California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA

Stephanie Pincetl, a professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, said the ultimate decision on whether the project moves forward will depend on how broadly a judge interprets the developer’s obligations under the California Environmental Quality Act. “Newhall … complied with the letter of the law," she said. “It’ll depend on the judge and if the judge is willing to look at the larger set of impacts and not rule in a very narrow way.”

California is facing a major storm this weekend and another next week. We expect to get six feet of snow and 12 inches of rain. Even with the storms, Santa Barbara’s main source of water is in trouble.

Dr. Pincetl’s latest post in the Nature of Cities. I have been reading an extraordinary book by Marwa Al-Sabouni: The Battle for Home: the Vision of a Young Architect in Syria, who posits the critical importance of urbanism for the nature of a city—its feeling, its generosity, its openness to all regardless of difference. She...

Post carbon cities are post-waste cities that confront the reality of our limited resources and overtaxed planet. Compost will be a way of life, as will sophisticated recycling and supply chain management. We no longer assume unlimited energy and planetary resources. We understand that our margin for resource extravagance is now razor-thin and that we can’t just override the constraints of natural systems by applying more brute carbon based energy. Earth resources are finite; its atmosphere sensitive. Instead, we recycle and repurpose as much as possible. Post carbon is about doing more — and better — with less.

Water Management in Los Angeles County: a Research Report PI: Stephanie Pincetl, Director CCSC Co-PI Madelyn Glickfeld, Director WRG In 2012, the Haynes Foundation awarded the California Center for Sustainable Communities (CCSC) at UCLA a multi-year grant to research the water management and supply system in Los Angeles County. This research was designed to assess the...

Since the launch of the Los Angeles Energy Atlas (energyatlas.ucla.edu) in 2015, CCSC has been collecting, processing, mapping, and analyzing updated building energy consumption data for Los Angeles County and beyond. See attached for more details on the updates underway. LA Energy Atlas Updates

Cheap Solar is Great, but Don’t Forget About Storage By Eric Daniel Fournier, M.A., M.E.Sc., Ph.D. How Low Can Solar Go? In June of this year, the global news media reverberated with reports of a record shattering low bid for the world’s cheapest commercial solar installation. The bid was the best of five submitted by a...

Marcia Hale presented at the annual conference of the American Association of Geographers in March 2016, exploring conflict and change in the Los Angeles urban water system. Many changes are being proposed for this system as a result of compounding pressures including drought and an aging infrastructure. CCSC research found strong variation in the objectives driving...

Alex Ricklefs and Eric Fournier describe the impact of nuclear power plant closures on energy storage needs in the Conversation (http://theconversation.com/). From the article: “Currently in California, energy storage is effectively provided by fossil fuel power plants. These natural gas and coal-powered plants provide steady “baseload” power and can ramp up generation to meet peaks...

Alex Ricklefs of the CCSC has compiled a presentation on the impact of high heat events on the energy grid. Climate change has increased the number of extreme weather events in turn increasing energy demand.

Dr. Stephanie Pincetl and Dr. Erik Porse authored this week’s post on the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project blog, Viewpoints. An excerpt: In the United States, the 20th century was the era of utilities. In an effort to promote equal access to electricity and water services across a majority rural population, governments granted...