Energy Technology

Proposition 39 Absentee Ballot Results: Voters Torn Over $550 Million Yearly for Green Projects, Higher Tax on Business

Update: Prop. 39 surged ahead as precincts began reporting from around California. See next page for more. Early returns show California voters almost evenly split on Proposition 39, which the fiar-minded, non-partisan California Legislative Analyst's Office says could pour up to $1 billion into st ... More >>

City Council Approves Solar Energy Plan Allowing Property Owners to Sell Power Back to DWP

The L.A. City Council approved a pilot plan Tuesday to let the Department of Water and Power buy back solar energy from property owners who have installed solar panels on their homes and businesses. The power will be purchased through a "feed-in tariff" program, and the city is expected to sign con ... More >>

Half-Naked American Apparel Models Show off Solar Panels at Downtown L.A. Factory (VIDEO)

For all the PR energy that goes into pushing the solar revolution, Los Angeles homeowners remain skeptical about installing their own set of panels. (Our city of 4 million only has about 4,000 solar-powered homes.) Maybe all those Big Green promo teams should have taken a tip or two from controvers ... More >>

California, Where Did We Go Wrong?

L.A. Democrat Says Republican 'Science Deniers' Are Using Solyndra Solar Failure to Argue Against Clean Energy

baycitizen.orgWas Obama blinded by the wonders green jobs could do for his campaign?​Solyndra, Inc., the NorCal solar company that just blew through a $535 million loan from the federal government and is being probed by the FBI, had a lot more to lose than the money. (Hell, what's $535 million ... More >>

California Girls on The Wane Because of Japan Radiation? Study Says Nuclear Release Could Mean Fewer Females Born in Golden State

Katy Perry, a limited resource.​Yes, we still wish they all could be California girls. But thanks to radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, there could be less of them. And more boys. A fascinating study out of Germany correlates release of radioactive material and ... More >>

After Japan, Americans' Taste For Nuclear Power Sours

San Onofre.​In the span of less than a month, after watching disaster unfold in Japan, Americans have started to turn their backs on nuclear power. The latest Rasmussen Reports national survey finds a near three-year low among Americans who want to build more nuclear power plants: 38 percent. ... More >>

San Onofre Nuclear Plant Mounts Info Blackout When We Want to Know Most

San Onofre.​So people are scared again about the safety of nuclear power. President Obama has ordered a review of plant safety across the nation. California's two U.S. Senators want the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct inspections of the two generating stations in the state. And Califo ... More >>

Nuclear Power in the Wake of Japan: 2,452 Spent Fuel Assemblies Stored at San Onofre

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.​Southern California's San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has plenty of spent fuel on-hand, Fukushima-style. There are 2,452 spent fuel assemblies from three reactors (one is being used only as storage) there, we're told, versus 4,685 at the ailing, ra ... More >>

Measure O, Oil Tax: Election Results

​With most votes counted, L.A. voters are narrowly rejecting Measure O -- the oil extraction tax -- by a tally of 50.9% to 49.2%.Voters were asked to impose a $1.44-per-barrel tax on oil production in the city, which would raise $4 million a year.Oil producers argued (speciously) that the tax woul ... More >>

Gloria Allred, L.A. Attorney to the Stars, and the Children of Huntington Beach vs. $8 Million Chevron Solar Panels: We Want Our Lawn Back

Gloria Allred departs Hollywood for a Huntington Beach middle school today​Updated after the jump: Gloria and 200 angry middle-schoolers give police, school administrators -- and most of all Chevron -- a piece of their mind. We're more used to seeing L.A. attorney Gloria Allred fight for the ... More >>

Proposition 23: Youth Leaders Say Echo Boomers Helped Shoot Down Big Oil-Funded Ballot Measure

"No on 23" campaign poster​California Student Sustainability Coalition, a group that organizes young people to vote for environmental causes, says Echo Boomers played a major role in the defeat of Big Oil-funded Proposition 23 on Tuesday. "In an election that's been characterized by record c ... More >>

Blue Bloods Oppose Anti-Green Initiative? Hey, It's California

FoxEven James William Bottomtooth III is against Prop. 23.​If you had any doubt that Prop. 23, the California initiative that would suspend the state's greenhouse-gas-reduction measures, is going down in flames (PDF), take a gander at the people who lined up against it Tuesday: Big-money, Bro ... More >>

