The Los Angeles Metropolis Council voted unanimously Wednesday to maneuver ahead with an $800-million plan to transform the town’s largest gas-fired energy plant to inexperienced hydrogen — a first-of-its-kind challenge that was hailed by supporters as an vital step to resolve the local weather disaster however slammed by critics as a greenwashing boondoggle that may hurt weak communities.
Council President Paul Krekorian described hydrogen as essential to assembly L.A.’s aim of 100% clear electrical energy by 2035.
“It was extensively seen as being an not possible aim. And we’re now on the precipice of attaining that,” he stated.
The vote licensed 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 important 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 illustration — splitting H2O molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Town-run utility hopes to finally convert its different gasoline vegetation to hydrogen as properly: Harbor and Haynes farther down the coast, and Valley Producing Station in Solar Valley. These amenities wouldn’t be fired up usually, however they’d assist Los Angeles preserve the lights on throughout instances when there’s not sufficient photo voltaic and wind energy to go round, equivalent to sizzling summer season nights.
Town’s final aim is burning 100% inexperienced hydrogen — however DWP officers have acknowledged the expertise won’t be prepared instantly. Meaning the preliminary gasoline combine at Scattergood may embody extra planet-warming pure gasoline than hydrogen.
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Jason Rondou, DWP’s director of useful resource planning, advised The Occasions that Scattergood ought to be capable of burn a minimum of 30% inexperienced hydrogen on Day One — the identical share the utility is concentrating on at its coal-fired Intermountain Energy Plant in Utah.
“There’s lots of issues that have to be discovered over the approaching years,” Rondou stated.
That uncertainty helps clarify why many local weather and environmental justice activists opposed Wednesday’s Metropolis Council movement.
A smokestack at Scattergood Producing Station close to El Segundo.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Occasions)
In public feedback earlier than the vote, critics from teams together with Communities for a Higher Setting, 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 — way more than gasoline, a minimum of 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 had been compelled to dwell 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 usually are not clear power jobs,” she stated.
Different activists pointed to the danger of explosions from hydrogen leaks and to analysis discovering that hydrogen can worsen local weather change within the brief 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 challenge might fail, leaving L.A. caught burning pure gasoline when the town as a substitute might 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,” stated Theo Caretto, a UCLA authorized fellow at Communities for a Higher Setting.
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 stated would require DWP officers to extra carefully look at alternate options and extra robustly interact with communities close to the gasoline plant.
“Even with the extra oversight, safeguards and engagement, I’m nonetheless very reluctant to vote to maneuver this challenge ahead,” Yaroslavsky stated earlier than the vote. “Nevertheless, I’m prepared to help permitting the method to maneuver to the subsequent stage in order that we will all collectively collect extra data and perceive its dangers and its alternate options.”
It’s not but clear, although, whether or not the Metropolis Council would be capable of cease the Scattergood conversion if one thing went awry — prices spiraling uncontrolled, as an illustration, or an lack of ability by DWP to cut back nitrogen oxide air pollution from burning hydrogen.
Additional steps within the contracting course of have to be accredited by the DWP board, whose members are appointed by the mayor. The Metropolis Council can override these choices — however solely with 10 supporting votes from the 15-member council, a excessive bar to clear.
A view of Los Angeles Metropolis Corridor on Jan. 19.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Occasions)
In 2021, L.A. received one-quarter of its electrical energy from pure gasoline — a serious contributor to the worsening fires, droughts and warmth waves of the local weather disaster. Gasoline utilization on California’s energy grid as a complete was even greater, at 38% — roughly the identical because the nation general.
Inexperienced hydrogen has emerged within the U.S. and world wide as a possible substitute for pure gasoline on the electrical grid — in addition to gasoline 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 world local weather air pollution by midcentury.
Many local weather activists do see a job for hydrogen — however principally in “arduous to impress” industries the place switching from soiled fuels to wash electrical energy is predicted to be too costly, equivalent to transport, aviation, steelmaking and probably long-haul trucking. These activists’ most well-liked expertise is hydrogen gasoline cells, which produce no air pollution and might energy heavy-duty vans.
Activists are additionally cautious as a result of the overwhelming majority of hydrogen at the moment in use globally is produced from fossil fuels, including to the local weather disaster. The renewable “electrolysis” technique 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 firms.
In Los Angeles, that might be Southern California Gasoline Co., the nation’s largest gasoline utility. Final yr, the corporate proposed Angeles Hyperlink, an enormous and probably profitable pipeline that might convey inexperienced hydrogen gasoline to the L.A. Basin.
“It permits California to dramatically advance its local weather and environmental objectives,” SoCalGas President Maryam Brown stated on the time. “It creates a cornerstone for the California inexperienced hydrogen economic system, and the hydrogen economic system typically.”
“Southern California Gasoline is an infrastructure firm. And we use that infrastructure to have the ability to meet prospects’ wants,” she added. “Prospects’ wants are altering. We see our prospects needing cleaner and cleaner fuels.”
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In an electronic mail forward of the Metropolis Council’s vote Wednesday, SoCalGas spokesperson Chris Gilbride stated firm executives “haven’t been engaged, and are at the moment not engaged, on the Scattergood challenge.”
However there’s little query it could possibly be a boon for SoCalGas, fueling demand for the corporate’s proposed pipeline and probably resulting in extra widespread use of hydrogen.
Federal {dollars} might additionally speed up L.A.’s hydrogen plans. The Metropolis Council voted final yr 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 stated Los Angeles has little selection however to guess on hydrogen.
“We definitely checked out all of the completely different pathways to get to 100%” clear power, he stated, referring to an in-depth examine carried out with the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory. “However the examine was clear. … There wasn’t an alternate.”
