This Week’s News for LA’s Best Buildings
DWP Customers in LA Face Two-Day-A-Week Water Restrictions, With Eight-Minute Limit
Nearly 4 million Angelenos will be reduced to two-day-a-week watering restrictions on June 1 under drought rules released by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on Tuesday.
The highly anticipated announcement came two weeks after the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California called for the strictest-ever water cuts in the region due to worsening drought conditions and reduced supplies from the California State Water Project. The MWD action left many to wonder just how the rules would be applied in L.A.
How California Can Get to a Reliable, 85% Clean Grid by 2030
Can California really rely on gigawatts of solar and wind power and batteries, plus long-duration energy storage systems and “firm” carbon-free resources like geothermal power plants, to replace the need for most of its fossil-fueled power by the end of the decade? And can it do so without driving power prices through the roof or exposing the state to the risk of major blackouts?
Visualizing Future Emissions: New EPA Tool Helps Real Estate Reduce Carbon Risks
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a new tool to help real estate companies estimate past, current, and future carbon emissions from their buildings and portfolios, which promises to facilitate easier tracking and reporting on progress towards net zero.
Feasibility Study Outlines Potential Redevelopment Options for LA County General Hospital Building
Since opening in the 1930s, the General Hospital Building has served as the visual centerpiece of L.A. County + USC Medical Center, with a 19-story profile that dominates the skyline east of Downtown. But despite its physical presence (and even its use as the backdrop of the long-running soap opera General Hospital), the building has remained almost entirely vacant for well over a decade, owing to updated seismic safety regulations implemented in the wake of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
How Oslo Learned to Fight Climate Change
In September of 2019, roughly a dozen workers in Oslo, Norway, broke ground on the world’s first zero-emission construction site. They were widening a busy street into a pedestrian zone, using powerful machinery to break and lift slabs of asphalt. But the equipment was so quiet that nearby cafés and restaurants kept their front doors open. Passersby stopped to pose for photos, ask questions, and praise the project. Despite long hours in cold temperatures, the crew found the work energizing; the absence of deafening noise and noxious fumes was refreshing.
Image by Irfan Khan via the Los Angeles Times