'Entourage’s' Adrian Grenier and Peter Glatzer SHFT Hollywood green

When "Entourage" star Adrian Grenier was introduced to indie film producer Peter Glatzer a number of years back, their mutual commitment to eco-friendliness and sustainability compelled them to work together. They put together the show “Alter Eco” for Discovery’s Planet Green channel in 2008, a reality show about folks moving the needle on sustainability. The pair saw a hunger for solutions, but realized they needed a new platform that could grow as they grew. SHFT was born.

Yes, SHFT.com is a website, but Grenier and Glatzer have already proved it can be more than that. It’s an honest attempt to move ideas into the culture. The “Watch” section has five original video series that continue to expand, including the “Eat LACMA” series on food and community, and “Lighten Up,” about green touring strategies for bands on the road. Like “Alter Eco,” the shows are about beautiful people making a difference. But the site is also a pretty impressive resource for sustainable products as varied as electronics and art, and a connection to lifestyle news and information.

SHFT is creating an entity that’s pretty rare for famous Hollywood types: a community.

“We’re looking to permeate the culture and change the perception of what it means to be environmentally friendly,” Grenier says by phone from New York. “Because, for so long, it’s been a marginalized cause. But we don’t see it as a cause. We see it as a way to improve your quality of life.”

Glatzer, speaking from L.A., takes it further: “The notion of ‘environmentalism’ was just antiquated and anachronistic to the world we live in now. To think of environmentalism as a movement or a separate category of things that we do that are Earth-friendly is not the way to think about it. It has to be folded into the fabric of our lives and into the small choices that we make every day.”

In October, the site manifested briefly as a pop-up gallery and shop on La Brea Avenue, something the pair has been doing in New York for years at Christmastime, and the opening was packed with people pawing over the bikes, art, furniture and housewares. The products on the website are made real at these events, and SHFT may soon develop a bricks-and-mortar entity in partnership with a mainstream retailer.

Mainstream, by the way, is where they want to be. These are people who make movies and TV, so of course the first thing they did was make a show. And they are still making shows. But “Alter Eco” confirmed that Hollywood is mostly allergic to this kind of thing, and for good reason: do-gooding is not (usually) hot media.

“Media is very tricky because it thrives on conflict,” Grenier acknowledges. “Really, the environmental notion is the opposite -- it’s something that is full or harmony and goodwill amongst people and collaboration, so it’s difficult to dramatize.”

Glatzer thinks the ideas just have to be worked into the groundwork of everything they make. “I watch movies all the time, like ‘The Descendents,’ for example, Alexander Payne’s new film. It really does have an environmental component to it that isn’t overt at all. It’s an appropriate dollop of environmentalism,” he says.

“If it’s a background, context-setting thing, great, but otherwise, I don’t know,” Glatzer adds.

None of this, by the way, is overtly political. They’re looking to change the culture through everyday choices.

“We like market-driven solutions,” says Glatzer. “As much as we’d love to see policies change and see the public sector do various things that we’re actually quite passionate about, having consumers be aware of what their options were was one of our big goals. And to make it fun.”

“Yeah, I found that my snarky, condescending glances at people, when I walked around the set, were totally ineffective,” chuckles Grenier. “I find that being able to take someone by the shoulders and say, ‘Hey, check out SHFT,’ or ‘Do you want to come to this pop-up store?’ is much more enjoyable for the both of us.”

Speaking of which, their first SHFT brand product? A red wine made in Paso Robles, SHFT House Wines. Because, yeah, it’s organic and all that; but it’s also a party in a bottle. Available on the site in the coming weeks.

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Photo: Adrian Grenier, left, and Peter Glatzer at the opening of the SHFT pop-up gallery and shop on La Brea Avenue in October. Credit: Brent Harrison for Guest of a Guest L.A.

California adopts historic cap-and-trade regulations

The California Air Resources Board, after three years of contentious debate, on Thursday approved the nation's first state-run cap-and-trade program, which will for the first time put a price on carbon emissions.

The unanimous vote paves the way for the carbon trading market, which begins in 2013 and will eventually require 85% of the state's largest polluters to either emit less carbon or purchase credits on a market that the air board will regulate.   

The market is projected to exchange about $10 billion in carbon allowances by 2016, which would make it second largest in the world behind the European Union.

The program is part of AB 23, the state's 2006 climate change law that mandates a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Said board Chairwoman Mary Nichols: "We've done something important."

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California falls behind Massachusetts in energy efficiency

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Photo: Valero Energy's Wilmington refinery in a 2010 photo.  Credit: Christina House / Los Angeles Times

California falls behind Massachusetts in energy efficiency

California has fallen behind Massachusetts as the country's most energy-efficient state, according to the 2011 Energy Scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy on Thursday. California had ranked first for each of the previous four years' scorecards.

