Will gray wolves return to California? Photo: MacNeil Lyons, National Park Service/ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Midwest Region.

When a gray wolf wearing a GPS collar crossed from Oregon into California in December, it was the first wild gray wolf to tread on California soil since the 1920s. Wolves once roamed throughout California, and some people think packs may prowl the state again. It is debatable whether this lone wolf is a sign of things to come, but if wolves return to California, their role in the ecosystem will be different than it was in times past.

Until the early 1900s, gray wolves (Canis lupus) lived throughout much of North America. They were present in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Coast Range, and the Central Valley, among other locations. Their range was not well documented. Gray wolves are predators; they hunt in packs and eat all kinds of prey, from small rodents on up to Bison. Their main prey items were Tule Elk and Pronghorn, an animal similar to an antelope.

As California’s Central Valley was converted to agricultural fields and pastures, the number of Tule Elk and Pronghorn dwindled. A shrinking supply of wild ungulates (hoofed mammals, such as elk, Pronghorn, and deer) meant that wolves started going after livestock—with major repercussions. Predator control programs led to extinction of the gray wolf in the lower 48 states. In 1924, the last known wolf in California was trapped and killed in Lassen County.

Gray wolves were added to the Endangered Species List in 1974, shortly after the Endangered Species Act was passed. Then, in the mid 1990s, gray wolves from Canada were re-introduced to Idaho and to Yellowstone National Park.

The gray wolves introduced to Idaho expanded their range, and there are now about 1600 wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest. In Idaho, there are concerns that the local population is growing too large, and the wolves are getting too close to human habitation. Last year, gray wolves were de-listed in certain areas, where it became legal to hunt them. Five wolves were killed via aerial gunning in Idaho.

Studies on the wolves in Yellowstone, conducted by Chris Wilmers, Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California Santa Cruz, have found that gray wolves buffer the effects of climate change for other carnivores. Many scavengers, such as bald eagles, coyotes, and black bears, feed on elk carcasses during the winter. After heavy snowfall, elk become exhausted from walking through deep snow and eventually expire. However, winters are becoming shorter as a result of climate change, and there are fewer elk carcasses to be scavenged. After wolves were released in Yellowstone, their hunting activity increased the availability of food for scavengers.

The Gray Wolf that recently crossed into California—named OR7 and re-named “Journey” in a naming contest—split off from his pack in Oregon. Wolves can outgrow their packs and will disperse to find a mate. As the only known wild gray wolf in the state, is highly unlikely that Journey will find a mate. And without a pack to hunt with, this lone wolf will probably need to scavenge for food. Journey probably won’t father California’s future wolf population, but it is possible that other Oregon wolves may follow in his nearly 1000 miles of footsteps.

California has suitable habitat for gray wolves, and has plenty of potential prey. But the state has changed a lot since gray wolves had the run of the place in the 1800s. There is little open space, and the climate is drastically altered; if wolves return, their ecological role will be very different.

Nissan Leaf dashboard. Photo: Josh Cassidy

I was way too literal in my thinking about the Leaf. I thought, “100 miles of range, great. I can go to work and back almost three times before I have to recharge." It’s about 33 miles from the Oakland Hills into where I work in San Francisco and back. I didn’t understand that I simply would never get 100 miles of range despite driving much more efficiently. I also didn’t realize, at the time, that it’s best to charge to 80% to extend battery life. So, now I pretty much have to charge between every trip.

I realized a lead foot and maybe climate control would reduce my range but I didn’t consider all of the other possible factors that would cut into my range including: terrain, weather, speed, elevation, technique and even how long ago I last charged. After four months of driving I am getting some ideas of what to do to eke out more miles. Also, I have been getting tips from several sites including: Mynissanleaf.com. While some of this might be specific to the Leaf, some tips are general ones that can apply to any of the upcoming electric car releases such as Mitsubishi’s i electric and the 2012 Ford Electric Focus. Oh, and if you have ideas on how to extend range, by all means, share!

