooftop of their rehearsal studio, which Hyatt scoped out at a practice session prior to the big Greek show.
“I went up and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a fantastic spot,’” he said. “Got a little bit of the skyline off in the distance of downtown L.A., but you've got the Roosevelt Hotel right there too.”
After three rolls of film, Hyatt said one shot clearly stood out.
Four decades later, still at the front row
At X's Houston show in 2024, Hyatt photographed a married couple that went on a first date to see the band in 1980.
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Michael Hyatt
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Michael Hyatt
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In 2024, X went on tour for their final album, Smoke & Fiction. One stop was Houston, Texas.
They’d played in Houston on their national tour in 1980, at a long-defunct punk venue called the Island.
In the crowd at the Island in 1980 was a young couple on their first date. A couple years later, Hyatt said, they got married.
“And there they were, 44 years later, right up front cheering on X — who they saw on their very first date,” Hyatt said.
Still together, wearing matching X shirts.
X: On the Road & At the Crossroads, 1980-2024 Photo exhibit and book launch. Exhibit runs Sept. 5 – Oct. 17 at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice
Reading: Saturday, Sept. 5, at 2 p.m. Featuring Michael Hyatt; Exene Cervenka; L.A. music journalist Chris Morris, who wrote the book's foreword; and poets Iris Berry, S.A. Griffin, Brendan Constantine and mike m. mollet.
Reception & book signing: 3 to 5 p.m.
Free and open to the public; reservations recommended.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published August 29, 2026 5:00 AM
The Linda Lindas just dropped their third album, and major label debut, "Gotta Get Out."
(
Jaxon Whittington
)
Topline:
The Linda Lindas are no longer just the L.A. punk band that broke out as kids. On their third album and major label debut, Gotta Get Out, they’re expanding their sound and songwriting.
What's next: They’re taking the new album on the road, with a North American run of headlining shows.
Read on... for how the band has grown since their 2021 performance at the library in Cypress Park went viral.
Over the Linda Lindas’ career, talk about the band has often centered around how young they are.
They broke through as tweens and teens when a 2021 performance at the library in Cypress Park went viral after it was posted online, in part because they sounded so commanding for their age. The drummer, Mila de la Garza, was 10 at the time.
Five years and several albums later — Gotta Get Out, their third album and major label debut, just dropped yesterday — the Linda Lindas are outgrowing their old image.
“I do think people still hear 'kid band' when they think of the Linda Lindas,” said Lucia de la Garza, Mila’s older sister and one of the guitarists. “It's like we're not actually really that young anymore.”
Eloise Wong and Bela Salazar of The Linda Lindas perform during Riot Fest at Douglass Park last year in Chicago.
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Barry Brecheisen
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Getty Images
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It’s been eight years since the sisters joined cousin Eloise Wong and family friend Bela Salazar to play a local music fest. What was a one-off gig turned into a real band that always seemed to have homework to do.
“We'll play a show and then go backstage and finish an essay,” Lucia said.
“Almost like we're Hannah Montana,” Mila said.
“Without the secret identity,” laughed Lucia.
Then came the library video, a record deal with punk label Epitaph and their 2022 debut album Growing Up.
They started touring the world opening for their heroes like Green Day and Paramore. (Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams is featured on the single “Closer.”)
And as of this summer, more big leaps: They signed with Warner’s Reprise imprint, and all but Mila have graduated high school.
As they’ve grown, so has their songwriting.
Where they used to write individually, for their new album, they holed up in L.A., Long Beach and Palm Springs to write in the same room from the beginning. No phones allowed. Just riffing.
“We believe in each other and each other's ideas so much that we were kind of just pushing each other to go for it,” Lucia said. “What if we added synth here? What if the drums dropped out?”
By the end of the sessions, they had amassed about 30 songs and the 12 tracks on the album were split evenly between the three writing locations, produced by the sisters’ dad, Carlos de la Garza, who’s worked with Paramore, Bad Religion and Best Coast. (He actually started working with Best Coast after meeting them when the duo came to a Linda Lindas rehearsal in the family's backyard, according to Lucia.)
The album moves beyond straight-ahead punk, dipping into new wave, power pop and hardcore.
The Linda Lindas on tour
The Linda Lindas are touring across the U.S. and Canada in September and November. They are opening for Jimmy Eat World at the Hollywood Bowl on Nov. 7. Find tour information on the band's website
That range tracks with the members’ own eclectic listening habits. Lucia has been listening to indie artists Blondshell, Francis of Delirium and Indigo De Souza. Mila cited Julien Baker’s Little Oblivions, while Eloise, who plays bass, has been digging into local hardcore punk like Special Forces from San Luis Obispo, not to mention the Heated Rivalry soundtrack. Guitarist Bela has been listening to pop from Hollis and Mexico's Belanova.
Meanwhile, their lyrics tackle the issues staring down their generation, from climate change to fascism and economic injustice.
On “Blood on Our Hands," Eloise belts out an indictment of not just the government but the complicity of bystanders.
Eloise said the song isn’t just about calling people out about the state of the world, but “making everyone think about all of the little things that we can do to try and make it better, you know, and make it more sustainable, and make sure that people can live.”
Mila de la Garza of The Linda Lindas performs during the Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival in Seattle last year.
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Mat Hayward
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Getty Images
)
Elsewhere on the album, like on the single “Burning Out,” the band reflects on that strange space between youth and adulthood and seeing friends move into new stages of life while wondering if they’re being left behind.
Whatever uncertainty they may be feeling, the Linda Lindas say one thing is for sure: It’s all about their music now.
Next month, they head out on their biggest tour yet as headliners with dates across the U.S. and Canada.
For a band whose early years involved squeezing in homework between soundchecks, life has simplified in at least one respect.
“It's pretty much all about the band,” Eloise said.
