Synapse: This Week's News for LA’s Best Buildings
Secretary Granholm Announces New Goal to Cut Costs of Long Duration Energy Storage by 90 Percent
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm today announced the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s new goal to reduce the cost of grid-scale, long duration energy storage by 90% within the decade. The second target within DOE’s Energy Earthshot Initiative, “Long Duration Storage Shot” sets bold goals to accelerate breakthroughs that store clean electricity to make it available anytime, anywhere and support more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions.
Energy Department’s Showerhead Plan Would Fix Loophole
A proposed rule announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) today would undo a loophole created by the previous administration and ensure showerheads do not needlessly use more water than Congress directed nearly three decades ago. To date, few manufacturers have chosen to produce products that exploit the loophole, but such showerheads could waste water at a time when much of the western United States is in drought.
UCLA’s Ecosystem Health Report Card Gives L.A. County a C+
In a report card published this week, more than a dozen UCLA researchers and students take the full measure of Los Angeles County’s land use, biodiversity and looming environmental threats — and those factors’ impact on residents’ health and well-being.
US Faces Crossroads On Renewable Energy Future—Go Big or Go Local
NY Times reporter Ivan Penn unpacks the debate over infrastructure: Do we fund huge wind and solar farms with new transmission lines, or go local, with rooftop solar panels, batteries and micro-grids?
How to Achieve Sustainable Remote Work
In 2004, Best Buy was facing a problem at its corporate headquarters, in Minneapolis-St. Paul: job-hopping. The issue of how to retain valuable employees has always vexed the business world, but the concern was amplified at Best Buy because it wasn’t the only major retailer based in the Twin Cities. Just miles north on Interstate 35, the Target Corporation occupied two-thirds of a fifty-one-story skyscraper, and other consumer-focussed companies—such as 3M, General Mills, and Dairy Queen—also had offices in the region. The result was an intense competition for experienced hires, who could shop their talents at multiple firms without having to change where they lived.
