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Pasadena To Come Up With A New Plan To Get Carbon-Free Power
Cynthia Cannady, left, chairperson of the grassroots coalition Pasadena 100, speaks at a rally outside Pasadena City Hall on June 21, 2023.
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Courtesy of Pasadena 100
)
Topline:
Earlier this year, a grassroots group of Pasadena residents successfully pushed the city to pass a policy goal of getting 100% of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2030. On Tuesday, a city committee took a significant step to figuring out exactly how to do that.
The meeting: At Pasadena’s Municipal Services Committee meeting on Tuesday evening, city officials presented a draft Integrated Resource Plan. The IRP, a document all cities are required to submit to the state, shows how they'll maintain reliable electricity and work to meet California’s clean energy mandates. Staff went through the pros and cons of how to achieve the city’s carbon-free goal, but community members said the plan focused too much on the cons, like how much it will cost customers.
A key vote postponed: The committee decided not to vote on whether to pass the city’s draft IRP. Instead, heeding the demands of a broad coalition of local residents, committee members asked officials to return in coming weeks with a more detailed plan for overcoming hurdles to the carbon-free goal.
Why it matters: Burning fossil fuels for our energy is the single-largest driver of global heating. Pasadena has gotten nearly half its energy from coal most years due to a long-term contract with a coal plant in Utah. Now, cities across the Southland — and the world — are grappling with tough decisions about how to transition their energy supplies to cleaner power without spiking utility bills.
What’s next: Pasadena’s 40-year contract with the Utah coal plant ends in 2025, at which point the city’s main energy supply switches to methane gas through at least 2027. The city’s challenge in the meantime is building up enough renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal energy to become carbon-free by 2030.
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