Abundance, Part 2: What’s Slowing Down Solar?

Summary

Boiling Point - Episode: "Abundance, Part 2: What’s Slowing Down Solar?"

Introduction

In the second installment of the "Abundance" series, host and LA Times Studios climate columnist Sammy Roth delves into the critical issue of solar energy expansion in California. Building on the previous episode's discussion on housing, this episode focuses on renewable energy, particularly solar power, exploring the multifaceted challenges and potential solutions to accelerate the state's transition to clean energy.

Renewable Energy Needs in California

Sammy Roth opens the discussion by highlighting California's ambitious climate and renewable energy goals. He emphasizes the urgent need to add 127,000 megawatts (MW) to the state's electricity grid over the next two decades to meet decarbonization targets and accommodate the electrification of various sectors, including transportation.

"We have to add a lot more energy, a lot more renewable energy to meet the electricity needs we already have and to add a lot more electricity for electric vehicles, electric homes, et cetera." ([05:39])

Challenges in Scaling Solar

Shannon Eddy, Executive Director of the Large Scale Solar Association, acknowledges that California is currently behind schedule in scaling up its renewable energy infrastructure. While historic additions to the grid have been modest, the state's current trajectory requires a dramatic increase in annual additions—from a few thousand MW to 6,000 MW each year.

"We are having to jump the tracks of what we did in the past and build a lot more and a lot faster than we have in the past." ([07:00])

Kim Delfino, President of Earth Advocacy, concurs with the necessity for rapid expansion but adds complexity to the equation. She underscores the importance of integrating energy storage solutions to address the intermittent nature of solar and wind energy.

"With the solar and the wind, which doesn't operate all the time... you need to have more storage, more ability to sort of let the flow of electrons even out and be there when we need them the most." ([08:13])

The Darden Project: A Case Study

The conversation shifts to the Darden Project, a massive solar and battery storage initiative in Fresno County. Shannon elaborates on the project's scale—1150 MW of solar capacity paired with 4,600 megawatt-hours (MWh) of battery storage—and its potential to be the largest solar energy project globally.

"When you think about it, it'll be the largest solar energy project in the world." ([09:48])

This project serves as a benchmark for both progress and the accompanying challenges, particularly in balancing energy expansion with environmental conservation.

Balancing Renewable Energy and Conservation

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around California's 30 by 30 goal, which aims to protect 30% of the state's lands and waters by 2030. Kim Delfino provides a status update, noting that California has achieved 26.1% of this target by adding over 850,000 acres in 2024. However, she emphasizes that meeting the 30% goal is just the beginning, with scientists advocating for the protection of up to half the Earth's land by 2050.

"Even if we meet 30 by 30 and we try to go beyond that and protect ecosystems at a level where they're not going to fail, I do believe... we can meet our clean energy goals and protect ecosystems." ([12:35])

Shannon highlights the dual role of conservation in renewable energy projects. For every acre of habitat impacted by solar development, mitigation measures require the preservation or restoration of additional land, contributing to permanent conservation efforts.

"Of the 70,000 megawatts, that will probably result in about a 3 to 4 billion dollars conservation investment." ([13:32])

Rooftop Solar vs. Large-Scale Solar

The conversation transitions to the role of rooftop and community solar in California's energy mix. Sammy Roth expresses frustration with current policies that hinder the affordability and accessibility of rooftop solar installations, citing personal experiences of inflated costs.

"I had the quote back and it was triple what I had originally thought it was going to be... that was really unfortunate to have those as policies here in California." ([21:02])

Shannon explains that regulatory decisions, influenced by large investor-owned utilities, have significantly reduced incentives for rooftop solar, despite its potential benefits in providing reliability and reducing dependence on extensive transmission infrastructure.

"The Public Utilities Commission... voted a couple of years ago to quite dramatically reduce the incentive payments for rooftop solar." ([22:57])

Community Engagement and Misinformation

A critical barrier identified is the challenge of community engagement amidst widespread misinformation and political polarization. Sammy Roth discusses how misinformation about renewable energy fuels resistance, making it difficult to achieve local support for solar projects.

"There's so much misinformation spreading about renewable energy... people really, really believe... misinformation." ([35:45])

Both guests agree that effective community engagement is essential. Kim emphasizes the importance of educating communities about the benefits of renewable projects to garner support and mitigate opposition.

"As you do more engagement, the more communities are able to have some input but also understand what the benefits are." ([32:30])

The Abundance Framework

Shannon introduces the "abundance" concept proposed by journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which argues that excessive regulation in liberal states impedes the development of necessary infrastructure, including renewable energy. Sammy Roth critiques this framework, suggesting that while increasing renewable energy is crucial, it must be balanced with ecosystem preservation and community values.

