Post by curiousgeorge on Jul 11, 2011 11:21:01 GMT
This is a story of how not to "go green".
It seems that the LA Community College District has run smack up against reality. Bet that hurt. It's long ( 5 pages ), but it's worth the read.
Excerpt:
It seems that the LA Community College District has run smack up against reality. Bet that hurt. It's long ( 5 pages ), but it's worth the read.
Excerpt:
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-build6-20110306,0,4909175.story
Larry Eisenberg had a vision. "Amazing," he called it. "Spectacular."
The Los Angeles Community College District would become a paragon of clean energy. By generating solar, wind and geothermal power, the district would supply all its electricity needs. Not only would the nine colleges sever ties to the grid, saving millions of dollars a year, they would make money by selling surplus power. Thanks to state and federal subsidies, construction of the green energy projects would cost nothing upfront.
As head of a $5.7-billion, taxpayer-funded program to rebuild the college campuses, Eisenberg commanded attention. But his plan for energy independence was seriously flawed.
He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. And he poured millions of dollars into designs for projects that proved so impractical or unpopular they were never built.
These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.
The problems with Eisenberg's energy vision were fundamental. For starters, there simply wasn't room on the campuses for all the generating equipment required to become self-sufficient. Some of the colleges wouldn't come close to that goal even if solar panels, wind turbines and other devices were wedged into every available space.
Going off the grid did not make economic sense either. Given the cost of alternative energy technology, it would be more expensive for the district to generate all its own electricity than to continue paying utilities for power.
Weather and geology also refused to cooperate.
Three solar power arrays had to be scrapped because the intended locations were atop seismic faults.
Plans for large-scale wind power collided with the reality that prevailing winds at nearly all the campuses are too weak to generate much electricity. To date, a single wind turbine has been installed, as a demonstration project. It spins too slowly in average winds to power a 60-watt light bulb.
In the end, Eisenberg's grand plan was scaled down to what was actually doable, which was a fraction of the green energy capacity he had envisioned.
By then, the district had committed at least $4 million to designs for solar and wind energy farms that would never get beyond blueprints.
As one project after another was scratched, an elaborate plan to pay for it all with money from private investors fell apart. But the investment banks that put the deals together had to be paid for their work. The cost: $2.8 million.