A new report by UCLA published in Nature Energy identifies the potential power of an underutilized alternative energy source in the United States—waste. The study, led by Deepak Rajagopal (Associate Professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA) and Bo Liu (Urban Planning Doctoral Candidate at UCLA), highlights the benefits that the U.S. may experience if waste-based energy is harnessed.
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In 2015, the California Center for Sustainable Communities (CCSC) at UCLA released the L.A. Energy Atlas project, a first-of-its-kind interactive website that enables policymakers and the public to sort energy consumption and emissions by building size, neighborhood and other metrics like sociodemographic data. The 2.0 version (released August 2019) now includes information about buildings’ capacity for solar power in the County.
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UCLA will lead a state-funded $10 million California Conservation Genomics Project that will use cutting-edge science to help California’s plants and animals survive as the climate changes. The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge is a key partner in the project and helped to catalyze this statewide collaborative effort. The project will engage researchers and experts from all 10 University of California campuses and officials from state and federal regulatory agencies, among others. UCLA will host an all-day convening in early September with these experts to prioritize research and investment strategies.
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Just like humans, other organisms leave genetic traces pretty much everywhere. A new DNA tool developed by UCLA researchers – the Anacapa Toolkit – can help rapidly detect which species are present in a given area just from analyzing a small amount of soil or water. This tool offers many potential benefits, including: replacing hundreds of hours of in-person efforts, providing much more efficient and accurate assessments, and alerting researchers of threats of invasive species before they are visible.
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Ann Carlson is the Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law and the Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law. Carlson is also on the faculty at the UCLA Institute of the Environment. She is one of the country’s leading scholars of climate, energy and air pollution law and policy. Along with Law Professor William Boyd, she is conducting Sustainable LA Grand Challenge research on greening LA’s power grid by comparing the regulatory models of the region’s two utility companies
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