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Life & Times Transcript
7/16/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- It's something we take for granted in southern California, but does it hold the key to easing global warming? Bruce Osborn>> The total electricity that's generated can power more than one million southern California homes. It's massive in scale. We offset more than four million tons of CO2 greenhouse gases per year. Val Zavala>> And then, you'll find them draped on a door, rolling off a wheel or piling on a pegboard, but you'll never find them boring. They're members of the Diavolo Dance Theater. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val Zavala>> California is taking a giant leap forward when it comes to solar power. The world's two largest solar energy plants are being built here in southern California and they're using a technology that you've never seen before. As Roger Cooper tells us, with climate change on the horizon, we can use all the solar power we can get. Roger Cooper>> It will be like ten thousand eyes following the sun across the sky, ten thousand giant mirrors tracking the sun's course, then concentrating its rays into a white-hot focal point, harnessing the power of a star ninety-three million miles away, all to make electricity on earth. It will be the largest solar power plant in the world and it will be built here in California seventy miles northeast of Los Angeles on seven thousand acres near Barstow. Bruce Osborn>> Well, first of all, it's sustainable so you don't have to worry about depleting the resource. We get free fuel from the sky, the sun basically. Roger Cooper>> It will be built by a company called Stirling Energy Systems and come on line in about a year and a half in an era of disturbing climate change and concern about our dependence on fossil fuels. Bruce Osborn is Stirling's CEO. Bruce Osborn>> There are no emissions. There is no pollution, no CO2 greenhouse gases that people worry about for global warming and those types of things, and no contaminants of any sort, so it's very friendly from an environmental standpoint. Roger Cooper>> It also comes at just the right time for one of southern California's major utilities, Southern California Edison. Edison and all California utilities are under a state mandate. By 2010, they must be getting twenty percent of their energy from renewable sources, so Edison has agreed to buy all the power generated by this solar plant for the next two decades. Pedro Pizarro is Edison's Senior Vice President for Power Procurement. Pedro Pizarro>> We've agreed to buy the power for twenty years. We've agreed to buy the full output of the plant for twenty years. Roger Cooper>> The guarantee makes it possible for Stirling to get the loans needed to build the plant, and the solar power source will help Edison reach its twenty percent goal. Pedro Pizarro>> In 2005, we had over seventeen percent of our portfolio from renewables. That is more than any other utility in the country. In fact, Southern California Edison buys more renewable power than any other state in the country. We buy about a sixth of the renewable energy that is produced in the United States. Roger Cooper>> Still, solar power has been tried before and has proven to be too expensive or didn't produce enough power. So what's different about this project? Enter the Stirling Engine, a technology that could revolutionize the industry. Bruce Osborn>> It's a nearly two century old concept that is now ready for prime time. Back in the late 1800s, a Scottish minister, Dr. Robert Stirling, originally came up with the concept as an alternative for steam engines. Roger Cooper>> Here's how it works. Each of Osborn's parabolic dishes focuses the sun on a Stirling Engine. Bruce Osborn>> The heart of the power conversion unit is a Stirling Engine and the Stirling Engine is a very simple, elegant and efficient system that takes this intense heat from the sun, it heats the gas. In this case, we use hydrogen as the working gas. We heat the gas, it expands and pushes the piston down that turns the crankshaft to turn a generator. Roger Cooper>> By alternately heating and then cooling gas, the Stirling Engine generates electricity with great efficiency. Bruce Osborn>> The Solar Dish Stirling System, as we call it, or SunCatcher for short, is the world's most efficient solar electric system out there. It's nearly two to three times more efficient than the conventional photovoltaic cell or other concentrating solar power. Roger Cooper>> Actually, turning to renewables is nothing new. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> As Edison prepares for this solar plant, it is still using the state's oldest power plant. This is Mill Creek One, an Edison hydroelectric plant. It's been pumping electricity to Californians since 1893 and it's still in service more than a hundred years later. Marty Weinberg>> Yeah, the plant's about a hundred thirteen years old and, hopefully, we can get another hundred years out of it. Roger Cooper>> The original hydroelectric generator is still on display on the plant floor alongside the turbine that replaced it in 1933. All those years, all that electricity, and all of it renewable. Bruce Osborn>> Up at the focal point, it's seven hundred twenty degrees Celsius which is about thirteen hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit. So it's white-hot when it's going. Roger Cooper>> The Edison plant in the Mojave Desert won't be the only one. A twin solar plant is planned for the Imperial Valley and its energy will be sold to San Diego Gas and Electric. Bruce Osborn>> These are the world's largest solar projects each one by themselves. Combined, they're