Alviston Blog

I was surprised to find out that the city of Los Angeles still gets 40% of its power from coal plants in Arizona and Utah since California prides itself on leading the way when it comes to environmental issues. I had heard a long time ago that most of the power generated in California was natural gas. I had not thought about the power that we import. Portland also gets a large percentage of its power, around 44%, from coal. 

However, both cities are working hard to dump coal entirely. L.A.’s mayor has pledged to increase renewables from 8% to 20% by 2020. Portland plans to phase out coal all together. Energy efficiency measures, such as switching all the street lights to LEDs and making uses of alternative power generation like wind and solar, are already helping to make these goals a reality.

Seattle, blessed with huge water resources, gets most of its power from hydro. San Francisco uses a mix of natural gas, hydro, and nuclear. San Diego uses mostly natural gas.

While these improvements are certainly welcomed, the ultimate goal is not to just get rid of coal, but to convert entirely over to renewables, to decarbonize the grid altogether, by using wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and most importantly, energy efficiency and conservation.

What we do not want to do is simply add the renewables on top of the existing ways of making power. We need to replace fossil fuel generation with renewables, as quickly as possible.

-Mark Alvis