1. Count bars, not miles
Don’t look at the DTZ (Distance to Zero) which counts backwards from your mileage starting point. Leaf drivers call it the "guess o’meter". Look at the bars. This will help you not freak out. Battery-powered cars have huge mileage swings with climate control, acceleration, speed and elevation gains being the biggest. For those not driving a Leaf, the car has twelve bars stacked on top of each other. You can see this to the right of the dashboard on the photo above. Daily, I work with ten bars since I charge to 80%. If I average my road and highway driving during a moderate winter in the San Francisco Bay Area, I am getting almost 7 miles per bar.

2. Bundle up
If you really need to eke out every mile, don’t use the climate control. In extreme weather, the heat can cut the energy by 30%. It is a drag. It is best to use your seat warmers if you have them (I don't). Also, try heating up your car while it is still teathered to your charger (you can program it to go on before you go to work or use a phone app to turn it on from the warmth of your home.)

3. Follow the bubbles
While it is not the best efficiency gauge, I follow the power meter on the dashboard of the Leaf. You can see it in the picture above. The meter displays the motor power and the regenerative brake power. The white dot, or bubble, in the display moves to the right when you are accelerating and to the left when power is generated by breaking. I generally try to keep the bubbles from increasing too much to the right.

4. Drive in Eco
This probably goes without saying but most hybrd plug-ins and electric cars have different drive options. The Leaf has two drive choices, drive and eco. Drive gives you that fast zoom and eco helps the car capture more energy.

5. Use Common Sense
Combine errands into one trip, drive less agressively, keep your tire pressure up, unpack your car to reduce excess weight, try and drive in the moderate time of the day as electric cars are less efficient in extreme hot or cold conditions.

Sure, I wish my battery pack could hold more charge but that's not my only gripe. It just takes too long to charge and there is a total lack of public chargers out on the roads. From what I understand, the 2012 Electric Ford Focus and the 2013 Nissan Leaf will charge in half the time the 2011 Nissan Leaf charges. Better yet, Stanford’s wireless charging idea could catch on.

Next up, choosing a rate plan and working through the morass that is PG&E.

Se other posts from this series.

Rancho Corral de Tierra's nearly 4,000 acres overlook the Pacific, just south of Devil's Slide.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Alcatraz Island, the Marin Headlands, Muir Woods and many other Bay Area landmarks, has added one more piece to its portfolio: a large chunk of the Peninsula south of Devil's Slide.

Negotiations to incorporate Rancho Corral de Tierra into the park took ten years and ended plans by a developer to build pricey homes in the Half Moon Bay area.

On the day I visited Rancho Corral de Tierra, a thick fog hung under the peak of Montara Mountain, blocking what might otherwise have been views straight out to the Farallon Islands and Mount Tamalpais.

But with 3,800 acres of Cypress trees and rolling hills, you could almost imagine what the California coast looked like when Spanish explorers wandered by just north of here in 1769.

Close Calls with Development

It was almost a golf course.

Audrey Rust, president emeritus of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, known as POST, says she’d been eyeing this piece of land since she began working at the trust 25 years ago. Flat in the lowlands with a scenic backdrop of ridges, it attracted development plans of every stripe, says Rust.

Courtesy of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

“A golf course, housing, gated communities… everything,” says Rust.

Rust, and others, believed the ranch provided such valuable habitat and open space that it might qualify to become part of the national park system.

“It’s only seven miles south from the border of San Francisco,” says Rust, “and it's teeming with wildlife. Mountain lions are abundant. Deer. Every critter you can think of that's native to this area.”

Acquiring the ranch was a huge project, requiring fund-raising on a scale closer to what you might expect from a major hospital or university. POST launched a campaign called Saving the Endangered Coast with the goal of raising 200 million dollars and saving 20 thousand acres of land, including the ranch.

Audrey Rust helped raise $200 million dollars to save Rancho Corral de Tierra

They couldn’t have asked for a better fundraising moment. Rust raised $100 million from Silicon Valley: $50 million each from the Packard and Moore Foundations.

The funding let POST buy the sprawling ranch for $29 million and then hold onto it for nine years until the state government and Congress provided the money to acquire it for the same price. After much political wrangling, Congressional approval to add it to the national park system finally came through last summer. Rust was ecstatic.

“[We were] jumping around and sometimes crying. But now, it just feels right to know this beautiful place will be here forever.”

The land includes a working horse farm and Brussels sprouts fields.