"We can build things faster... but we can still do it while protecting our core values, which include communities, cultural resources, Natural resources." ([27:43])

Optimism and the Path Forward

Despite the challenges, both Shannon and Kim express cautious optimism. Shannon underscores the economic and environmental inevitability of solar energy, while Kim highlights successful community engagement examples, such as the Darden Project, where initial skepticism was transformed into support through dialogue and tangible benefits.

Sammy Roth remains hopeful that ongoing efforts and increased community understanding will pave the way for accelerated renewable energy development without compromising environmental and social values.

"I do think that the abundance frame... it's a misuse of the concept... I think we have that can be done." ([12:35])

Property Taxes and Economic Incentives

Towards the end, the discussion touches on upcoming changes to property taxes for solar projects. Starting in 2027, solar installations will be subject to full property taxes, potentially adding significant revenue to local communities and the state budget. This economic shift could alter the dynamics of renewable energy projects, making them more financially viable and beneficial to localities.

"Darden will be paying, I think, somewhere on the level of 300 million in property taxes in the first 10 years alone." ([35:06])

Conclusion

"Abundance, Part 2: What’s Slowing Down Solar?" provides a comprehensive exploration of the intricate balance between expanding renewable energy and conserving California's natural ecosystems. Through insightful dialogue, Sammy Roth, Shannon Eddy, and Kim Delfino navigate the complexities of policy, community engagement, and environmental stewardship, offering both challenges and pathways forward in California's critical energy transition.

Notable Quotes

• Sammy Roth ([05:39]): "We have to add a lot more energy, a lot more renewable energy to meet the electricity needs we already have and to add a lot more electricity for electric vehicles, electric homes, et cetera."

• Shannon Eddy ([07:00]): "We are having to jump the tracks of what we did in the past and build a lot more and a lot faster than we have in the past."

• Kim Delfino ([08:13]): "With the solar and the wind, which doesn't operate all the time... you need to have more storage, more ability to sort of let the flow of electrons even out and be there when we need them the most."

• Kim Delfino ([12:35]): "Even if we meet 30 by 30 and we try to go beyond that and protect ecosystems at a level where they're not going to fail, I do believe... we can meet our clean energy goals and protect ecosystems."

• Shannon Eddy ([22:57]): "The Public Utilities Commission... voted a couple of years ago to quite dramatically reduce the incentive payments for rooftop solar."

• Shannon Eddy ([35:06]): "Darden will be paying, I think, somewhere on the level of 300 million in property taxes in the first 10 years alone."

For More Information

Listeners interested in engaging with the topics discussed or sharing their perspectives can reach out to Sammy Roth via email at sammyrothatimes.com. Stay tuned for the next episode, featuring discussions on the Colorado River and its looming water challenges.

Transcript

[Sami Roth]

This is an LA Times Studios podcast.

[Shannon Eddy]

My name is Sami Roth and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This is Boiling Point. When I first started writing about climate change, that's 11 years ago this week, by the way, had a pretty simple understanding of renewable energy. Solar farms are good for the environment. Environmentalists love solar farms. Why would anybody who called themselves an environmentalist try to block the construction of a solar farm today? My understanding is, let's say, a little more nuanced. We need solar farms badly and quickly so we can stop burning the fossil fuels that are cooking the planet and polluting our air. But we should also try to be careful about where we put those solar farms. They can destroy wildlife, habit, and even kill endangered species. There are, in fact, a lot of environmentalists who have opposed certain solar projects that they think should be built in other spots. There are even a few environmentalists who don't like big solar projects at all. Last week on the podcast, we talked about the idea of abundance, this intriguing and controversial new concept proposed by the journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Abundance is basically an argument that Democratic politicians in blue states have made it too difficult to build the things that people want and need, including housing, public transit, and, yes, renewable energy. And that difficulty is partly due, according to Klein and Thompson, to environmental regulations. On last week's podcast, we focused on abundance and housing. This week, our topic is renewable energy, solar in particular. We've got two guests. One of them is Shannon Eddy. She's the executive director of the Large Scale Solar Association, a California trade group that represents solar companies. Our other guest is Kim Delfino. She's a conservation activist and president of the consulting firm Earth Advocacy. I've known Shannon and Kim going back more than a decade, and they're good people. Shannon's job is to help solar companies get more projects built, and Kim's job is to protect wild places and sensitive ecosystems. They're both trying the best they can to confront the climate crisis, but they're not on the same side of every argument. I've written stories where they've disagreed pretty strongly about which public lands should be open to solar farms and the right bal between large scale solar and rooftop solar, and what are the best ways to protect wildlife habitat. When I asked them if they'd come on this podcast and have a conversation about abundance, I was grateful that they both said yes. This is not going to be a vicious argument like the last time we had two guests on Boiling Point. It was a lot friendlier, in my opinion, illuminating in a totally different way. I hope you think so too.