La Nogalera Walnuts: Great For Cooking Cleaning up Oil Spills

Brooke BurtonCan walnut shells really stop oil leaks and filter polluted water?​ Go to the Hollywood farmers market to sample La Nogalera's excellent walnut oil from the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County, and you may quickly identify the nutritional benefits for salads and vegetable sid ... More >>

What Recession? L.A. Mayor Wants An Extra $2.50 A Month From You

​The Europe-jetting, soap-opera acting, Oscar partying mayor of Los Angeles thinks you haven't pitched in enough cash to city coffers, because it's not what your mayor can do for you, but what what you can do for Mayor V. That's right, Antonio Villaraigosa is backing a plan that would have De ... More >>

First Fridays

L.A. Times Loses Nation's Top Automotive Journalist

EsquireDan Neil.​It seemed like the right fit -- the nation's top automotive journalist pairing up with the newspaper of record in the car culture capital of the country if not the world. And for much of the time it worked: Dan Neil won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism during his tenure at the L ... More >>

City Hall’s Revenge on Cecilia Estolano

Villaraigosa and his boys pushed out the one woman who topped them all

Good or Evil, Corporate Biofuel Gets $5 Mil of Your Money

The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that 37 research projects, including one launched locally, are in line for $151 million in federal funding that aims to "develop nimble, creative and inventive approaches to transform the global energy landscape," according to a department statement.Cere ... More >>

State Bureaucrats Consider Oil Drilling Off L.A. Coast

Marcia Hanscom, the influential, grassroots environmentalist who successfully won the battle to save a major portion of the Ballona Wetlands, has raised a red flag alert to her supporters, writing that bureaucrats at the California State Lands Commission are holding a hearing this morning to possibl ... More >>

Villaraigosa and Solar Measure B Get Burned

March 3 was supposed to be a romp for the L.A. mayor, not a reprimand

Los Angeles' Bungled Solar Plan

How D'Arcy and Villaraigosa turned clean energy into a dirty dispute

Zahniser and Orlov Hit Villaraigosa's Sneaky Solar Blob

Can Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Measure B, the massive solar panel installation project on the March 3 ballot that is certain to pass because Los Angeles voters have no idea what it really is, get any sleazier?Today, the estimable Dave Z writes in the soon-to-be gone California Section of the L.A. ... More >>

L.A. Slams Residents With Stiff Fees and Taxes

In "City of Los Angeles vs. All Persons," downtown pols play dirty

L.A. City Council Makes Solar Look Bad

Shenaningans taint a clean-energy plan, and the council lays it all on voters

Election '08: The Pros and Cons of California's Ballot Measures

By Daniel Heimpel, Max Taves and Jill Stewart Statewide Measures Proposition 1A $10 billion bond. High Speed Passenger Train Bond Act. Total price tag with interest: About $19 million. Proposition 1 would give the state the right to sell $10 billion in bonds to build an 800-mile high-speed tr ... More >>

Lords of Your Thermostat?

California Energy Commission caught in scalding water

Anderson Valley Beer Tasting

Man-Made Reefs or Oily Eyesores?

In a raging debate, some say Mother Nature has warmed to California’s offshore oil rigs

The Crisco Kid

Brian Friedman wants you to fill 'er up with veggie oil

Flights of Logic

Enviros may sue to protect wildlife from oil

Solving Smog

Our suggestions for ways out of this mess

Air Angels

Bio Goes Bling

Loss and Loathing on the Cheney Trail

The environmental destruction wrought by the vice president’s secret energy plan

Nuclear Culture

Most Pakistanis see no crime in sharing the bomb with Muslim countries

Halfway to Venus

The Silent Campaigns

Gubernatorial candidates aren’t going out of their way to address the environment

Too Green for a Golden Opportunity

America's third party still mired in the margins

High-Wire Dreamin’

Enron's role in California's energy crisis of 2001

The Dozen Rip-offs

The lights are on, but California’s power contracts are a mess

Color Davis’ Energy Policy Green

Green as in high-cost power, not clean energy

Flips and Switches

Gray Davis wants it both ways

Master of Disaster

How Pete Wilson’s energy chief short-circuited the California grid

Power Ranger

DWP chief plans to hitch horses, 'pull this wagon out'

Get That Grid!

If California bails out the utilities, John Burton wants the state to get the power lines in return

Cross of Gold

The California Air Resources Board swivels in the battle of the standards

Forward Into the Past

California regulators jilt the electric car

Davis Decides!

The governor opts for public power