A Southern Entryway to Golden Gate National Recreation Area

From the National Park’s perspective, the addition of the ranch is historic. Alex Picavet, with the GGNRA, calls the ranch “the largest land acquisition for Golden Gate National Recreation Area pretty much since it began.”

As national parks go, Golden Gate is a little unusual. Its 82,000 acres of parkland are scattered around the Bay Area, from Muir Woods to Alcatraz Island and Ocean Beach in San Francisco. But the new land on the Peninsula means that about half of the park — which was founded in 1972 — is now in San Mateo County, with this new chunk forming the southernmost border.

“We’re calling this the southern entryway to Golden Gate National Recreation Area,” says Picavet.

Now that Rust and others have taken the long view, people like Susie Bennett can focus on the small things.

As we hiked up the ridge, Bennett, a natural resource specialist for the GGNRA, stopped and pointed to a little yellow flower with heart-shaped petals, “this area’s local plant celebrity.”

The endangered hickman's potentilla has been found in only two places in the world.

Hickman's potentilla is found in only two places in the world: here, and in Monterey. It’s the ranch’s only federally recognized endangered species. “It’s a plant we’d like to focus some management on,” says Bennett.

In taking over this land, the National Park Service is doing a lot more than just putting up new signs.

There will be scientists studying the land, and workers clearing out invasive species. The system of informal trails that locals have used for years will get an overhaul.

Balancing the Needs of Habitat and Local Dog-walkers

And like any new neighbor, the park is going to have to win over local residents, especially on the topic of dogs.

Bill and Peggy Bechtell live in a comfortable ranch home in Montara, just across the street from the park. They’ve been walking their dog, Kalie, here for years. They say they're apprehensive about their new neighbors.

Montara residents Bill and Peggy Bechtell have been walking their dogs off-leash on the ranch for decades.

“We've had nothing but great community here for 32 years, and the minute they come, they ruin it,” says Peggy Bechtell.

Bechtell is referring to an incident, about a week ago, that made national headlines.

According to the GGNRA, Gary Hesterberg of Montara was walking his two dogs off leash, in violation of park rules. A ranger tried to give him a ticket, but he gave her a false name and refused to stop. Critics call it excessive force, and a local congresswoman wants an independent investigation.

National parks, as a rule, don’t allow off-leash dogs. It’s been a sticking point for some in the Bay Area for more than a decade and, as a result, the park has made exceptions in places like Fort Funston and the Marin Headlands. A final, formal dog policy has long been in development.

Officials had originally hoped that the new park addition at Rancho Corral de Tierra would follow the more restrictive National Park standards, with limited, leash-only dog areas. Park officials say dogs can interfere with efforts to nurture and restore the area's native ecosystem.

Bill Bechtell, who has been taking his dogs here since the 1980s, says that policy is unfair to Montara locals.

“There’s plenty of room for open space, animals, wildlife, everything. And recreation!” he says.

Last week, park officials announced their intention to include the ranch in the broader environmental review of off-leash dog areas in parts of GGNRA, which opens up the possibility that off-leash areas could eventually be established at Rancho Corral de Tierra.

“It’s not going to be overnight that we all come together and speak the same language,” says GGNRA’s Picavet. “But we are looking forward to building that relationship together. We’re here for the long haul.”

Over the next year, GGNRA will be working out parking, signage, and other issues, including dog policy. The property is currently open to visitors.

Mercedes Fuel-Cell car for 2014

Big news this week for electric car drivers. We may soon have more company on the roads if the state of California has any say. The California Air Resources Board has passed the toughest vehicle emission regulations in the U.S. CARB is mandating that automakers cut exhaust by two-thirds by dramatically increasing their production of electric and plug-in hybrids. Automakers and oil companies have sued in the past to stop similar measures but this time is different. There are already more than fifteen thousand electric and plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads.

The mandates would require about one in seven new cars and trucks sold in California each year to run on batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or other zero emission technology within the next thirteen years. That is the same amount of time that the Prius and other hybrids have been out. During that time automakers say hybrids have only captured 3 percent of the market and there is concern that it's going to be very difficult to achieve 15 percent in the same period of time with electric cars. No doubt a lot needs to happen to entice would be customers including: Rolling out a charging infrastructure, bringing down the cost of cleaner cars and helping prepare folks who want to make a transition to driving non gas or diesel cars.