[Kim Delfino]

During one of the most severe windstorms Southern California experienced in more than a decade, the Palisades and Eaton fires ignited, leaving heartbreaking losses in our communities. Now, as we build back, we're building stronger, cleaner and more resilient in communities most vulnerable to dangerous weather conditions and wildfires. Southern California Edison is placing power lines underground, hardening the electric system by installing wires with protective coating and adding advanced technology to help keep communities safe. So when Southern California faces the next storm, the next most severe event, helicopters.

[Shannon Eddy]

Structures adjacent here at Piper Road.

[Kim Delfino]

We'll be ready. Learn [e-mail] disasterrecovery Today is the worst.

[Narrator]

Day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

[Shannon Eddy]

They all saw how much I loved him. They didn't have to take him from me.

[Narrator]

Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening.

[Sami Roth]

My parents had me locked up in.

[Shannon Eddy]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me.

[Sami Roth]

And to steal my son away from me.

[Narrator]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men, emboldened by their faith, determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Shannon Eddy]

Kim Shannon, thanks very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.

[Sami Roth]

Thank you for having us.

[Narrator]

Hi Sami. Thanks.

[Shannon Eddy]

So, Shannon, let me start with you here. California has these really ambitious climate and renewable energy goals. In your line of work, you're thinking about those all the time, especially in terms of all of the renewable energy that California is going to need to meet those goals. Are we on track right now? And if we're not, what do we need to do to get on track? From your perspective, how much renewable energy do we need to build? How fast do we need to speed up? Where are we at?

[Narrator]

So first, let's talk about the context. We are projected because of our decarbonization targets, because of our load forecasting, we have to add 127,000 megawatts to the grid in the next 20 years. And the context for that, of course, is that we have, on the hottest day, we have about 52,000 megawatts operating. So are we on track to meet that? Are we on track to triple the size of our grid in the next 20 years? I would say we're not quite.

[Shannon Eddy]

So we need to build a lot more energy, a lot more renewable energy to meet the electricity needs we already have and to add a lot more electricity for electric vehicles, electric homes, et cetera.

[Narrator]

That's right. We need to more than, let's just say, double the size of the grid in 10 years. And that's a lot. And we are behind on our planning metrics, so we're even more behind.

[Shannon Eddy]

Why do you think we're behind? I mean, California's had a lot of time to be doing this stuff. We've set these targets. Gosh, it's 20, 25. We set a lot of these targets 5, 10, 15 years ago. Maybe not the 100% renewable energy or clean energy target, but we've known where we were going for a while. How have we gotten to this point where there's such a need to add more clean energy to the grid and to expand the size of the grid? And we're not yet on pace to do that.

[Narrator]

It took a while for the modeling to catch up to the targets that we set. And that's just true because we have to electrify these multiple sectors of our economy in order to reduce the carbon emissions. That's what's going to lead to the huge growth in our grid. And it took us a while to figure out just how much that was. Typically we were adding only a couple of thousand of couple thousand megawatts to the grid in any one year. And now we have to add 6,000 megawatts to the grid every year. So we're having to jump the tracks of what we did in the past and build a lot more and a lot faster than we have in the past. And our systems are just not made for that. So we're having to update our systems at the same time that we have to build all the capacity in a pretty quick time.

[Shannon Eddy]

Kim, I want to bring you in here. That's generally the response when you talk to folks who work in energy, who work on the electric grid. You know, we need to build a lot more stuff. We need to move faster. What do you make of that assessment? Is that. Is that how you see things? Would you characterize it similarly? Differently? I'm curious for your take.

[Sami Roth]

So I don't disagree that we have to build a lot of clean energy and the right mix of clean energy. I think that's something we, we need to focus on. Right. So with the solar and the wind, which doesn't operate all the time. Right. It's not always sunny, it's not always windy. You need to have more storage, more ability to sort of let the flow of electrons even out and be when we need them the most. And that's. That is a complicating factor in all of this. So I do agree we need to build more. I do. I would say that, you know, while we might have started off slowly, we've certainly ramped up in the building. I mean, in 2024 alone, the state added 7,000 megawatts of clean energy onto the grid just this year. We can talk about this maybe a little bit later, but the Darden project was approved by the Energy commission. That's another 4,600 megawatts of battery storage and will provide 1.1 gigawatts, which is a massive amount of energy. When you think about it, it'll be the largest solar energy project in the world. So I think we started off slow. We're ramping up. We still have a long ways to go. And then one thing we didn't really, we haven't mentioned, in addition to electrifying how we transport ourselves and goods around the state and the country, there's also this new thing called AI and the data centers and the amount of energy that potentially may be needed for that that I'm not entirely certain was factored in to all of this. So it's complicated.

