Green Dreams Meet Reality

This LA Times investigation of clean energy at the Los Angeles Community College District ranks as a “must read”.  It perfectly captures the Clean Energy ethos and what happens when green dreams meet physics, economics, and simple reality. 

Sometimes, I get bogged down with the sheer mathematics of it all.  Proponents of the clean energy program at the community colleges estimated it would cost up to $975 million to install.  They also claimed that private sector investment, along with government and utility subsidies would reduce the colleges' cost by 90 percent.  That still leaves $97.5 million for the college to finance, while they pay annual electric bills of less than $8 million.  Assuming no operating costs and all electric production offsets purchases on a 1 to 1 basis, that still leaves the colleges with a 12-year payback.

In the event, outside contributions were much less than 90 percent and the colleges have gone ahead with only a fraction of the proposed projects.  Still, the colleges are out at least $10 million.  Kudos to the LA Times for getting to the bottom of this.

Steven Hayward blogs about the article over at Power Line.

If your interested in more, the Times article is part of a week-long series on the District and its $6 billion construction budget.