Southern California needs to go big on clean technology – Daily News

Powerful innovations arise when societies focus on addressing their toughest problems. Our most recent and dramatic example was Operation Warp Speed, which helped accelerate the development of the Moderna vaccine and gave the United States a significant global advantage over the COVID-19 pandemic. Other examples of societies that benefit greatly from innovation from chronic problems are Japan's investment in robotics to cope with the shrinking workforce and India's development of inexpensive generics for a still largely low-income population.

Southern California can take inspiration from these inspirational examples and focus much of its innovation and investment on addressing its chronic problem of harmful air pollution. Just this week, the American Lung Association released its annual State of the Air report, finding that the Los Angeles metropolitan area is the worst in the nation in terms of smog pollution. Counties of San Bernardino, Riverside, and Los Angeles were the first, second, and third worst counties in the country, and Orange County and Ventura counties also received poor air quality ratings.

Air pollution has been shown to be a key indicator of the asthma hospitalization rate in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and the area has some of the highest life expectancy reductions in the country associated with particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure. Rather than accepting these issues as an inevitable consequence of our love affair with cars or as a strong reliance on e-commerce to meet our household needs, we can focus the brightest minds in the region on accelerating innovation in clean energy and transportation.

Fortunately, some of these activities are already well underway in different parts of the region. In a report our Center for Social Innovation released this week, we found that the Inland Empire is making significant strides toward cleaner transportation with the introduction of the low-emission diesel passenger rail from Redlands to San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga. This rail passenger service can continue on the Metrolink route to Los Angeles Union Station and will switch to the hybrid electric-hydrogen fuel cell service by 2024, the first commercial train to do so in the country.

The Inland Empire is also expected to have a fully electrified tunnel passenger service between Ontario Airport and Rancho Cucamonga Metroink Station, provided by The Boring Company. Finally, University of California researchers are continuing their partnerships with heavy truck manufacturers and haulage companies to test hybrid vehicles and dynamic mobility systems that will minimize the harmful effects of diesel emissions in Southern California's air basin.

We have an important opportunity to connect these important innovations with others that are well underway in Los Angeles and elsewhere in Southern California. For example, the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) has led a multi-year transportation electrification partnership involving local, regional, and state governments and industry partners to accelerate the development of clean transportation in Southern California ahead of the 2028 Olympics. As part of this electrification effort, LACI is also exploring partnerships with New Energy Nexus and various industry, government and community stakeholders to create viable energy storage solutions from lithium production in the Salton Sea.

Southern California has innovated its way out of dirty, noxious air before. In the 1960s, research at the University of California at Riverside showed that air pollution harms local citrus farming, leading to research into cleaning our regional air. Soon after, public concern about the negative health effects of regional air pollution increased, and California passed national air emissions standards and accelerated the development of catalysts that, in particular, drastically reduced the environment

In view of the federal funding options, which focus on climate resilience for all future infrastructure and government construction projects, a focus on clean energy and clean transport is also appropriate. Our state and local dollars, whether public or private, philanthropic or business, would be well placed to capitalize on these opportunities and make Southern California the world's greatest innovator in clean energy and clean transportation.

Karthick Ramakrishnan is a professor at the University of California at Riverside and director of the Center for Social Innovation.

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