[Shannon Eddy]

It is. And I'm glad you brought up Darden. We should talk about that later. Darden, just for context, as you said, really big solar and battery project in Fresno county, and I have the numbers here, it's actually 1150 megawatt solar and 4600 megawatt hours of battery storage, because I get people yelling at me about megawatts versus megawatt hours all the time. And the last thing I want for this podcast is to get that response. So putting that on the record there. But, you know, the reason I'm asking you, I asked you, Kim, for your assessment here is I think when I write about the need for California to build a lot more renewable energy and very, very quickly because we need to get fossil fuels off the grid as fast as possible. And that's such a huge imper. Frequently the pushback that I'll get to that, and this is what you worked on, is how do we do that while also protecting natural ecosystems and landscapes and wildlife? And that's the issue that has defined your career. California has this goal of 30 by 30, protecting 30% of our lands. And waters by 2030. That's based in science. There's a national under Trump, under Biden, excuse me, there was a national version of this that Trump has thrown out. Where is California right now in terms of progress towards that 30 by 30 goal? And do you see the need to build all of this renewable energy as being in tension with that or not?

[Sami Roth]

Well, so on the good news side of things, we are doing pretty well in meeting our goal to meet 30% of land protection by 2030. The state actually just released its 30 by 30 progress report and we've added over 850,000 acres in 2024. So we're at 26.1% of our 30%. So we just need to add another just under 4 million acres to meet our goal by 2030. Now, that's not going to be easy to do, but we are adding acres steadily in California. So I think we're doing well in that sense. I will just note that some folks think that if we meet our 30 by 30 goal that somehow we've checked the box and biodiversity is saved in California. And I wish it were that simple. And this kind of goes to the other part of your question, which is we also need to protect other lands besides the 30%. The scientists actually told us we need to protect half the Earth by 2050 to protect ecosystems from falling apart. But to answer your question, even if we meet 30 by 30 and we try to go beyond that and protect ecosystems at a level where they're not going to fail, I do believe, and I've told you this before when we've talked previously, we can meet our clean energy goals and protect ecosystems. It is not easy, but it is something that can be done.

[Shannon Eddy]

Shannon, what's your perspective here? How good a job or not good a job or what's your assessment on how California is doing right now at balancing these forces and what that means for the energy transition, the companies that you represent and their ability to get projects built?

[Narrator]

I certainly agree with Kim in that we are California does have the ability to site the renewable energy that we need and do the conservation that has been called for. I think one of the little discussed stories about renewable energy is the conservation benefits that will flow from these projects. If the state is expecting that we're going to need about 70 gigawatts of utility scale solar, that means we'll probably have at least half a million acres of permanently conserved mitigation lands as a result of those projects.

[Shannon Eddy]

Can you, before I'm going to cut you off there, explain what that means. So 170 gigawatts is a really big number. When you say that that will lead to permanently conserved lands and mitigation benefits, just unpack that because I think those terms might be meaningful to a lot of people.

[Narrator]

So for solar, for any kind of development, California's environmental rules require that if you're going to be taking up certain habitat, then you, you purchase or acquire or conserve, permanently conserve mitigation lands on some based on some ratio to make up for, to compensate for the footprint of the project itself. Based on the conversations that I've had with my companies, they estimate that of the 70, when you're, when you're mitigating for 70,000 megawatts, that will probably result in about a 3 to 4 billion dollars conservation investment. And this is again, permanent mitigation that will happen. These are permanent conservation dollars that we're beginning to talk to the state about so they can integrate these mitigation dollars and these conservation investments with the 30 by 30 goals.

[Shannon Eddy]

Kim, what do you think? Does that mean solar and wind are good for conservation if land has to be set aside in perpetuity once you build a project?

[Sami Roth]

Well, I think there's sort of two things that are going on here just to sort of pull it apart a little bit more. There's the first issue is where do you put it? So ideally you want to try to understand on the landscape where the important lands are for biodiversity, for wildlife connectivity, for the ability of plants and animals to move, move in real time. And also with climate change being able to shift as things get warmer. So like, these are the, this is sort of the, it's kind of like planning a little bit on an Etch A Sketch. But it's kind of like understanding where these important places are most important places tend to be where there's been no building. It's intact habitat. What we say, it's sort of, it's, it's animals homes that have been left undisturbed. But then sometimes there are places that are disturbed, like in the agricultural fields. Sometimes those fields are important for animals. So it's, you know, it's complicated. So where you put those projects is really important. You try and we've been working with the state for many years now and we did it in the desert to identify the high value areas and then areas that are of lower value from natural resources and cultural resources and other community needs and then those lower conflict areas. That's where you put the projects. Now there's no free lunch because anytime you put A project somewhere, it's probably going to have some kind of environmental or habitat impact. And so there will be mitigation that flows from that. Meaning if you destroy an acre of habitat, you need to compensate it by an acre or maybe more, depending on how rare the habitat is. And that's the dollars that Shannon's talking about, which would generate money that would go into acquiring land and putting that land into permanent conservation, which could be parks, it could be ecological reserves, it could be land going back to the federal government, you know, in some form and so. Or going to land trusts and. Yeah, so from my perspective, you need to deal with both parts. It's not as simple as you put the project wherever and you just mitigate it because you may put the project on top of, I don't know, the last remaining nests of a particular type of bird or in the last connectivity corridor where mountain lions move through in a particular area. So it's both where you put it and then the mitigation dollars. So it's. That would be my answer.