Chevy Volt

The very cars that California is pushing were on display in San Jose this week at an auto symposium for journalists. I decided to take a road trip down to check them out.

Before I bought my Leaf I would never have thought of driving to San Jose as a road trip but it was the first time i headed to a place where i would not have enough charge to get home. Ironically, the venue holding the "Fourth Annual Future of Cars" conference for journalists did not have an electric car charger. I was a little nervous to make the journey when it looked like, according to one of my phone apps, the nearest chargers were either all in use or down. However, the folks at Club Auto Sport in San Jose kindly let me trickle charge (use a 110 v outlet with my Nissan charger) in their parking lot. This meant I had to stay longer than intended but it gave me a chance to test drive several cutting edge clean cars.

Mitsubishi’s new “i” electric car

The Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell Highlander, due out in 2015, drives much like a battery powered electric car. It's smooth and quiet but the SUV is obviously much bigger with a range of 431 miles. It's good it has so much range because hydrogen fueling stations are few and far between. Hydrogen fuel cell technology has not received great endorsements from the Department of Energy but Toyota has more confidence in the technology.

I tried Mitsubishi's 2012 "i" electric car. The SE Model is similarly priced to the Leaf. It was okay, not as zipped up as the Leaf and smaller but has that electric, smooth, get up and go drive feeling. I have driven the Volt before. It drives well and has mostly a gas engine to fall back on so the range anxiety is not there but the price is high and you don't get to hang out at conferences for hours waiting for your car to trickle charge. Wouldn't want to miss that.

Coming up — wild mileage swings and choosing a rate plan.

See other posts from this series.

As the EV charging infrastructure slowly rolls out, most people are finding the most reliable, and cheapest, place to charge is at home.

Choosing a Home Charger

Someday the hope is that we should all be able to pick up a home charger at our local car dealership but right now it’s up to us early adopters to do the homework. When I reserved my Leaf back in the fall of 2010, Nissan was requiring a home visit from their charging contractor, AeroVironment. I paid one hundred dollars to have an AV installer come to my home and give me a bid for a charger and installation which came out to about 2,400. There is a federal credit right now for 30 percent of the purchase and installation costs but I found a better deal. With the help of federal stimulus funds, some charging companies are offering chargers and installation for free. I heard from two different people that there was a long wait for the Charge Point America program, sponsored by Coulomb Technologies, so I applied, online, for the EV Project run by Ecotality. Volt and Leaf drivers who qualify receive a smart charger and installation up to 1,200 dollars, at no cost. In turn the EV owner gives the company online access to charging data. My application and installation could not have been smoother, except for one small complaint. After the install I noticed I was getting knocked off my internet connection more than usual. I asked the company about it and they said they were having some similar reports and thought an upcoming software update would fix it. I am waiting to find out if the update helps. Unlike the trickle charge pack I carry in my trunk, my level two black and white, "Blink," charger is mounted to the side of my driveway and runs on a dedicated 220/240-volt line.

Making the Charger Work for You

When I first started charging at home I used a handy timer built in to the Blink charger. Since then I have elected to make the Blink ‘dumb.’ I have chosen, instead, to use the timer provided by the Nissan telematics service, CarWings, here’s why: Nissan’s iPhone app allows me to remotely see what my charging status is and it lets me do things like turn the heater on in the morning from the warmth of my house while the car is still tethered to my charger. Also, Nissan suggests drivers extend battery life by charging to eighty, rather than one hundred percent. In order to program the charging limit, I have found I need to program Nissan’s CarWings timer. The next step to charging at home is choosing a rate with your utility-I'll cover that in an upcoming post and if you have lessons to share on home charging, let us hear from you!

Later this week I’ll report back on the Future of Cars symposium in San Jose and my first road trip.

See other posts from this series.

Landfills, like this one at Hunter’s Point, produce methane, which can be used for electricity and fuel. Photo: kqedquest.

