V2GREEN

A lot has happened since the Redmond, Wash. “Beyond Oil: Transforming Transportation” conference earlier this month on electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which was sponsored by Cascadia Center, Microsoft, Idaho National Laboratory (INL), WSDOT, USDOT and Pemco Insurance. For starters, Time Magazine’s environmental correspondent Bryan Walsh, who attended both days of the event and interviewed key sources there, has published an important article titled, “Is America Ready To Drive Electric?” Walsh writes: If plug-ins suddenly became popular, before the grid had a chance to get smarter, it could lead to a real power predicament…A…solution: tap into the enormous extra capacity of the grid during off-peak times, like between midnight and dawn…To do that, however, we need to persuade plug-in Read More ›

The U.S. transportation sector contributes more than any other to manmade greenhouse gas emissions which threaten the planet’s environment, while our nation’s dependence on foreign oil means – as former CIA Director James Woolsey so astutely puts it – that we are funding both sides of the war on terrorism. Some say the answer is to “get people out of their cars,” and certainly, the more who can be enticed to use public transit or telecommute, the better. I’m a regular Seattle bus rider, and telecommuter, myself. But cars are an uttter necessity for the majority of daily commuters, and indispensable for much discretionary personal transportation. That’s just not going to change. So, we can rail against cars and trucks. Read More ›