[Shannon Eddy]

Yeah. The no free lunch comment is interesting to me because I feel like there's a spectrum going on here where if you put it on the last, you know, like, California Condor nest, I think everyone would agree, like, don't put solar panels on top of the last California Condor nest and drive the California Condor to extinction. You know, I wrote about a project last summer that was going in the desert, and, you know, there were Joshua trees getting raised for this project. And, you know, it was hard for me to make a judgment on this one project in particular because, you know, I just didn't have all of the details. But there were people who were, you know, just adamant that there should never be a Joshua tree raised, you know, torn down, not a single one for any solar project. And I personally thought that that was a little bit of a simplistic viewpoint. And I. I suggested that this should maybe be project by project. You should think about even if there was one or several or some Joshua trees here. Let's evaluate project by project. And was accused basically of wanting to make Joshua trees extinct for suggesting that by various readers of that story, which was an interesting experience. There were some. And I'm not saying that's illegitimate, if that's your point of view. That's your point of view, but I got some pretty vociferous responses to that. But, you know, then at the other end of the spectrum, it's, you know, you get some stuff on the front. You mentioned agricultural lands, Kim, and people. There's a lot of. And Shannon, I want to hear what you think about this too. Like, you know, agricultural lands are frequently suggested as this is a place that's great to put solar projects because, you know, it's already been disturbed. It's quote unquote low conflict. As you said, there's no free lunch. Sometimes you do get questions raised about, oh, you know, there are species that have taken up, have, you know, taken up their homes in ag lands. There's God, there's burrowing owl issues sometimes that have made their homes in ag lands. And then suddenly it becomes, well, ag lands are a lot better than perhaps lesser disturbed public lands in the desert. But someone's going to raise an issue almost everywhere. So Shannon, I guess I'm curious if you want to weigh in here. There have been these planning processes that have happened to try to identify these low conflict lands. How well do you think those have worked? Have they led to places that are easier to build, where projects can move forward more quickly, where stuff can happen at the scale and pace that it needs to? How realistic to you is the vision where we can sort stuff out and figure out here's where you can build, here's where it can happen at the pace that we need?

[Narrator]

I think as you and I have talked in the past, I think landscape level planning has been pretty fraught. And I do think that California has gotten a little bit more sophisticated in terms of its identification of low conflict areas, especially for solar. When you look at solar or when you look at California's energy projections, the bulk of the terrestrial renewable energy is going to be utility scale solar. So a lot of the planning that we do at the land use screens level, let's just say from the energy commission's perspective, is calibrated and tailored to identify places where solar will have the lowest impact. But when it comes to identifying lower conflict lands for solar, I think the state's doing a big a better job. And obviously there are multiple decisions that happen at the local level. There are multiple decisions that need to happen at the transmission and interconnection level that impact where a specific project will go.

[Shannon Eddy]

So one thing we haven't talked about yet, we've been focused on large scale solar, these big hundred or thousands of acre solar facilities. We haven't talked about rooftop solar, rooftop and community solar, these smaller near to urban area solar facilities. Kim, what role do you see rooftop solar as having in meeting California's clean energy and climate goals?

[Sami Roth]

Well, I think that rooftop and community solar should have a significant goal. It should Be a significant part of the energy mix because it provides reliability, redundancy instead of having to rely on long transmission lines in order to get your energy, which, you know, has issues with causing fires and having, you know, a power line go down. So there's. I'm not saying that we should be doing everything on rooftop. Let me just be clear. I know that that's not reasonable, but I do think rooftop solar and community solar have a real role to play. Unfortunately, California has adopted policies that really have discouraged that. And I think that's largely at the behest of the large, you know, the large investor owned utilities like PG&E and Southern California Edison. And I think that's a real, real concern. So I'm hoping that we will be turning things around. I mean, like I just remodeling my house and I wanted to put solar on my house. I actually had it in the bid with the contractor with a certain amount earmarked. And then when we went to our power purveyor here, I got the quote back and it was triple what I had originally thought it was going to be. And I had a conversation with my husband and he's like, look, I know how much you care about this and I know you want rooftop solar, but we legitimately cannot afford this and we will not make the money back on the back end. We would be dead before, you know, I'm not going to. I'm not old. I'm too old to get the money back at the end. And that's just. That's ridiculous. That's really unfortunate to have those as policies here in California.

