Thread by @Sammy_Roth

1. I took a trip to Delta, Utah with @luissinco earlier this year. Learned a bunch of things about the sources of L.A.'s electricity, and how they're starting to change.

First thing I learned: This coal plant, 500 miles from Los Angeles, is the city's largest power source.

@luissinco 2. The coal plant will shut down in 2025. But L.A. plans to build a gas plant in its place -- another fossil fuel.

That's despite Mayor Eric Garcetti shutting down gas plants back home. “This is the Green New Deal,” Garcetti told me in February: latimes.com/business/la-fi…

@luissinco 3. LADWP also wants to import solar & wind power over their 500-mile power line -- and to integrate those resources with an unusual energy storage technology.

It's called compressed air, and it would utilize an underground salt dome by the coal plant: latimes.com/business/la-fi…

@luissinco 4. The salt dome could provide a type of storage that lithium-ion batteries can't. @gaufre made a graphic to explain it.

The goal is to solve the "dunkelflaute" problem -- a German word meaning "dark doldrums," multi-day stretches without solar and wind. latimes.com/business/la-fi…

@luissinco @gaufre 5. LADWP says it needs a gas plant in Utah, because otherwise it won't be able to import clean energy over the 500-mile power line, for technical reasons. But I talked to a bunch of power grid experts who questioned that claim.

More detail in my story: latimes.com/business/la-fi…

@luissinco @gaufre 6. I asked Mayor Garcetti about the gas plant. He said: "It’s not one that excites me particularly...We are only doing that literally to get through the time in which we will make it obsolete."

LADWP plans to start construction on the gas plant this year. latimes.com/business/la-fi…

@luissinco @gaufre 7. One key underlying force: The value of existing transmission. Widespread agreement that more long-distance wires make the clean energy transition easier, but it's super hard to build them. L.A. already has this system running from Utah to Adelanto, and is determined to use it.

@luissinco @gaufre 8. Even without the salt dome storage, there's great solar and wind at the other end of that line. Just look at the maps.

It's a strategy lots of utilities are pursuing, which would be easier with more transmission: Take wind & solar from where it's cheap to where it's needed.

@luissinco @gaufre 9. LADWP says it can get away with building a gas plant because it will eventually substitute hydrogen for gas. Whether that will ever be possible is a big unknown.

Building more gas is definitely a gamble. See, for instance, this story from @1juliarosen: latimes.com/environment/st…

@luissinco @gaufre @1juliarosen 10. So in summary, I've got two stories from Utah: latimes.com/business/la-fi…

And: latimes.com/business/la-fi…

And if you think they're worthwhile, you should subscribe to the L.A. Times and make this type of work possible! latimes.com/subscriptions/… /END