Trash that ends up at a landfill is the ugly stepsister of hipper, cooler compostable kitchen scraps and recyclable bottles and cans. But landfill trash has more of a future than you might think. As garbage decomposes, it gives off methane. Methane, when floating around in the atmosphere, is a harmful greenhouse gas; it traps 20 times more heat than CO2. But methane’s other moniker is natural gas, and is an important energy source. Methane from landfills can be captured and used to generate power and fuel vehicles—often the very same garbage trucks that brought the trash to the landfill in the first place.

Landfills are not just giant heaps of rotting trash. At the base and sides of a landfill, the trash is separated from the natural world by thick plastic liner, which prevents the effluvia from decomposing garbage from entering the environment and contaminating the groundwater. The trash itself is strategically stacked in layers of cells—landfills can be hundreds of feet deep. Within the landfill, different microbes break down the trash via anaerobic digestion. The microbes produce methane gas as a waste product. There are other gases produced too; this mix of gases produced by anaerobic microbes is called biogas.

Old landfills are punctuated by pipes that collect the biogas, which is then burned to prevent the gas from entering the atmosphere (and prevent the neighbors from smelling the stink). Open flares are just what they sound like—little burning flames of methane. Closed flares filter out the contaminants before the smoke is released. Flaring the biogas at the landfill is probably the most common way of dealing with it. But it is an unfortunate waste of a potentially valuable fuel source.

Newer landfills are built with methane collection in mind from the early stages of construction. Pipes can be buried in the landfill as it is filled with trash. Pipes can also be placed in wells drilled through the trash after the landfill has begun to be filled. A vacuum system collects the gas as the microbes produce it. The amount of gas a landfill produces depends on the volume of trash and the age of the landfill; eventually, the gas production will peak and then begin to taper off. Today’s big landfills, however, can produce biogas for decades.

The methane collected from landfills can generate electricity via a turbine or internal combustion engine. Often some of the electricity is used at the landfill to run equipment, and the rest is sold to the local utility.

Methane from biogas can be converted to compressed natural gas, which can be used as fuel for vehicles. In some areas, regulations stipulate that large fleets of vehicles (with more than about 50 trucks) are required to run on clean fuel. When biogas is converted to compressed natural gas, the vehicles can refuel at the landfill. Building a system that converts biogas into compressed natural gas is a big investment, but the fleet saves on fuel costs for decades. These kinds of biogas systems can be installed at anaerobic waste digesters at places like wastewater treatment plants, not just landfills.

Altamont Landfill has taken things a step further, converting landfill biogas into liquefied natural gas. First, impurities are removed, and then the gas is cooled down to a liquid state. This liquefied natural gas is used to fuel Waste Management’s garbage trucks. Altamont Landfill’s liquid natural gas system is the largest in the world.

Obviously, we should buy only what we need, recycle what we can, and be careful to compost everything that’s compostable. But it’s nice to know that something useful can come from plain old trash.

The new all-electric Nissan Leaf. (Photo: Josh Cassidy)

This week, California officials are voting on the toughest new regulations in the country to promote cleaner cars. If passed, by 2025, 15% of new cars and trucks sold in the state would have to be powered by batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or other technology that produces little or no air pollution.

These kind of tough mandates have been tried before and they failed. But officials are confident that era of electric vehicle as finally arrived in California. That’s becoming the case in the Bay Area, which has been a strong market for advanced cars since the first Prius came out a decade ago.

“This is a Prius V,” says Joe Testa at Downtown Toyota in Oakland, showing one of several new Prius models that Toyota is releasing this year. “It’s the longer, wagon style, so it has a little more room.” Testa says there’s already a waiting list for the new Prius Plug-in, which comes out in March.

Toyota came out with hybrids ahead of other carmakers, maybe because the company anticipated changes in the market. Or, as some believe, it was due to a California state agency.

“We have been at the forefront of encouraging, and some would people would say forcing, new technologies. The Prius hybrid electric vehicle is an example of that,” says Tom Cackette. Chief Deputy Director of the California Air Resources Board.

California’s Clean Car History

Cackette says to see California’s legacy of shaping national car policy, you have to go back to 1975. The state had a growing smog problem, so the air board required cars to have catalytic converters. The federal government followed. California then tightened air pollution rules for cars. And tightened them again. “And almost in every case, the federal government would follow two, three, four, five years later.”