[Shannon Eddy]

Yeah, just, I mean, to expand on that point about the policy, the Public Utilities Commission, whose members are appointed by Governor Newsom, voted a couple of years ago to quite dramatically reduce the incentive payments for rooftop solar. The state legislature has had opportunities to step in and reverse the slide that rooftop solar has seen since then, and they've chosen not to do that. And the utility companies have played a role in pushing that policy forward. They're not the only ones. There has been an argument that rooftop solar is sort of more expensive per unit of energy than large scale solar because it's just economies of scale. Basically. You do things sort of en masse and it's cheaper. But I mean, I think you would probably make the case that that that doesn't capture all of the benefits of rooftop solar.

[Narrator]

I think too that when it comes to just looking at how much power we need to bring online in the next 20 years, rooftop solar is an important part of that. The state planning metrics call for 28,000 megawatts of rooftop solar to be added in the next 20 years. I think that's going to be jeopardized by what just happened. At the federal level. It could well be jeopardized, but by what's happened with the California Public Utilities Commission actions. I don't want anyone to be operating under the illusion that we can meet our climate and renewable energy goals with simply rooftop solar. It's a part of the equation, but it's not the whole equation.

[Shannon Eddy]

We'll be back after a quick break.

[Kim Delfino]

During one of the most severe windstorms Southern California experienced in more than a decade, the Palisades and Eaton fires ignited, leaving heartbreaking losses in our communities. Now, as we build back, we're building stronger, cleaner and more resilient in communities most vulnerable, vulnerable to dangerous weather conditions and wildfires. Southern California Edison is placing power lines underground, hardening the electric system by installing wires with protective coating, and adding advanced technology to help keep communities safe. So when Southern California faces the next storm, the next most severe event, structures.

[Shannon Eddy]

Adjacent here at Pipe Road.

[Kim Delfino]

We'll be ready. Learn [e-mail] disasterrecovery Today is the worst.

[Narrator]

Day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

They all saw how much I loved him.

[Shannon Eddy]

They didn't have to take him from me.

[Narrator]

Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening.

[Sami Roth]

My parents had me locked up in.

[Shannon Eddy]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me.

[Sami Roth]

And to steal my son away from me.

[Narrator]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men emboldened by their faith determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Shannon Eddy]

I have to say this is week two of sort of what's supposed to be a two part series on abundance on Boiling Point. What do you guys think? This, you know, this abundance framework, this idea that, you know, that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson put forward that seems to have captured Gavin Newsom's attention as he did this, you know, this CEQA reform stuff for housing, this idea that in liberal places in particular that environmental regulation and regulation writ large has become an obstacle to producing the stuff that people need and want. Housing, renewable energy, public transit. I'm not trying to pass judgment one way or another because I'm frankly kind of just uncertain and confused. But, you know, abundance as it replies to renewable energy, that there's too many obstacles to renewable energy. What do you guys think? Is that the right way to think about it? The wrong way to think about it? Partially right. Partially wrong. I'm open to whichever one of you wants to speak to this first, so I'll just open the door to whoever starts talking most quickly.

[Sami Roth]

Well, I've thought a lot about this. I actually read the book because I feel like I.

[Shannon Eddy]

You're way ahead. You're way ahead of me. I've read an excerpt, but not the whole thing.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah, I had to put it down a few times because it. I think that. I'd like to think that the book comes from a place of trying to figure out how we can make things better for people, but there were things about it that did make me a little frustrated, like not acknowledging the role of money in politics and the power, just how things work in terms of the halls of power. But with that being said, I would just say that the abundance frame is how do we build more of what people need to live full and thriving lives. That's a great premise, but I also think you have to think about what are those things that people need? And it's certainly affordable housing, and it's access to education and jobs, and it's having creature comforts, but it's also having ecosystems that aren't falling apart so that we can't produce food and having natural areas for people to be able to go out and experience nature and having, you know, nature. I think nature is a part of abundance. So I think we need to think about it more holistically now, using it as a reason to say we need to cut back on environmental review and that we need to cut out people, the ability of communities to engage in the process. I think that's a misuse of. Of the concept of abundance. And I think we should have more abundant renewable energy. I mean, that's what Shannon's job is, to make sure we get onto the. Get our clean energy going before we completely go past the point of no return in terms of the climate. So I guess my feeling is that we can build things faster. And I guess I've been a bit of a broken record today, but we can build things faster, but we can still do it while protecting our core values, which include communities, cultural, resources, Natural resources. I don't think California wants to walk away from those things.

