This week, there were two big clean energy projects announced in California that are remarkable for a couple of reasons. Together, these two projects will power hundreds of thousands of homes with clean, affordable solar energy.
They will create thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in local economic benefits.
They also garnered support from a diverse and unexpected group of allies that included business, labor, and environmental organizations.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance clearing the way for 150 megawatts of rooftop solar in the city. The CLEAN LA Solar program will allow local property owners to sell solar power generated from rooftops and parking lots back to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), using a mechanism called a feed-in tariff, or, in plain language, a solar cash-back program.
Los Angeles will be the largest city in the nation to adopt such a program, which will supply renewable energy at a reasonable cost while spurring private investment and creating high-quality jobs.
"This is a smart, cost-effective method for businesses to create economic opportunity while weaning ourselves off the coal-fired plants that generate most of the city's power," said Brad Cox, Immediate Past Chairman of the Los Angeles Business Council.
Evan Gillespie of our California Beyond Coal campaign says this victory represents two years of work with the business community in LA: "The program, when fully realized in three years, will lead to 4,500 new jobs and $500 million in economic activity here in LA," Evan says. This move will also offset 2.25 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2016.
Meanwhile this week, more clean energy good news came out of California when we (along with Audubon California, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council) announced our support for a set of proposed large-scale solar power projects in Imperial County.
When completed, the Mt. Signal, Calexico I and Calexico II solar projects under development by 8minutenergy will produce 600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 200,000 households. The projects are located on privately owned, disturbed land currently used to grow highly water-intensive landscaping grasses.
The developer has agreed to create and implement a conservation fund to address possible impacts to burrowing owls, which are potentially affected by the large-scale development of solar in Imperial County. The biological effects from the projects are significantly less than proposed renewable energy projects on environmentally sensitive public lands. These Imperial County projects show that it is possible to develop viable, cost-effective projects without sacrificing our precious desert wildlands.
Importantly, to help ensure this project would provide quality jobs, the Sierra Club introduced the developer to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. IBEW and 8minutenergy entered into a Project Labor Agreement to employ local Imperial Country workers for the projects. Imperial County has the highest unemployment rate in California (27 percent) and 23 percent of the population is below the poverty line. The projects represent a $1 billion economic impact to the county over 30 years and will provide $20 million for the Calexico Unified School District.
"These projects are truly a win-win for local Imperial County workers and the environment," said Johnny Simpson, Business Manager with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569. "They will create good, middle-class green jobs with skilled training, health care benefits and pension retirement while reducing polluting greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change."
We are replacing dirty coal power with clean renewable energy that won't harm public health but will create good jobs. Now, we need to unlock this kind of innovation and job creation in every state in America. This is our energy future!
Follow Mary Anne Hitt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/maryannehitt
However, it angers me that none of the “pro solar” articles ever mention anything to do with manufacturing process of solar panels. The process used to manufacture these cells is very intensive, requiring first energy most often produced by the very products these cells are being created to replace. Thanks to other emissions from the mining and wafering of raw materials, heavy metal pollution is also a serious side effect of solar panel production. A prime example of these byproducts is Nitrogen Trifluoride, NF3 (which is also a byproduct of TV’s & screens). NF3 is steadily building in our atmosphere, and it takes up to five times longer than CO2 to naturally degrade.
Creating energy requires exothermic chemical reactions, which in turn create some sort of byproduct (radiation, CO, CO2, NF3, ect). These byproducts are all considered “damaging”.
So, if government money (which CA does not have enough to spare) is going to subsidize these projects, then I would have to strongly disagree. We currently have an over-abundance of cheap natural gas. NG is cleaner than coal & oil, cheaper, and we have great domestic sources (i.e. not OPEC).
You chirp about the byproducts of solar manufacturing, yet you say nothing about the hydraulic fracturing process and its health effects.
Here, let me show you the way.
http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/hydraulic_fracturing_101#CHEMICALS
http://marcellusdrilling.com/2010/06/list-of-78-chemicals-used-in-hydraulic-fracturing-fluid-in-pennsylvania/
https://www.propublica.org/article/new-gas-wells-leave-more-chemicals-in-ground-hydraulic-fracturing
Solar panels seem like scrubbing bubbles compared to this.
It's not a law of thermodynamics, like is is for fossils and nukes.
It's sloppy manufacturing,
And that should be regulated.
But it's tiny compared to fossils and nukes.
http://www.nrel.gov/pv/thin_film/docs/20theuropvscbarcelona4cv114_raugei.pdf
http://www.seia.org/cs/news_detail?pressrelease.id=2000
Particularly given that Los Angeles is inches from bankruptcy.
The idea is to keep the money with a California contractor, not an out of town bidder.
Union workers from out of town will sign the book at the local union offices and go to work.
If you build it they will come.
Here in NY, AMD is building a chipfab plant. The plant had 1400 union trade workers on site. This area doesn't have enough work force to man that project and every other in the local territory.
There were more travelers here than I've ever seen.
Mary J
http://solaruniversecalifornia.com/sce
You dont want those dirty factories here.
Someone is liable to make a profit.
OOPS
Sorry
the Chinese are beating our brains out with cheap solar panels.
Even without our strict pollution controls.
http://www.seia.org/galleries/pdf/GTM-SEIA_U.S._Solar_Energy_Trade_Balance_2011.pdf
Thats not even a question.