While California and Massachusetts have both effectively implemented demand-side management plans, "Massachusetts regulators have sent a very consistent message that they want to ramp up their energy-efficiency programs. California has been staying even, and Massachusetts has been flooring it," said Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Part of Massachusetts' energy efficiency increase is due to long-term investment. In 2009, the state spent $61 per customer to improve energy efficiency, compared with $32 per customer in California, Nadel said. That investment is now paying off. In 2012, Massachusetts will reduce its electricity demand 2.4%, the report said, whereas California demand will decline by 1%.

The 2011 scorecard reported that 29 states had adopted or made significant progress toward adopting new energy-saving building codes for homes and commercial properties; just 20 states had done so in 2010. It also found that 24 states had adopted an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, setting long-term energy savings targets for utility-sector investments in energy efficiency.

"More and more states recognize that energy efficiency is a way to reduce costs," Nadel said. "You reduce energy bills, but energy efficiency is less expensive than new power plants." 

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Photo: A man looks at an Energy Star appliance. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times

Glendale to monitor impact of electric cars

The first 100 people to buy an electric vehicle will get a $200 rebate from the city of Glendale in exchange for installing a special socket that will help measure the potential impact of more cars tapping into the power grid.

As plug-in electric vehicles become more popular, officials want to be prepared for the influx of energy use, so it’s requiring all electric-vehicle owners to install a special socket that will measure the effect on the power supply, said Ned Bassin, assistant general manager of customer and support services at Glendale Water & Power.

“We expect in the future there will be a lot of electric vehicles,” Bassin said.

Australia moves closer to law establishing carbon tax

The Australian government's goal of implementing a carbon tax passed its toughest test today as the lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly approved a package of bills that institutes a phased-in carbon tax, to be followed by a carbon-trading system.

The 18 bills now go to the Senate, where the law is all but assured of passage in mid-November.

According to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the system will reduce Australia's carbon emissions by 159 million tons by 2020. Australia is the largest per-capita carbon polluter, with an economy deeply dependent on coal.

The first phase of the law will tax carbon at $22.90 a ton beginning in the middle of next year. The surcharge will rise modestly until mid-2015, when the carbon-trading system will take effect. Other bills call for a national emissions caps, exempting farming and other agricultural sectors.

The tax will not extend to the price of gas for consumers, although rail, shipping and large trucking businesses will pay the tax indirectly on fuels such as diesel.

Australia’s biggest carbon emitters -- power companies, mining companies and industrial manufacturers -- immediately attacked the legislation, and the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, vowed a “pledge in blood” to repeal the law should he become prime minister.

The Australian law would go well beyond what the California Air Resources Board is considering. The board voted in August to reaffirm its cap-and-trade plan, which put the nation's first state carbon-trading program back on track.

California's on-again, off-again rules have been years in the making and are meant to complement AB 32, the state's landmark climate-change law that mandates a reduction in carbon pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. The air board adopted a preliminary carbon-trading plan in late 2008 but was sued by environmental justice groups in 2009.

The state plan calls for capping greenhouse gases at more than 600 industrial plants and allowing companies to buy and sell emissions permits. It is modeled on Europe's 6-year-old cap-and-trade system. California is considering whether to work with Canada under the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration involving the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

California's program would be North America's biggest carbon market, three times larger than a utility-only system in 10 Northeastern states. By 2016, about $10 billion in carbon allowances are expected to be traded through the California market.

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Photo: People walk across the frozen Songhua River near smokestacks at Jiamusi in China's Heilongjiang province in 2005. Credit: Greg Baker / Associated Press

Clean natural gas? Not so fast, study says

Switching from burning coal to natural gas won't have an appreciable effect on global warming, at least not in the next few decades, a study suggests.

In fact, cutting worldwide coal burning by half and using natural gas instead would increase global temperatures over the next four decades by about one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit, according to Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Strictly speaking, coal produces more global-warming gas per unit of energy than natural gas. But the tradeoff is complicated by the types of greenhouse gases and other pollutants associated with each of these carbon-based fossil fuels.

"From the CO2 perspective, gas is cleaner, but from the climate perspective, it gets complicated," said Wigley.

Coal burning is notoriously dirty, producing sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, soot and ash, as well as other pollutants. None are too good for humans or the planet, but the sulfates can act to block incoming solar radiation, with a slight cooling effect. (Before anyone proposes burning more high-sulfur coal, the net effect of burning coal is still warming).

Meanwhile, "clean" natural gas, touted by the industry and T. Boone Pickens, can be a mess to produce. An unknown amount of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas with far more heat-trapping potential than carbon dioxide -- leaks in the process of producing natural gas.