Today, new cars emit 99 percent less smog than cars did in the 1960s. “It’s probably the most successful environmental program in the world,” says Cackette.

Now, California has a new goal: dramatically cutting greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change. Transportation accounts for 40% of the state’s emissions. “The number one strategy to reduce greenhouse gases is these car standards,” he says.

The proposed standards would cut greenhouse gas emissions from new cars in half by 2025. “We actually worked very closely under the federal government under the Obama Administration and we’ve jointly developed the standards. So they won’t just apply in California. But they’ll apply nationwide.”

Meeting these tougher standards will raise car prices by about $1900, but Cackette says those costs would be offset by fuel savings.

Jumpstarting Electric Car Sales

On top of that, California is taking an even bolder step, requiring automakers to sell increasing numbers of clean cars in the state. By 2025, they’d have to sell almost a million and half vehicles that run on electricity or hydrogen fuel cells.

The thing is – California has tried this before. And it didn’t work. “I guess I would call it a little too visionary perhaps,” says Cackette. In 1990, the Air Resources Board mandated that 10 percent of new car sales be “zero emission” cars by 2003.

“Obviously that didn’t happen. The price of gas was cheap in those times. The price of the technologies were high,” he says. The air board loosened the rules to include hybrid cars and cleaner gasoline engines, which he says drove carmakers to develop them faster.

Now, Cackette believes that technology has come of age. Nissan is selling the all-electric Leaf and Chevy is selling the Volt, a plug-in hybrid. And there’s another big difference.

Automakers Onboard

“The car manufacturers were adamantly opposed to the concept of government telling them they needed to build a new type of technology. That’s changed.”

“You are seeing more agreement between automakers and California and the federal government,” agrees Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in Washington DC.

“Automakers have invested billions of dollars in these technologies. And so in some ways we have similar interests. Our interest in recouping our investment is now aligned with the societal imperative to get more of these vehicles on the road,” she says.

Bergquist says meeting the mandate calling for carmakers to sell a certain number of clean vehicles will ultimately depend on consumers. “There’s still a concern about what the consumer acceptance of these technologies is going to be and that can make a mandate very scary.”

Groups Push for Tougher Rules

“We think California could be bolder,” says Don Anair is with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit group that supports even stronger clean car rules.

“We need that technology to advance for the technology cost to come down and make these vehicles accessible to more and more consumers. By having a more aggressive standard, that gives more certainty to investors that California is committed.” Anair wants to see tougher standards sooner rather than later, since it takes 15 years on average for the entire fleet of cars on the road to turn over.

If the new rules are successful, electric cars could be adopted at a much faster pace. Tom Cackette of the Air Resources Board says they’re doing all they can to encourage consumers to buy them, including funding a popular rebate program and working with companies to build an electric car charging infrastructure.

“Right now, you’ve got to sort of have a jumpstart to this whole process and in the absence of a jumpstart, there’s a chance that it will fail,” he says.

A projection of how zero emissions vehicles like electric cars will be 87% of all cars on the road in California by 2025. Source: California Air Resources Board.

Like many folks, I was counting on a number of tax credits and rebates to help me afford the Nissan Leaf. I have already received the state of California’s 2,500 dollar rebate (it took a little over two months). Also, Nissan sent me a $700 rebate to pay me back for having a fast charging port installed on my Leaf. Although there are no fast chargers out there yet, I guess it’s going to come in handy one day. But what I might not get is the federal tax credit.

I thought the clean car federal tax credit of $7,500 for EVs was like the home buyers' credit from last year or like California’s solar panel credit — but it is not a refund credit. You have to set it up so you owe the federal government an amount, then they will take if off. I didn’t do that so after an early December tax appointment I rushed to increase my exemptions for my last two paychecks of the year. I scrambled to see where I could get some other income. Anyway, I am probably not going to even get half the credit which makes my Leaf much more expensive than I originally planned for. I blame myself for not researching this but it’s all a bit confusing. I also had not planned ahead on a home charger. I had PG&E come out to do a required EV inspection but I did not buy a charger before I bought the car. Thus my new shiny Leaf sat in my driveway, unused, for a few weeks.

Monday I’ll explain how I picked my home charger and how I got it and the installation for free.