nearly two gigawatts. That's comparable in size to Hoover Dam which is more than four billion kilowatt hours per year of electrical generation. The total electricity that's generated can power more than one million southern California homes. It's massive in scale. Roger Cooper>> And Osborn says that the reduction of greenhouse gases will be equally large. Bruce Osborn>> We offset more than four million tons of CO2 greenhouse gases per year. Roger Cooper>> You've probably already wondered what about nighttime when no electricity can be produced? Edison says that it won't really be a problem. Pedro Pizarro>> In California, our peak load is in the summer and it's in the afternoons in the summer when a lot of your viewers are starting to turn on the air conditioners and the like. So solar in California has a very nice correlation with when our peak needs occur. Bruce Osborn>> So this is time-lapse photography where we compress about twelve hours into about eight or ten seconds. So the systems wake up in the morning, they collect the sun, they track throughout the day into early afternoon into sunset, and then they retract and reset for the next day and they continue again. Roger Cooper>> Bruce Osborn believes southern California's new solar plants could be just the start. Bruce Osborn>> But we have and can think about a larger scale. If you take a hundred miles square which is a big chunk of land out in the desert, but still a fraction of the total percentage there, we can offset or eliminate all dependency on fossil fuels whether it be gas, oil or coal. Roger Cooper>> For the time being, Edison is still getting over eighty percent of its energy from traditional sources, generators fired by natural gas, nuclear power from San Onofre, hydroelectric plants like Mill Creek One, and coal-powered plants. But the future will look very different. Edison is behind a major expansion of wind farms and soon, with the completion of the world's largest solar power plant, with ten thousand mirrored dishes, we will finally be harnessing the most plentiful source of power we have, our own sun. I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> And now this Life and Times story update. Three years ago, we visited the city of Whittier. At that time, citizens were excited that, after more than a hundred years, a juvenile prison in the heart of town was being closed. The Nelles School for Boys was being shut down to save money and city leaders were looking forward to buying the land and building shops, offices and housing. Ron Calderon>> The only way they could bring in revenues is jobs so people spend money here, and the only way you're going to have jobs is if you can develop the area. Val Zavala>> But a year or so later, California's prison population was on the rise. Prison officials started eying the old juvenile facility for possible re-opening, but local politicians fought back and, for three years, the sale of the property was stalled. But now after prolonged talks, an agreement was announced. Governor Schwarzenegger has promised not to re-open the prison without the support of the people of Whittier, and since the City Council and citizens are firmly against the idea, it's virtually assured that this ninety acres will eventually be developed. Rudy Bermudez>> Obviously, best case scenario, the city will be able to purchase the land, develop the land, sell it for a profit to a developer and reap the benefits of the sales tax revenues and the permit process. Val Zavala>> It seems that best case scenario will happen, promising to permanently change the character of the city of Whittier. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Toni Guinyard>> Imagine being able to find out the cost of a medical service or procedure before you go to the doctor's office. We're so used to just paying the price. No matter what the price is, we don't tend to ask. But now you don't have to ask. That information is being provided to you. All you have to do is go online. We're talking to Dr. Robert Blackman who is one of the founding partners of Healthcare Partners Medical Group. The reason we are interesting in talking to you was because of the pricing plan. Dr. Robert Blackman>> This is just a basic fee for medical services list. It is a list of the more routine, common procedures and medical services that we can offer. For example, vaccinations, certain basic lab tests, certain physical examinations, both Well Care services as well as health maintenance services. The purpose of it, of course, is simply to give the patient some idea of what it's going to cost so they can plan accordingly. The reason why we did it was there was a demand for it. Our patients were calling us, saying, "We're trying to find out what things cost so we can plan and we can't find it anywhere, whether it's on your website or any medical group's website. Where do we get it?" We thought about it and we said, "Well, let's just give it to them. They should know. They need to know." Again, an informed patient is an empowered patient. That was so important because that gives them the choice. It gives them the control which is where the control ought to be. Toni Guinyard>> This, in some ways, has really shaken up the industry because you're doing something that doctors have shied away from doing. They don't want to post their prices. Why? Dr. Robert Blackman>> Well, I think there's always this emotional feeling about medicine and pricing as if one should not exist with the other. Some people might say it seems to cheapen it. It seems to make it seem it's above and beyond pricing. But in point of fact, that's just word game playing. The reality is that medicine costs and that medical care is a kind