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The Los Angeles Metropolis Council voted unanimously Wednesday to maneuver ahead with an $800-million plan to transform town’s largest gas-fired energy plant to inexperienced hydrogen — a first-of-its-kind venture that was hailed by supporters as an vital step to unravel the local weather disaster however slammed by critics as a greenwashing boondoggle that can hurt susceptible communities.
Council President Paul Krekorian described hydrogen as essential to assembly L.A.’s objective of 100% clear electrical energy by 2035.
“It was extensively seen as being an inconceivable objective. And we’re now on the precipice of reaching that,” he mentioned.
The vote approved the L.A. Division of Water and Energy to start the contracting course of for revamping Scattergood Producing Station, which sits alongside the coast close to El Segundo.
DWP plans to put in generators able to burning vital portions of hydrogen, which has by no means been carried out earlier than on such a big scale. The gasoline could be produced from water, with renewable electrical energy — from photo voltaic panels or wind generators, as an example — splitting H2O molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Town-run utility hopes to in the end convert its different fuel vegetation to hydrogen as nicely: Harbor and Haynes farther down the coast, and Valley Producing Station in Solar Valley. These amenities wouldn’t be fired up typically, however they might assist Los Angeles preserve the lights on throughout instances when there’s not sufficient photo voltaic and wind energy to go round, comparable to sizzling summer season nights.
Town’s final objective is burning 100% inexperienced hydrogen — however DWP officers have acknowledged the expertise may not be prepared instantly. Meaning the preliminary gasoline combine at Scattergood may embody extra planet-warming pure fuel than hydrogen.
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Jason Rondou, DWP’s director of useful resource planning, informed The Occasions that Scattergood ought to be capable to burn at the least 30% inexperienced hydrogen on Day One — the identical proportion the utility is focusing on at its coal-fired Intermountain Energy Plant in Utah.
“There’s a variety of issues that have to be discovered over the approaching years,” Rondou mentioned.
That uncertainty helps clarify why many local weather and environmental justice activists opposed Wednesday’s Metropolis Council movement.
In public feedback earlier than the vote, critics from teams together with Communities for a Higher Atmosphere, Pacoima Stunning and the Sierra Membership famous that though hydrogen doesn’t produce planet-warming carbon emissions when burned, it does generate lung-damaging nitrogen oxide air pollution — rather more than fuel, at the least utilizing present expertise.
That’s particularly problematic for low-income communities of coloration which have already suffered from years of fossil gasoline air pollution — like these round DWP’s Valley Producing Station, the place residents have been pressured to stay with a years-long methane leak.
Jasmin Vargas, an organizer with Meals and Water Watch, described hydrogen as “essentially racist and inequitable.” She additionally objected to public feedback from labor union and enterprise leaders saying hydrogen would create good-paying jobs.
“The roles that everyone’s speaking about should not clear power jobs,” she mentioned.
Different activists pointed to the danger of explosions from hydrogen leaks and to analysis discovering that hydrogen can worsen local weather change within the quick time period if an excessive amount of of it leaks from pipelines earlier than it’s burned. Additionally they raised the chance that DWP’s experimental inexperienced hydrogen venture may fail, leaving L.A. caught burning pure fuel when town as a substitute may have invested extra closely in battery storage, power effectivity and different methods to ditch fossil fuels whereas holding the lights on.
“DWP ought to return to the drafting board,” mentioned Theo Caretto, a UCLA authorized fellow at Communities for a Higher Atmosphere.
After listening to from opponents and supporters, the council voted 12 to 0 to maneuver ahead with the hydrogen plan — however solely after approving a separate movement that newly elected Councilmembers Traci Park and Katy Younger Yaroslavsky mentioned would require DWP officers to extra intently look at alternate options and extra robustly have interaction with communities close to the fuel plant.
“Even with the extra oversight, safeguards and engagement, I’m nonetheless very reluctant to vote to maneuver this venture ahead,” Yaroslavsky mentioned earlier than the vote. “Nevertheless, I’m prepared to assist permitting the method to maneuver to the subsequent stage in order that we will all collectively collect extra info and perceive its dangers and its alternate options.”
It’s not but clear, although, whether or not the Metropolis Council would be capable to cease the Scattergood conversion if one thing went awry — prices spiraling uncontrolled, as an example, or an incapacity by DWP to scale back nitrogen oxide air pollution from burning hydrogen.
Additional steps within the contracting course of have to be authorised by the DWP board, whose members are appointed by the mayor. The Metropolis Council can override these selections — however solely with 10 supporting votes from the 15-member council, a excessive bar to clear.
In 2021, L.A. obtained one-quarter of its electrical energy from pure fuel — a serious contributor to the worsening fires, droughts and warmth waves of the local weather disaster. Fuel utilization on California’s energy grid as an entire was even larger, at 38% — roughly the identical because the nation general.
Inexperienced hydrogen has emerged within the U.S. and around the globe as a possible substitute for pure fuel on the electrical grid — in addition to fuel piped to houses for heating and cooking. It’s considered one of many comparatively high-cost applied sciences competing to enrich low-cost photo voltaic panels, wind generators and battery storage to zero out international local weather air pollution by midcentury.
Many local weather activists do see a task for hydrogen — however principally in “exhausting to impress” industries the place switching from soiled fuels to wash electrical energy is anticipated to be too costly, comparable to transport, aviation, steelmaking and doubtlessly long-haul trucking. These activists’ most well-liked expertise is hydrogen gasoline cells, which produce no air pollution and may energy heavy-duty vehicles.
Activists are additionally cautious as a result of the overwhelming majority of hydrogen at present in use globally is produced from fossil fuels, including to the local weather disaster. The renewable “electrolysis” methodology for producing hydrogen deliberate by DWP is costlier and fewer environment friendly.
Including to the skepticism over inexperienced hydrogen is that its loudest proponents are sometimes fossil gasoline corporations.
In Los Angeles, that might be Southern California Fuel Co., the nation’s largest fuel utility. Final 12 months, the corporate proposed Angeles Hyperlink, an enormous and doubtlessly profitable pipeline that might deliver inexperienced hydrogen gasoline to the L.A. Basin.
“It permits California to dramatically advance its local weather and environmental objectives,” SoCalGas President Maryam Brown mentioned on the time. “It creates a cornerstone for the California inexperienced hydrogen financial system, and the hydrogen financial system usually.”
“Southern California Fuel is an infrastructure firm. And we use that infrastructure to have the ability to meet clients’ wants,” she added. “Prospects’ wants are altering. We see our clients needing cleaner and cleaner fuels.”
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In an e mail forward of the Metropolis Council’s vote Wednesday, SoCalGas spokesperson Chris Gilbride mentioned firm executives “haven’t been engaged, and are at present not engaged, on the Scattergood venture.”
However there’s little query it may very well be a boon for SoCalGas, fueling demand for the corporate’s proposed pipeline and doubtlessly resulting in extra widespread use of hydrogen.
Federal {dollars} may additionally speed up L.A.’s hydrogen plans. The Metropolis Council voted final 12 months to use for a share of $8 billion in federal “hydrogen hub” funds, allotted by Congress as a part of the bipartisan infrastructure invoice signed by President Biden in 2021.
Whether or not or not that cash materializes, DWP’s Rondou mentioned Los Angeles has little alternative however to wager on hydrogen.
“We definitely checked out all of the completely different pathways to get to 100%” clear power, he mentioned, referring to an in-depth examine performed with the Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory. “However the examine was clear. … There wasn’t another.”
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