See other posts in this series.

This month may be the moment of truth for six Bay Area communities. Each one is vying to be the new home of a high-profile national research center. But when it comes to development in the Bay Area, there are no easy answers.

Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, and Richmond are the six cities in the running for what you might call the 2012 Cadillac of Bay Area Development Projects: A new, second campus for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Will Travis – who, until recently, headed the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a state agency that regulates building around the bay – says, sure, big development projects happen all the time in the Bay Area. But Lawrence Berkeley labs is what he calls "a platinum level, marquee" project.

Since it was founded in 1931, thirteen Nobel prizes have been won on work done here. Sixteen elements added to the periodic table. World-famous innovations in medical science, alternative energy and atomic research that helped win World War II.

"It reflects who we are as a society, a knowledge-based society," says Travis, "and this is the epitome of that."

With a staff of 4,000 and a budget of more than $800 million, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab has been overflowing its headquarters in the Berkeley Hills for some time. Research on biofuels and other fields has spilled over to satellite offices in Emeryville and Walnut Creek. The idea is to consolidate those operations into a second campus.

For several Bay Area cities, this seems like a dream opportunity.

On a blindingly sunny day in November, Alameda city development manager Jennifer Ott took me on a tour of Alameda's contender in the race: a 50-acre waterfront property in the Alameda Naval Air Station.

Gesturing to what now looks like a concrete wasteland – albeit with a spectacular Bay view – Ott described a bustling campus and waterfront promenade. Retail shops and restaurants, a jogging path.

She says when the Navy decommissioned the Air Station 15 years ago, the city lost thousands of jobs. The lab would be a chance to bring this area back to life.

So, Alameda is offering the site to the lab for free, which says a lot, especially when you consider that – as because it’s a national lab – the campus will contribute nothing in local property taxes

Ott says It’s still worth it.

"They will shop in our stores," says Ott, "eat in our restaurants. And we also believe that they will attract other private development to the area that will bring tax revenue into the city and jobs."

The need for jobs unites all six of the possible sites. But here’s something else many of them have in common: They're flat and by the water.

And that presents a problem that no one has much experience dealing with says Will Travis.

"The fact that these areas are low-lying and vulnerable to sea level rise isn't something that's been integrated into regulatory process yet."

San Francisco Bay waters are expected to rise steadily in coming years: 16 inches by 2050, up to 55 inches by the end of the century.

But the more imminent threat, says Travis, is storms.

"The scientists are telling us that we will have more extreme events more often. And we’re seeing it.

Travis believes that sea-level rise is something that can be designed around with stilts, or artificial hills, setbacks. His former agency, the BCDC is charged with writing those guidelines.

But at a certain point, says Heather Cooley, of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute, there will be places simply not worth developing. Places we will just abandon to the rising waters.

"We will need to have those sorts of conversations," says Cooley. But she adds that nobody in the Bay Area seems quite ready to have them yet.

Other hard conversations are taking place just north, near the Albany/Berkeley border at Golden Gate Fields.

On the day I visited, a thoroughbred named "I'm Tops" is getting a pedicure, his hooves filed down and shiny new aluminum shoes fitted with nails and a hammer.

"This is a dying art," said Peter Tunney, my guide and a member of the Stronach Group, the private racing firm that owns this racetrack and others.

Tunney has been in the racing business most of his adult life. But he said betting had declined in recent years. Sometime, the grandstands were only half-full.

Horse racing, said Tunney, "has become a television sport. We have all learned that we don’t need grandstands anymore."

If Lawrence Berkeley chooses this spot to put its new campus, the racetrack, built in 1941, would be torn down. The lab would either buy the property, or lease it from the Stronach Group.

Racing would continue, said Tunney, just somewhere smaller inland like Pleasanton.

"We're in the racing business. We’ll stay in the racing biz. We’re just following this through as a potential option."

If the lab chooses Albany, there will be some hurdles. Birders say the construction could damage precious habitat near the track.

And losing the track would cost the city of Albany about a million and a half tax dollars that it takes in from the track each year, money that funds its schools, among other things. By law, residents here would have the right to vote on whether to allow the lab or not, which could add time and risk to the process

There are no easy answers, says the BCDC's Will Travis. "And I think that’s what’s taking so long. We have a series of imperfect alternatives."

