Avalon

Introduction

Just twenty-six miles off the Southern California's coastline lays the beautiful island of Santa Catalina with its famed tourist attractions, small boat anchorages, crystal clear inlets and bays and its rugged interior where buffalo are still allowed to roam free. To the untrained eye this island paradise seems complete and unspoiled. However, the island is challenged with man's presence and, as such, requires constant vigilance in terms of maintaining and improving its infrastructure as well as reducing pollution from gasoline powered vehicles and municipal waste and garbage.

To assist in addressing these issues, in December, 2005, Avalon's Mayor and City Council unanimously appointed Eco Soul, Inc., a 501 (C) 3 California public benefit company, as Program Manager of a proposed Sustainable Power Park in the City of Avalon that will highlight solutions for the entire islands' energy and pollution challenges along with providing open access to the general public for both enlightenment and educational purposes.

City of Avalon’s Sustainable Power Park

The goal of the project is to implement aspects of the Avalon 20/20 Vision Plan, which the Mayor of Avalon, the City Council and the Citizens have approved.  A Sustainable Power Park will provide many benefits to the island's citizens, its visitors and the Southern California public, in general.The following points are highlights from the Avalon 20/ 20 Vision Plan, which can be found at:   City of Avalon

• Adequate, properly functioning infrastructure
• As energy self-sufficient as technology allows
• Stable, healthy economic performance
• A focus on high-quality visitor experience
• Adequate recreational facilities and high-quality environmental programs
• Excellent bay water quality at all times
• Adequate school facilities and excellent educational opportunities
• Opportunities for adult education and
• Aesthetically pleasing, non-polluting, and safe for the community.

The Power Park will showcase many clean and sustainable energy technologies where Catalina Island’s reputation as a “Living Laboratory” continues. Eco Soul’s initial directive as Program Manager for the Sustainable Power Park is to define all elements of renewable, non-polluting energy into a White Paper document, which will be suitable for review by all concerned.

White Paper Outline download

The energy-autonomous community relies on its capability to use as much of the natural resources available to it as possible, and to use those resources with a methodology that assures a mix of economics and sustainability also ensuring that the energy and power supplied are cost effective, clean and perpetual.

The White Paper will identify a sustainable, non-polluting energy supply for Avalon and Catalina Island by first assessing the profile of all potentially relevant energy sources, identifying their best products (electricity, heat or fuel), and identifying how each source can integrate into a logical system. It will also evaluate the best choices and timing for those choices to be integrated into a complete renewable and sustainable energy system.

The possible energy sources and conversion methods that will be considered at varied levels are…

Each energy source can be converted to useful power by more than one technology or method. The objective is to provide the information necessary to determine the best individual conversion method for each source of indigenous energy on Catalina, and to integrate those energy sources into a system design that will best service the Island. The likely progression will be to determine the low hanging fruit in terms of technology and sources and begin the integration with them, and then phase in the rest as the project progresses.

In addition, the White Paper will address the Sustainable Power Park as becoming a teaching and learning center for both local citizens and visitors to the Island. With over one million annual visitors, the Power Park will be open to the public and will become a “free standing island of renewable energy education and technology”. It will also serve as a model for other similar Power Parks in California where the same processes of using indigenous energy can be combined to produce non-polluting electricity and other useful fuels and by products.

Participants