[Narrator]

My sense is that California is not even close to walking away from those things. I do think that we are at risk of over mitigating a little bit of overreach when it does come to some of the environmental side of the permitting. And this is permitting that's happening well within the scope of what's required by law. But there's a lot of discretion given to the regulatory staff. And I think that's something that we need to be looking at. I think it's too blunt of an instrument to say, okay, there needs to be a CEQA exemption for all clean energy, but I do think there are streamlining elements that can and should be taken on. I do want to hone in a little bit on this question of community engagement. What I have spent a lot of time looking at is the fact that for the most part, AB205 process notwithstanding, a lot of these projects are going to be cited at the local level. Some will be cited at the federal level, or, excuse me, at the state level. But when it comes to the local level, a lot of these projects are going to be showing up in more conservative areas and in more conservative districts and in areas where clean power and renewable power might be less interesting, where climate change is not a compelling argument to incent or encourage support by the local community for the projects. And I think our role really as a state community is how do we help these communities appreciate the need for the projects. Everyone will say, put the project somewhere else. And so how do we say there are limited places where the projects can go and here are the benefits from these projects? I just think there's a whole conversation that's kind of missing at the state level to help people understand why we need this infrastructure, that we need this infrastructure, and what kind of benefit it brings, both from the decarbonization and electrification perspective, but also from the economic perspective locally. So I know that's sort of abundance adjacent and not. Not totally to your question, Sammy, but I think this local community engagement piece is going to be one of the biggest parts of the conversation that we have to learn to solve in the next few years.

[Sami Roth]

Yeah. So I think, you know, I think what Shannon is saying is that some of these projects can be a benefit to communities and that communities. There needs to be an effort to try to educate communities about what that might be. I think that argues for having more engagement than less. So when you do CEQA exemptions or you exempt projects from the California Environmental Quality act. You are cutting off that discussion. The thing about the Darden Project at the Energy Commission, which I found really fascinating, is because I talked to some, I work with some of the environmental justice organizations that engaged on the Darden Project. When they started through the AB 205 process, they were very cautious and I think very concerned about what the project was going to mean for the local communities that live around where this project was going to go. But as they went through the process and there was this engagement and there were these discussions and community benefit agreement was reached, they came away from the Darden Project realizing, hey, this project could actually have some benefits. And they were not. They went in sort of with a negative feeling and they came out of it with a more positive output. And I think the more you do that, the more you have that engagement, the more communities are able to have some input but also understand what the benefits are. That's how you make real change in how people look at things. Because you repeat that over and over and suddenly becomes people are like, oh well, this community, this project helped them in this way. Suddenly another community hears about that. But if you cut things off and people feel disenfranchised, then they just think the worst. They just go to the worst place in their own minds. And so I really, I'm being optimistic here in, in the fact that I think I agree with Shannon. We need more community engagement and more outreach and more engagement. And it is unfortunate that we have to go to a state level process and bypass local decision making to cite these projects. And I'm hoping that maybe we can finally, you know, at some point it'll become more accepted and it'll turn back to the locals where project developers won't feel like they have to go to the state and use the AB 205 process. Instead they can go to the local government and get their approvals that way. But you know, we're all learning and evolving.

[Narrator]

So I think the property taxes are going to have a pretty interesting impact on this as well. Starting in 2027, solar projects will be paying full freight property taxes. Right now they're paying partial property taxes, but the impact of this is fairly significant. And we saw in the Darden docket that Darden will be paying, I think somewhere on the level of 300 million in property taxes in the first 10 years alone. So it really is going to be an economic game changer, not only for the local communities, but also for the state budget as well. And I think that kind of changes some of the tenor of the conversation too.

[Shannon Eddy]

Well, I appreciate both of your optimism and if I was really good at this, I would just cut the conversation off there. And on the optimistic note, the pessimist, or to be nicer to myself, realist in me would say, I think that the community engagement aspect gets so much harder or so much more fraught because the information ecosystem is just so broken and also our political institutions are also so unresponsive and broken. What I mean by that is, and this won't be news to either of you probably, but like there's just so much misinformation spreading about renewable energy. I mean, so many of these local approval processes just get hijacked by both, you know, intentionally spread junk from anti renewable energy political groups and unintentionally spread junk. You know, people are out there and I've seen this in person and read about it all over the place. You know, people who are railing against their county supervisors and local township boards that, you know, solar panels are going to give them cancer. Wind turbines are the absolute worst thing in the world for birds. Not that there aren't real impacts with wind turbines and birds, but it's like people really, really believe either what Trump is saying or things that Trump hasn't even heard of. And please don't tell him anyone. There's misinformation. There's literally the Congress of the United States. I believe you're talking about how most of these projects are getting built in red, politically red places. Most of the investments from Biden's inflation reduction act, his big climate bill, were going to red congressional districts. And yet, yet despite a bunch of Republican congresspeople saying that they weren't going to stand for those solar and wind incentives to go away, they ultimately bent to the will of Trump and the MAGA base and all voted to overturn them anyway against what was economically good for their constituents. So between people living in their own information bubbles and renewable energy becoming associated with a politically becoming just this sort of, of symbol of leftist wokeism among so much of the population and then just a big part of the national, one of the two major political parties, at least at the national level, and in many states becoming just totally responsive to whatever the oil and gas industry wants rather than to what benefits their constituents, that does admittedly give me a lot of pessimism that community engagement will in many cases lead to good places. That said, I don't know that I see a better alternative to trying to find ways to make community engagement work. Like you can try to railroad stuff through rather than doing the landscape level planning and going in and trying to be a responsible company. And that will work sometimes and that will backfire and be kind of evil other times. So these things are hard and we have a very short window of time in which to solve climate change. So. So I'm very glad that the two of you are working on this and finding room for common ground, because that's the best we've got and I don't see anything better. So I should have just ended it. On the positive note, what else do you guys got? What else is on your mind?

