To the editor: Guest contributor Dan Esposito is right: Southern California Gas Co.’s push for a hydrogen blend risks locking us into another costly fossil-fuel detour (“Blending hydrogen into gas pipelines would enrich utilities and harm Californians,” Feb. 16). It feels like regulators handing a faster car to a driver with a history of crashes. After pipeline failures, explosions, methane leaks and the ongoing Aliso Canyon disaster, we are now being asked to trust the same system with a more volatile fuel and billions in new infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is advancing plans to convert the Scattergood plant to burn a hydrogen blend at a projected cost of at least $800 million. Green hydrogen remains extremely expensive. Ratepayers will be left holding the bill.
This buildout is proposed near LAX and the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant, critical infrastructure where safety should be paramount. Instead of accelerating distributed solar, storage and virtual power plants, leaders are doubling down on centralized combustion.
Scattergood sits by Dockweiler Beach, heavily used by working-class families and communities of color. Emissions would drift east toward Inglewood and Lennox, neighborhoods already overburdened by pollution.
Hydrogen blending is not climate leadership. It is a bailout of stranded gas assets at the public’s expense.
Andrea Leon-Grossmann, Los Angeles