Feed: Environmental Lovins on Yahoo! Green - AggScore: 80.2

The popular frenzy around plug-in vehicles (PEVs) drives lots of excitement around the benefits they bring, but the enormous sticker price leaves consumers shocked. And that may be an understatement, because the first generation of plug-in vehicles cost a whole more more than their internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts.

According to CNN's Money magazine, "A good rule of thumb is to plan on spending 10 percent to 15 percent of your total monthly budget on all automotive expenses."  This probably puts leasing the $850-per-month BMW miniE out of most of our budgets.  Granted, the first generation of any technology will be prohibitively expensive for most consumers, and most experts are projecting battery costs, a key driver of the premium, to drop in the future.

On the other hand, it is quite cheap to "fuel up" a PEV from the power supply in your garage, and based on early reviews, PEVs are fun to drive. The societal positive benefits include potential to:  Drastically reduce our foreign oil dependency, combat global warming by reducing green house gases, and serve as a key enabler to a nationwide smarter and greener grid with more renewable energy. So for those people who still do want to consider buying a plug-in vehicle in the near future -- does it make sense financially? 

Nobody wants to hear, "it depends," but it really does depend: Multiple unknown or driver-specific factors affect the economic benefit of driving a PEV versus an ICE-powered vehicle including how long you own or lease a vehicle, gas prices, resale value, how often and far you drive, when and where you recharge it, and federal incentives among others.

To help make clearer decisions, Rocky Mountain Institute as part of Project Get Ready has created a Total Cost Comparison Calculator for people to estimate the financial implications of taking the PEV plunge. Given your best estimates, you can replace the magic with math and get a rough idea on how much it will cost or save you to make your next vehicle a PEV. 

The calculator will also provide you information on how much oil, carbon dioxide, and fuel costs will be saved between different vehicle comparisons. More options are available to advanced users who would like to adjust other factors -- such as PHEV driving and charging scenarios, the price of diesel gasoline, resale value, and maintenance costs. 

Given an average consumer, what really contributes to breaking even on a PEV?  Like most big investments, focus on the long run and the most important factors: How long will you own the car, what is the sticker price difference, and will I make up that difference in my annual running costs? 

PEV prices will change and new vehicles will come out. We plan on updating the calculator as we learn more information and hear your comments. The next challenge may be finding charge stations outside of your home, and RMI is working to assess the business case for stakeholders considering investments in PEV charging station infrastructure.

Visit the Total Cost Comparison Calculator.

Shovel Ready: RMI's Sally DeLeon and
Elaine Adams visit green science buidling
at Richland College. (Photo: RMI
campus climate project 2008-2009)

Robert Morris, student body president of Richland College, is facing a challenge at his school.  A commuter school in Dallas Texas, with 24,500 students, Richland College has nobly committed to achieve carbon neutrality under the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.  

The problem? Students have no access to public transportation. Morris himself commutes from Garland, 30 minutes away, and there is no bus route.

Richland does have energy efficient buildings on campus, but the transport contributes the most to the school's carbon footprint, making up 66 % of campus greenhouse gas emissions.

Richland students face the same issue many commuters find. When there is limited access to public transport and when it may not be practical to ride a bike 20 miles each way to school or work, how can individuals reduce their carbon footprint?

Morris, one of 36 participants in Rocky Mountain Institute's recent Accelerating Campus Climate Initiatives Workshop, now has a few ideas about how to tackle the transport issue. The workshop, which convened in Denver from June 2-4, brought together representatives from 12 campuses to share information and war stories and inspiration to help create effective programs and projects that will reduce carbon emissions.

Morris discussed his school's climate initiative challenges with sustainability experts at RMI, who put on the workshop in collaboration with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). As a result, Morris goes back to Texas with some possible solutions, such as arranging carpooling and making it web-based so people can find rides easily and instituting web-based learning, telecommuting, and videotaping of classes. These telecommuting and carpooling options, of course, could work for business as well as schools that want to reduce carbon emissions.

RMI, through an anonymous donor, is offering the grants ($35,000-$50,000 per institution) to provide each participating campus with an opportunity to implement a high priority project that advances its climate program. Each school will use this funding to launch an important greenhouse gas reduction project or contribute to solving a thorny or significant barrier to climate neutrality.

For more information on the Accelerating Campus Climate Initiatives project, visit RMI's Built Environment Team website.

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has been advocating the entry of fuel-efficient cars into the market for years, for security and economic reasons as well as environmental. On May 19, 2009, President Obama announced a "historic agreement to help America break its addiction to oil." The centerpiece of that announcement was a new 35.5-mpg CAFE standard for 2016. This is a pivotal time to envision innovative transportation solutions as we work to rebuild the domestic auto industry.