of a business. If a physician and his or her staff make no profit at all, they will go out of business and not be there to serve patients, so it is a business. And by putting up your pricing and posting what the charges are going to be, patients get information. For me, an informed patient is an empowered patient. They're now empowered to get the care that they need for them and their family and, at the same time, plan accordingly so it financially isn't hurting them. So the traditional roles are definitely changing and I think this has been driven by the fact that now there is this cost-shifting from what used to be a fairly low co-pay with the balance being paid by insurance plans, and employers now shift it over to the patient as a way of mitigating the sky-rocketing costs of medical care. Toni Guinyard>> One of my colleagues recently did a story on retail clinics. Is this in response to those? Dr. Robert Blackman>> By retail clinics, I think you're referring to the either mid-level practitioners such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners and in certain cases perhaps even doctors going into pharmacy chains or supermarkets and setting up these little quick care or mini clinics. Now they may not have been able to see their doctor that day, which is why it's helpful not to have to wait several days for when the doctor is available to them, but it's important that they do follow up to make sure that everything is okay as was prescribed at that quick or mini clinic. So I don't have any problem with that concept. But to answer your question, no. Our posting of prices was not at all reactive to this business model. It is very proactive and I would say respectfully proactive to give the patient the information they need to make wise medical choices. We have always operated under the principle that, yes, medicine is a business, but it is a business in the context of certain ethical and moral principles, and that's driven by this one fact. When you come to me for the first time as a patient, I'm a complete stranger and yet you basically say to me, "Stranger, I trust you. Here's my health. Here's my life." That's a great honor. That's a great privilege. I'm in your clinical life at your behest. You're doing me the favor. I'm not doing you the favor by being your doctor. When you approach it with that mindset and that attitude, that drives everything that you do, including what today we have done by posting the prices. I am just very proud of this medical group because it has always put the patient first. The bottom line, we have found, takes care of itself if you look at what the patient needs. If you do right for the patient, the business end takes care of itself. Toni Guinyard>> How did you come up with those prices? Dr. Robert Blackman>> The list itself, there's about fifty-eight things on that list and it was our patients calling us and asking for those who didn't have medical care or patients who now had high deductibles that were going to have to come out of pocket. They were calling, and these were the fifty-eight most commonly asked for health maintenance products. We look at what the insurance plans will pay us for certain vaccines and we also know what the general marketplace is and we try to come in somewhere in between. So we're by no means at the high end of the market and yet, knowing what our expenses are, give us something so we can pay a little Christmas bonus to our MAs. Toni Guinyard>> Are you concerned that people who do not have access to the internet will be shut out of this process? Dr. Robert Blackman>> Well, the good news is that, besides having posted our prices on the internet, we have a toll-free number which is available to anyone, so all you need is a telephone. If you can get past this thought that posting prices somehow looks cheap and chintzy, when in point of fact, to me it's the opposite, you're empowering patients. I think it's very respectfully proactive and will actually serve the patient in a much better way than if you created this black box of pricing. Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Robert Blackman, thank you for all of the information and thank you for spending a little time with Life and Times. Dr. Robert Blackman>> Oh, it's a great pleasure. On behalf of Healthcare Partners, thanks for the opportunity. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> They defy traditional notions of a dance company. Diavolo is a cross between dancers and acrobatics and they'll thrill you even if you aren't a dance fan. Vicki Curry met artistic director, Jacques Heim. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> It's part dance and part acrobatics with maybe a little circus act thrown in. It's called Diavolo and the man behind it is Jacques Heim. Jacques Heim>> I want to touch my audience. I want them to be inspired. I want them to have fun. Vicki Curry>> Heim is founder and artistic director of Diavolo Dance Theater. He's trying to redefine dance so that it's more accessible to mainstream audiences. Jacques Heim>> Modern dance for a lot of audiences, for general audiences, is very strange. It's very obscure. Dance is on the way to be extinct a little bit and I think why Diavolo is great is that it's mixing the art and entertainment together. "Hey, Crystal, you're going to make that one." Vicki Curry>> If anyone is going to have a non-dance dance company, it's Jacques Heim. Growing up in Paris, he never thought about dance, but when he went to Middlebury College in Vermont, he took a class that changed his life. Jacques Heim>> I was going to go into theater when I arrived in this country in America, but then because my accent was so strong, people would say, "Jacques, I'm sorry, but you cannot do Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare. Nobody is going to understand you." So then my friends told me, "Why don't you come in and take some dance class? You don't have to speak." I really discovered the power of movement. For me, it was another form of theater. Vicki Curry>> Heim got a Masters in choreography at CalArts and, when he graduated, he decided to start his own company. Jacques Heim>> And I wanted to do something different, so I looked at what is out there. And because I'm very fluent by texture, by environment, that's why I want to mix movement in structure. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Diavolo's signature is large set pieces like this wheel. The dancers use it as a springboard for a flurry of hyperkinetic movements and athletic feats. Jacques Heim>> I'm not a traditional choreographer because I'm not a dancer, so I want to create pieces that are very visual, very organic, very visceral. Vicki Curry>> When Heim wants to create a new piece, he starts with a new structure and then asks the dancers to just play around on it. Ken Arata>> He just said, "Get on it and go" and about half an hour later, I had to show him a couple of things I had on it and we kind of collaborated on what I could do here and there on it, going over it, around it, through it, and it's a great feeling to be able to just create. [Film Clip] Jacques Heim>> So if I had to create a salad that is a Diavolo salad, it would be a little bit of everyday movement, pedestrian movement. It would be a little bit of gymnastics. It would be a little bit of acrobatics. You add a little ballet, a little bit of modern dance. You put structures. You put music, costumes and lights. You mix it and you have a Diavolo. Vicki Curry>> To make a Diavolo salad, you need ingredients you don't usually find in a dance company. Jacques Heim>> So I have dancers from the ballet background, modern background, gymnastic, acrobatic, theater backgrounds and we all come together in our space and collaborate. [Film Clip] Jacques Heim>> I've said artists are actually all very abstract. What we do is live abstract paintings. I tell my audience that actually that, as they watch the piece, they're actually in a way creating fifty percent of the piece. They have to create their own story. In a way, it has a theme underneath our pieces, but it's still very abstract. So, for example, we do this piece called "Trajectory" which is sort of the abstract boat. That's a piece about destination and destiny. [Film Clip] Jacques Heim>> We have a piece called "Detour", this twelve-foot high wall with the pegs coming out and it's very intense. That's a piece about the cares of everyday life through an abstract military obstacle course. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Most Diavolo dances are dangerous to perform, but Heim says that's not just for show. He thinks danger forces people to work together. He first experienced this after the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Jacques Heim>> I did not know my neighbors, but it's only when the earthquake happened, when we became in a state of survival, that all my neighbors came out. Suddenly, we were talking with each other. We were sharing water and food and blankets and we were helping one another. There I realized suddenly a small community on our street started to form and that's what I wanted with my dance company. Vicki Curry>> The audience not only sees this teamwork in action, they hear it. The dancers call out to each other during the performances. [Film Clip] Garrett Wolf>> The flyer will not see her catchers until the very last second, so she really needs to know before she jumps off into space that her catchers are there. So that's the reason why there's so much communication on stage. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> As a gymnast in the group, these kinds of athletic acts are second nature. But for the classically trained dancers, it takes a little more time to adjust. Crystal Zibalese>> Some of the bigger flies are a little nerve-wracking at first, but you always feel pretty comfortable with the group. Everyone is really focused and, you know, works together and, if you're ever in trouble, they're there to help you. Jacques Heim>> "Guys, help each other, talk to each other, communicate to one another because you don't want something negative. I need to see talk." Vicki Curry>> Heim teaches that same sense of teamwork in Diavolo's education program. Jacques Heim>> I love teaching because it's a way of sharing. It's a way of collaborating with students and teaching is dear to me. With Diavolo, I wanted all of my dancers to be able to teach because it is very important for them to understand about communication and understand about sharing ideas. [Film Clip] Jacques Heim>> Education is very important and I believe also that it's very important to inspire kids so eventually, you know, kids can see that art is not really a very strange thing and it can be part of their whole life. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> It's all part of the mission of Diavolo Dance Theater. Take the mystery out of dance, make it exciting and, hopefully, win over new fans. Jacques Heim>> Diavolo has a sort of mixture between the art form and the entertainment form. That's very valuable because then people can realize that dance is not so strange after all. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> The Diavolo dance troupe will be performing in September at the Hollywood Bowl. For details, you can go to their website at diavolo.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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