One final option is to build out the Richmond Field Station, off of I-580, and just north of the racetrack. The Field station, which Lawrence Berkeley Lab already owns, currently houses several scientific projects, including an earthquake simulator and UC Berkeley's Forest Products Lab.

A spokesman for the lab says a decision should be out within the month. They hope to have the new facilities up and running by 2016.

Test driving the Nissn Leaf. Photo: Josh Cassidy

I never thought I would buy an electric car. But here I am, two months after purchase, zipping around in Nissan’s all-electric Leaf with not too many regrets. Sure, there have been some rude awakenings, wild mileage swings, the painful details of the federal tax credit, waiting for special diamond lane stickers and a disappointingly slow roll out of charging stations around the Bay Area. Over the next several months, I'll post regular updates on my experiences and invite other owners and would-be green car drivers to chime in. Here is my quick story to get us started.

My Story

Back in 2010, as I got ready to trade in my old, leaky Honda, I explored cleaner alternatives. As an editor and reporter on the environmental beat at KQED, I had a chance to test drive several types of upcoming green cars, clean diesel, biodiesel, plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. After all that research and test driving, here is what I came up with: Electric cars are totally cool and green, have this very smooth drive and quick acceleration but still too expensive with no information on resale value or any real charging infrastructure. Like many people, I had range anxiety before I even knew what the actual range would be. There were also alternatives. Why not wait for the Plug-In Prius or the upcoming all-electric Ford Focus or go clean diesel or even biodiesel which would allow me to carry my fuel with me?

Clean Car Sticker

I have been commuting from my house in Oakland to San Francisco for 12 years. It takes an hour whether I drive or ride BART. The Bay Bridge is the bane of my existence. For years I have coveted those clean air stickers that allow drivers to go solo in the carpool lane. Since all solo hybrid drivers were kicked out of the diamond lane last year, all-electric, compressed natural gas and hydrogen fuel cell cars are the only ones under state law that qualify right now for a clean vehicle white sticker. Super clean plug-in-hybrids will qualify for a clean vehicle sticker starting this year.

Negotiating for the Nissan Leaf. Photo: Nancy Warren

I first made an online reservation with Nissan back in September of 2010. I filled out the specs that I thought I would like and put down a refundable $99 reservation fee. Finally, by last April my name had reached the top of the Nissan Leaf waiting list and I decided to place an order. Since I didn't have to pay until I picked up the car, I could still back out. More months went by as I tried to make a decision. I had never bought a new car before. Even with state and federal incentives, an electric car is a lot of money. By September I had two friends happily driving Leafs. The price and release date for the new plug-in Prius was not set and I had doubts about the price of clean diesel staying affordable. I also had doubts about hydrogen-powered cars. I am still waiting for the much touted, “Hydrogen Highway.” I couldn't afford the extended drive Chevy Volt or the high priced Tesla Roadster. And unlike the Volt, or the VW clean Diesel Golf or even used hybrids, the Leaf was the only one in that group, other than other electric cars, that would garner a carpool sticker. I jumped.

Can I Make It Home From the Dealer?

In October, I was notified that my shiny black Leaf had arrived at my chosen dealer.
A friend had recommended North Bay Nissan in Petaluma because they seemed the most informed on the Leaf and offered a small discount off the final price. My first consideration was whether I could make it back to my home in the Oakland hills. The car was fully charged to 105 miles. It turned out that real-world driving got me home with 19 miles to spare. But first, I spent three hours learning how to drive the car, charge the car, service the car — the ins and outs of the Car Wings telematics system, not to mention filling out endless paperwork.

My first time charging the Nissan Leaf. Photo: Nancy Warren

When all is said and done my Leaf cost $36,989.76. This included closing costs, delivery, taxes, my discount and a $700 Nissan rebate for a high-speed charging port. I received the rebate less than one month after buying the car. In just over two months I got my $2,500 rebate from the state. Now at $33,500, I expected another $7,500 back from the federal government to bring my grand total down to $26,000. I was in for a surprise.

Stay tuned next week for my first big shock, the details about the federal tax credit and also how I chose my home charger.

See other posts in this series.