One of the barriers to American adoption of fuel-efficient vehicles is the common-yet-misleading line of logic that fuel efficiency equates to smaller, less safe cars.

This misperception is often fed by the media headlines, including an April 14, 2009, New York Times story, "Study Says Small-Car Buyers Sacrifice Safety for Economy" and a May 22, 2009, Wall Street Journal piece, titled "Light Cars Are Dangerous Cars."

Yet the relationship is not that simple. What is left out of this "quick-and-easy" debate is the role of engineering design. Sure, based purely upon a typical vehicle's design, geometry, and occupant position, it's true that larger -- but not necessarily heavier -- vehicles can offer considerable safety advantages to passengers within.

Rocky Mountain Institute's survey of existing studies indicates that lightweight vehicles can be as safe, or even safer than, the cars on the road today through the use of stronger, lighter materials when engineering design is focused on crash safety. Additionally, lightweight cars have great advantages when it comes to fuel-efficiency.

Designing for passive safety on par with current NHTSA five-star ratings demands not only using lightweight materials, but also new vehicle geometries and components that can act as energy-absorbing crumple zones. Indeed, a lighter vehicle can achieve the performance of a conventionally designed vehicle, but because it can do so with a smaller engine, there is more room in the engine compartment for crush space and, ultimately, a better crumple zone design.

There is another aspect of safety to consider: the safety of the people outside the car. A lightweight vehicle will be less aggressive (less likely to injure the occupants of another vehicle, bicyclists, or pedestrians during a collision). For objects moving at a given speed, less mass reduces the energy that an object brings into a collision. Thus, a lightweight fleet (traveling at the same speeds) can statistically reduce the overall number of traffic deaths compared to a conventional (heavy) fleet.

RMI continues to encourage manufacturers to design and build efficient, lightweight cars -- and to support legislation that helps focus our automakers on priorities that benefit us as a society.[1] We hate to see the benefit that comes from fuel efficiency thwarted by misconceptions about safety trade-offs. Both fuel efficiency and safety can be achieved, and both are good for the health of the country in more ways than just safety on the road.

RMI continues to do more research on this topic and is seeking partners to work with. Preliminary results of a recent RMI study are expected to be released in July. For additional information, please visit www.rmi.org.

The authors are all employees of Rocky Mountain Institute, where Mike Simpson is a transportation analyst, Kristine Chan-Lizardo is Interim Director of the Mobility and Vehicle Efficiency Team (MOVE), Cory Lowe is a public relations manager, and Cameron M. Burns is Senior Editor.

[1] As part of our research on vehicle lightweighting, RMI reviewed all the existing studies and commentary about the relationship between size, safety, and weight, including reports published by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Many reports link size and weight as being responsible for safety reductions, while the most recent studies separate the two, and find size alone to blame.

In a January 2007 article, IIHS stated "a way to improve fuel economy and maintain vehicle crashworthiness is to use lighter materials that reduce vehicle weight but not size." IIHS also noted "... some weight reduction, especially among very heavy vehicles, could improve total safety by lowering the risk to other people on the road."

The fact is that today, there are not many examples of vehicles that have been designed to be both lightweight and large. This is changing as overseas automakers, and hopefully our domestic automakers as well, explore designs and materials that are both fuel-efficient and safe.

Among the many solutions for dealing with the environmental impacts of transportation, driving fewer miles is by far the least controversial. After all, who doesn't want to spend less time in the car?  Planners and politicians alike find the safest bet for greening transportation lies in reducing our vehicle miles traveled (VMTs),

Improve public transportation, they say. Develop housing near mass transport nodes. Form carpools at the office. These are all effective and viable measures to address the average American business commute, and we should indeed do all of these things. But what if our business commute isn't necessarily where we have the most influence? What if it's our kids' activities driving us to drive more -- our child miles traveled (CMTs)?

According to the 2001 National Household Travel Survey, the average vehicle travels 3,956 miles for family and personal business. In 1969, that average was 1,270 miles. We've tripled our family business mileage, but VMTs for business commuting only increased 36 percent during the same period. Looks like our family miles are to blame.

We want to give our children every opportunity for growth and exploration of their talents, and approximately 80 percent of American children participate in organized extracurricular activities outside of school. Most of these activities are not part of an after-school program but require travel to a separate location for sports, dance, music, and the required competitions and performances that accompany these commitments. That translates into a lot of mileage traveled and time in the car, or too often the 8-seater SUV -- with only 2 or 3 seats occupied.