Even assuming there is no leakage -- unlikely, most would agree -- the switch analyzed by Wigley would still add to Earth's overall average temperature through about 2050. After that, temperatures would fall, but only by a few tenths of a degree Fahrenheit. If a substantial amount of methane leaks, the warming trend will last until 2140, he found.

Bear in mind, the most widely reviewed studies predict a global average temperature rise of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 under current fossil-fuel consumption rates.

End of the line for California solar firm

A California solar panel manufacturer is filing for bankruptcy protection.

Solyndra of Fremont, Calif., received a high-profile $535-million Energy Department loan guarantee said it was ceasing operations, laying of 1,100 workers and preparing to file for bankruptcy protection.

Solyndra said it had been rocked by stifling global economic conditions and faced heavy competition from Chinese firms that were undercutting it on costs.

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Photo: Ben Bierman, left, Solyndra’s executive vice president of operations and engineering, and company founder Chris Gronet take President Obama on a tour. (Paul Chinn, Pool photo / September 1, 2011)

California says yes to recycled water

The state Senate today passed a bill allowing so-called graywater systems in homes and commercial buildings.

The bill, AB 849, is aimed at clarifying a patchwork of local regulation that has at times prohibited these "non-potable water reuse systems," which divert drain water for irrigation and other purposes.

If signed by the governor, the new state law would prohibit local jurisdictions from banning graywater systems, which have gained popularity as more municipalities face restrictions on fresh water. It would allow those jurisdictions to enact stricter graywater standards than those of the state only if they provide climatic, geographic and topographic reasons for the tougher regulations.

The state adopted uniform rules for installing graywater systemsin 2009, according to an analysis of the bill, which was sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles).

The Assembly already has approved the bill.

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Photo: A graywater system collects and filters laundry water in an East Rancho Dominguez low-income housing development. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times

Sierra magazine ranks UC Irvine among top 10 green schools

An environmentally minded magazine has named UC Irvine as one of America's top 10 coolest schools for green initiatives.

For a second year, Sierra magazine ranked UC Irvine No. 6, noting it as one of the most energy-efficient schools, the Daily Pilot reported.

In its iSeptember/October issue, the magazine singled out the school's use of a co-generation facility to meet most of its heat and electricity needs.

"This is wonderful validation of the initiatives we've undertaken to reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate other environmental impacts," Wendell Brase, vice chancellor of administrative and business services, said in a statement. "We maintained our top 10 status in what is becoming an increasingly competitive arena as campuses across the nation recognize their responsibility to the global environment."

The University of Washington in Seattle was listed as No. 1, with Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., UC San Diego, Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C., and Stanford University following.

UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., also made the top 10.

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Photo: UC Irvine campus. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles solar power rebates slashed 32%

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

Rebates for Los Angeles solar panel installations are 32% lower under the newly relaunched Solar Initiative Program, which will start accepting applications next month. The program was put on hold in April as the demand for incentives hovered around $112 million, far outpacing the program's $30-million budget. During the hiatus, the Department of Water and Power was able to catch up with a backlog of applications and identify alternative financing options.

A mixture of bond financing and lower incentives will allow the DWP to double the budget to $60 million. The department's general manager, Ronald O. Nichols, said the lower rebates, which previously covered as much as 45% of the costs for residential buildings are "more in line with market pricing and allow greater participation."

If the program is approved by the DWP board and the City Council, rates for potential costs for large-scale (1,500 kWh/month) users could increase to $4.59 by 2016. The program hinges on what’s called a feed-in tariff, which allows business owners and eventually homeowners to connect to the electricity grid and sell their unused electricity back to the utility at a fixed rate for 20 years, about $0.19 per watt.

"We also want to grow solar at a steady and sustainable pace while being prudent about the cost to all customers who pay for this program through their rates," Nichols said in a news release.

Of nearly 8 million single-family homes statewide, 60,000 have solar panels. Fewer than 2,000 homes in L.A. are solar-powered.

When the rebate program first started in 2007, incentives were $3.25 per watt, or $13,000 for a four-kilowatt system. Under the September relaunch, the rebate will be $2 to $2.20 per watt, depending on how efficient a system is -– a reimbursement of $8,000 to $8,800.

Rebates for commercial buildings went down by 8%, and rebates for government and nonprofit facilities went down by 32%. Although home and business owners will see smaller rebates paid over 11 to 15 years, they have larger federal tax incentives to offset the lower returns, now ranging from $7,000 to $8,000, up from $2,000.

"Our rebates for residential, commercial, government and nonprofit customers will still beat the state incentive levels when you consider that DWP will continue offering a higher incentive to customers who elect to sell their Renewable Energy Credit to LADWP" –- an additional $0.40 per watt, said Lorraine Paskett, DWP senior assistant general manager.