An Equitable Clean Energy Transition in Los Angeles, a Plastics Problem in US Rivers

Hosts Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle discuss recent stories from NREL:       

• The LA100 Equity Strategies project, developed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in collaboration with NREL and the University of California, Los Angeles , envisions a future where Los Angeles achieves 100% clean electricity by 2035 through community-driven approaches. The project, born out of two years of community engagement, outlines strategic pathways to address inequities in the current energy system, focusing on issues such as affordable clean energy access, workforce development, and community involvement to ensure a just and inclusive transition to renewable energy. 
• Ben Maurer, a scuba diver and ocean enthusiast working with NREL, leads the Waterborne Plastics Assessment and Collection Technologies project (WaterPACT) to address the issue of waterborne plastics. Through collaborative efforts with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and various partners, Maurer's team collects data on plastics in major rivers, including the Mississippi, Delaware, Columbia, and Los Angeles rivers, aiming to develop solutions to prevent plastic pollution from reaching the ocean and create a comprehensive understanding of the U.S. contribution to global ocean emissions. 

This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by James Wilcox, Joe DelNero, and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast is created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and Facebook.

Transcript

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Taylor: Welcome to Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We’re highlighting the latest in clean energy research and innovations happening at the lab. It’s Wednesday, December 13. I’m Taylor Mankle.  

Kerrin: And I’m Kerrin Jeromin. Taylor, tis the holiday season! You heading anywhere fun for the holidays?  

Taylor: You know, actually nowhere specifically for the holidays, but I am doing a little family vacation right after the holidays to celebrate my mom’s big birthday this year.   

Kerrin: Ooo!!  

Taylor: So, giving a little more love to the birthday girl who’s normally stuck right behind the holidays. 

Kerrin: Totally. Happy Birthday, Mama Mankle. 

Taylor: How about you, Kerrin?  

Kerrin: Uh, yeah, no big plans either. I will be spending some time with the family though, which is always what it’s all about for me.  

Taylor: That’s the best. 

Kerrin: Yeah, yeah. You know, I know we’re not exactly a travel podcast here, but this entire episode is truly California Dreamin’. So we’re taking a little road trip. Today, we’re zooming in on life in Los Angeles, a place that on these cold Colorado days, has me daydreaming of the palm trees, ocean breezes, balmy weather, blue skies, you know, the whole thing, and not to mention, of course, burrito-fueled hikes.  

Taylor: Hmm … Now we can get that in Colorado too, but now you have me California dreaming of this too!  

Kerrin: While we may be dreaming of spending a day on Santa Monica’s shoreline or cruising Griffith Park’s winding vistas, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s dream day in this city looks a little different.  

Taylor: In their dream, Angelenos wake up for the day and they turn on lights powered by 100% clean electricity. Their homes are cool, protected from the sweltering heat of the California summer. Workers commute to their jobs via electric vehicles, buses, and bikes. And, everyone knows that they have a voice in energy decisions of their city.  

Kerrin: Some might think that this goal of clean air, well-paying jobs, economic opportunity, and affordable, accessible energy for everyone is a dream just reserved for the optimists. But, no! NREL’s research actually provides real options for making the transition to clean energy in an equitable way.  

Taylor: We recently released the results of the LA100 Equity Strategies project, which outline approaches that can help that dream become reality for the city of Los Angeles.  

 Kerrin: It took two years of modeling, analysis, and gathering input from the community to complete. And NREL recognized in the project that community voices are the key to creating equitable energy solutions.  

Taylor: Kerrin, our listeners may know that this isn’t the first time NREL and Los Angeles have worked together.  

Kerrin: That’s right!—back in 2021, NREL released a study that showed that Los Angeles could in fact reach its 100% clean energy goals as soon as the year 2035. But the study also revealed that in order for this to happen equitably, LA would need intentionally designed policies and programs. So, the city embarked on a goal of achieving 100% clean energy in an equitable way so all Angelenos can benefit.  

Taylor: And, in continuing this relationship between LA and the laboratory, NREL was called upon to lead the LA100 Equity Strategies project.  

Kerrin: Exactly. It’s focused on energy equity – defined as the equitable distribution of social, economic, and health benefits and burdens of energy across all segments of society, and inclusive participation in decision-making.  

Taylor: Two stakeholder committees were formed for this. The first was the steering committee, made up of leaders from 14 Los Angeles community-based organizations that are active in energy and environmental justice. They met monthly over the course of the project and facilitated listening sessions to gather community input.   

Kerrin: The second committee was the advisory committee and included representatives from twenty-seven LA city offices and experts from city agencies, labor unions, and environmental organizations. This committee met bimonthly over the course of the project to provide feedback on LA100 Equity Strategies and encourage interagency coordination.  

Taylor: The Steering Committee identified five priority areas for an equitable energy transition in LA: The first three were number one: inclusive community involvement, two: affordability and burdens, and three: access and use of energy tech, programs, and infrastructure.  

Kerrin: And I’ll pick it up from here – number four: health, safety, and community resilience and finally, number five: jobs and workforce development.  

