From UCLA
Well, some Bruins will rush in where clearly some fools already have trod -- in the mire that is the budget of the city of Los Angeles and its interconnection with its giant Department of Water and Power, its regulatory and rate-setting practices and the hope that the electrical part of the public utility could become greener and less reliant on fossil-based fuels. Specifically, policy experts from Westwood will join in a debate today, sponsored by the patrician Los Angeles Business Council, about a key portion of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's push to get DWP to produce a significant jolt of its energy from solar sources, most specifically by paying homeowners and businesses for potentially sizable amounts of electricity that they generate in sunny LA with solar arrays installed on roofs and empty spaces like parking lots. Advocates say it would be relatively inexpensive, cost-effective and jobs-generating to amp up such a program. But exactly how to make it work, specifically the 'feed in tariffs' or incentives that governments and utilities provide to potential solar power suppliers? A Bruin analysis is less than sanguine that current state, DWP and SoCalEdison plans and policies make the economic case and sense needed to make the solar power proposals work. And, of course, the funding for all the smarter, more efficient and greener DWP initiatives is snared up in what's become a splattering amount of red ink gushing out of City Hall. Perhaps all involved could use the mind-clearing intellectual equivalent of another advance out of Westwood, where the engineers say they have developed a better filter for desalination equipment, a reverse-osmosis screen that doesn't get clogged as easily by debris and detritus.
Revisions sought in proposals to underwrite big push for LA solar power
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