LOS ANGELES, Apr 16, 2009 -- Xinhua


Los Angeles, the second largest U.S. metropolis, is seeking academic help to develop clean technology in a bid to become the nation's "cleanest" and " greenest" city, it was reported on Thursday.

Under a plan announced earlier by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the city will partner with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) to achieve this goal, the Los Angeles Times said.

The partnership is part of the agenda Villaraigosa outlined in his State of the City speech earlier this week to lure and retain companies that focus on green endeavors such as solar, wind, battery and hydrogen fuel cell technologies, according to the paper.

With the support from the three universities, the city would be positioned to compete for hundreds of thousands of federal dollars for clean technology research and a proposed state institute to study climate change, said the paper.

Villaraigosa said on Wednesday that the CleanTech LA alliance, which also includes the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Business Council and Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., represented a "giant leap forward in our effort to make this city the global capital of clean technology."

"We're formalizing a partnership to leverage what we've done over the last four years in the city, what we're doing at all three universities to develop the jobs of the new economy," the mayor said.

The mayor has set the goal of drawing 20 percent of the city's electrical power from renewable energy by 2010.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said the partnership would ensure that the region "asserts its place as a hub in the emerging new clean-technology business."

Most recently, the mayor's office has been working with the Community Redevelopment Agency to transform a four-mile (6.4- kilometer) industrial stretch -- along the Los Angeles River east of downtown -- into an incubator for clean-technology companies.

UCLA officials said they hope to test small-scale wind turbines at the site. USC officials are drawing up plans for a research center to study how to make data centers more energy efficient, according to the paper.

Officials said the partnership stemmed from the city's intent to compete for a possible California climate change institute. A version of the climate change center proposal was approved by the state Legislature last year but vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said the legislation was "too limiting and too premature."

State Senator Alex Padilla reintroduced a proposal for the center in February. No decisions have been made about the process for locating the center, but it is clear that competition with other cities will be fierce if the proposal advances, the paper said.

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