Taylor: These five priorities helped to guide the LA100 Equity Strategies team. To address these priorities, the team identified more than 30 potential tech and infrastructure areas and strategy options that could improve energy equity for all Angelenos.  

Kerrin: The full, 17-chapter project report is all available online on the LA100 equity strategies website … which is maps.nrel.gov/LA 100. 

Taylor: What makes this work even more exciting is that many of these strategies can be adapted to other communities, not just Los Angeles. This is adaptable for anywhere from a small community to a regional collaborative undertaking an equitable energy transition.  

Kerrin: An important aspect to help guide our country toward a more equitable clean energy future!  

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Taylor: Now, while some NREL researchers were working with the Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles for LA100 Equity Strategies, there was another project that led NREL once again to the City of Angels—this being the WaterPACT project.  

Kerrin: I’m going to guess there’s an acronym there, yes?  

Taylor: Always. 

Kerrin: Ok, acronym check-- Short for the Waterborne Plastics Assessment and Collection Technologies project, WaterPACT involves collecting samples of plastics in waterways, gathering data about the size and scope of the problem, and eventually coming up with a solution.  

Taylor: WaterPACT is led by NREL’s Ben Maurer and relies on the expertise of about 30 researchers at NREL and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The researchers are focused on investigating the ongoing problem of waterborne plastics—they’re determining how much plastic is flowing through the water.  

Kerrin: Not good. For the study, they selected four rivers around the US that have different climates, weather systems, and environments. Each river is also downstream of a major urban center. One of the four chosen rivers was the roughly 50-miles-long Los Angeles River that flows along a concrete basin.  

Taylor: The other three rivers were the Mississippi, Delaware, and Columbia rivers. Researchers would spend long days on boats in these three rivers, towing a specially designed, 3-meter-long net that would capture visible and invisible plastics in the waterways.  

Kerrin: Uhh, invisible? Is that, like, something I’m not aware of?

Taylor: Exactly, invisible is right! The net can capture things as small as 330 microns. To compare, a human hair is about 70 microns. And a single tow pulls in thousands of pieces of plastic.  

Kerrin: Wow. On the LA River, Maurer and the other researchers were able to work from an overpass. From there, the pollution problem was pretty easy to spot I imagine.  

Taylor: No kidding. Get this, in just 90 minutes, Maurer saw three couches traveling downstream to the ocean – no need for a micron catching net to see those. One of the group’s researchers, Ali Chamas, said the group had yet to go through a sample without microplastics in it.  

Kerrin: Maurer and his WaterPACT team are not the first to study plastics in rivers, but what the researchers have accomplished is to develop a benchmark to collect and categorize data so it can be comparable across any studies.  

Taylor: Backing up just for a second—so there was no existing data available on different plastic types and concentrations in rivers?  

Kerrin: Apparently not, and it’s surprising, right?. When embarking on this project, Maurer also imagined that some federal agency must have that data readily available. He thought he would be able to jump right into the solution-designing phase of the plastics problem. But that data did not exist yet.   

Taylor: Gotcha. So, with that, Maurer and his team set out to gather it, along with partners at universities, subcontractors, and lots of time spent back in the lab analyzing samples.  

Kerrin: And though this project is focused on pulling plastics from our rivers, as an avid surfer and scuba diver, Maurer noted that plastic pollution is a growing issue that persists in our oceans, too.  

Taylor: That makes sense, the trash flows from the rivers into the ocean. Which means we can catch it before it gets there. Rivers provide a last-chance opportunity to catch waterborne plastics before they wind up in our oceans. The data WaterPACT is collecting now will provide a road map for a solution to the problem of plastics in rivers—preventing those plastics from ever flowing to the sea.  

Kerrin: Maurer hopes the findings could result in a 50% reduction in plastics in US waterways within the next 20 years.  

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Taylor: Energy equity, clean waterways—this daydream is even better than we imagined.  

Kerrin: Yeah, right? It doesn’t have to be just a daydream, though, anymore! It’s potentially a reality for the future of Los Angeles—and, in the process, many other metropolitans and waterways across the country and the globe.  

Taylor: Incredible! You know what else is incredible, Kerrin?  

Kerrin: Uh, what’s that?  

Taylor: It’s not quite as cool as the LA100 Equity Strategies or WaterPACT projects, but we just wrapped up our 12th episode!  

Kerrin: That’s awesome! Thanks so much to our listeners for joining us for a dozen episodes of Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast! And we’ve got one more coming up before the new year, which will round us out to a nice baker’s dozen in 2023.  

Taylor: And lots more fun to come in 2024. Happy Holidays, everyone! We’ll be back in two weeks with more news from NREL.  

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Taylor: This episode was adapted from NREL articles from November 2023 authored by Wayne Hicks, Brooke Van Zandt, and Julia Medeiros Coad. Our theme music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino, of Drift B-C. This podcast is produced by NREL’s Communications Office and recorded at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. We recognize and pay respect to the Indigenous peoples from our past, present, and future, and are grateful to those who have been and continue to be stewards of this land.  

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