[Narrator]

One thing I'd say is that solar is what's coming and that's something that we've, in spite of what's going on at the federal level, we're not going to be building a bunch of coal plants here in California and probably it's going to be hard to do anywhere else. When it comes to natural gas power, the CEOs of some of the biggest natural gas power producers have both said there's a five year delay in gas turbines. Setting aside gas volatility, prices and the emissions and everything else from gas, there's a five year delay in turbines. So 85% of all the energy coming on in the next five years nationally, it's going to be solar because there isn't anything else. This isn't a climate issue, this isn't a culture issue. This is about American competitiveness and it's about powering the kind of society that everybody wants. And so I think that's also a part of this conversation that we need to really be cognizant of. And people need to be aware that if you want AI, if you want to be able to open ChatGPT and ask it, you know, how to make the best brownies you possibly can, then we're going to need a lot of solar and we're going to need a lot of storage in order to power not just that, but all sectors of our economy.

[Shannon Eddy]

Kim, what about you? Any final notes here?

[Sami Roth]

Well, as I've already told you, the only way I can do my job is I'm a stubborn optimist. And I guess my feeling is we're in a cycle and right now it's not great for the environment and it is definitely making it harder for us to protect biodiversity, have people have access to parks, have clean energy. I don't really. I mean, at the heart of it, I do think people want a clean environment. I think they see the impacts of climate change. I think that I'd like to think that, as Shannon said, converting to clean energy is inevitable, and this time period right now is a setback. But I think that will come around. And here's what gave me a lot of hope. When the federal government, when President Trump was proposing and Elon Musk and Doge was proposing all the cuts to the park service, the number of communities that have stood up, up, and when there was also the public land selloff, right? When there was a proposal in Congress to sell off public lands to companies, all of a sudden, red areas, you know, and Republicans stood up and said, whoa, wait a second, we like our public lands. We don't. This is not something. We like our national parks. We don't think we should be having less rangers and more, more garbage and more graffiti. This is not what America is about. So I, I really have to believe that people are very smart and that, and that they will see what the impacts of some of these policies are and realize, oh, yeah, that was, that was a bad idea. And, and, and change. I mean, this is what happens in American politics. We ebb and flow. We are in a heck of an ebb at the moment. It is not pleasant when you do the work that we all do. But I would like to think that when people start to see some of the impacts of what, what's happening here, they're going to realize that we need to go back to. We need to change and really start pursuing some of these better policies. That's my hope.

[Shannon Eddy]

Kim, Shannon, thank you very, very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.

[Sami Roth]

Thank you for having me on the show, Sammy. It's always a pleasure.

[Narrator]

Thanks. Sammy appreciated being here and Kim appreciated having the conversation station.

[Shannon Eddy]

Well, there you have it. Abundance. If you've got strong opinions or not so strong opinions or you're just feeling confused by all of this, feel free to send me an email and let me know what you think. Sammy rothatimes.com I'm on vacation next week, but we've already recorded a podcast about the Colorado river, so get ready for some water drama. And if you're enjoying the show, we really do love those ratings and reviews. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knauff and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflet. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to la Times studio president Anna Magzanian. President and chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri, and executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derekshon and created by me, Sami Roth. Hi, I'm Jane Coston, former writer and podcaster for places like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and National Review. And now I'm here to hang out with you five days a week on what a Day, Crooked's daily news podcast. That's right. Now, who's respected on both sides? These days, it's hard to separate what matters from all the noise. Especially when the noise is an elderly guy mumbling conspiracy theories he heard on Newsmax. That's why every weekday the team and I scour the headlines to bring you the stories that matter most to the way you live. In just 20 minutes, you can listen to the show wherever you get your podcast.

[Narrator]

Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

They all saw how much I loved him.

[Shannon Eddy]

They didn't have to take him from me.

[Narrator]

Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening.

[Sami Roth]

My parents had me locked up in.

[Shannon Eddy]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me.

[Sami Roth]

And to steal my son away from me.

[Narrator]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical rite and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men, emboldened by their faith, determine who who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.