Aside from keeping our children in a shoebox, there are a number of valid solutions to this dilemma:

• Urban planning -- Get these kids out on their bikes. Provide safe bike routes connecting schools, parks, libraries, and small commercial centers likely to host dance classes and other activities for children.


• Make this effort a community-based contest or pledge -- Children can get involved by calculating fuel savings and reducing their carbon footprints.


• School district policies and public/private partnerships -- Lease space within schools to extracurricular activity providers, and offer ongoing classes and activities immediately after school. Bring back school-affiliated K-8 sports teams, or partner with community sports leagues to use school fields for practice after classes let out.


• Self-assessment -- Read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, and talk to your kids about how much they actually get out of their extracurricular activities. How much time do they really have in their schedules for creative play?


• Public transit -- Provide free passes for kids, and create programs to teach them how to use the bus or train systems safely and effectively. This can embed lifetime habits for using mass transit and create a sustainable future for these services.


• Carpooling -- Put those 8-seaters to good use, and go out of your way to organize shared rides on the first day of practice or class. Maximize the benefit by asking each driver to both drop off and pick up, so that by sticking around and watching, they can spend time with their child and avoid round-trips by separate drivers.


• Economic development and arts funding -- Municipalities can provide incentives for arts organizations that locate near public schools or provide supervised walking or shuttles from school to extracurricular activities. Music, dance, and visual arts are big players in the distances we spend transporting our children.

The answers will not be found in a single solution, but certainly the challenge of reducing child miles traveled can be part of urban planning and school board conversations as easily as it can be part of the family dinner conversation.

Elaine Gallagher Adams is a senior consultant on Rocky Mountain Institute's Built Environment Team, and Hiroko Kawai is a principal on Rocky Mountain Institute's Mobility and Vehicle Efficiency Team. Rocky Mountain Institute is an independent, entrepreneurial nonprofit think-and-do tank. We drive the efficient and restorative use of resources. Sign up for RMI e-lerts here.

While we tend to consider trucks a dangerous nuisance on the road, a noisy intrusion on city streets, or a dirty part of the Interstate landscape, they provide the food and goods we've grown to rely on and enjoy.

Consider that the fruits and vegetables you find at a typical U.S. grocery store frequently travel more than 1,500 miles from the farm to your shopping cart. In fact, just about everything we buy, from DVD players to shampoo, travels great distances.

There are many methods for moving freight around: container ships, airplanes, and trains, for example. But, domestically, with our current infrastructure, a lot of the stuff we buy at the grocery store or Wal-Mart or anywhere else travels by truck.

Despite, or perhaps because of, our reliance on them, trucks are also the fastest-growing source of transportation greenhouse gas emissions. They consume 15 percent of U.S. oil and sport average fuel efficiencies of 6.5 miles per gallon.

This is why it's crucial we improve the efficiency with which trucks transport our goods. It might not be easy to achieve, but it is definitely possible. Thorough, peer-reviewed analysis at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) indicates trucks could be at least twice as efficient, if not more.

Industry-wide Efficiency

RMI recently held a transformational trucking summit where over 45 industry experts convened to identify barriers and breakthrough solutions to increasing trucks'efficiency.

From aerodynamic devices that reduce air resistance to auxiliary power units that keep drivers cool or warm without idling the engine, participants agreed efficient technologies exist today. The real challenge, however, lies in getting the technologies to market, complying with varied state-by-state policies, and dealing with ever-changing prices for diesel.

What would it take to overcome some of these barriers?

John Woodrooffe from University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute noted that public sentiment was critical, while Jon Gustafson emphasized the lack of information and financing--something his non-profit Cascade Sierra Solutions is successfully addressing today.

Fortunately, today's trucking industry (see these one-on-one video interviews) is excited to move forward on saving diesel and money, and the three-day summit event resulted in some transformational solutions.

You can look forward to these initiatives gaining traction over the next year or two:

1. A U.S. Green Truck Council (modeled after the U.S. Green Building Council): A Technology Value Assessment, Demonstration, and Certification Program; and

2. A Call to Action: Developing National Freight Strategy--creating a united front for industry stakeholders to connect with policy makers on a trucking efficiency agenda.

What You Can Do To Reduce Your Freight Impact

While we wait for the large-scale shifts to take hold, there's a lot an average consumer can do to help save the energy associated with freight transport.

• Buy locally, and make sure the product is appropriate for your locality. (that means don't buy strawberries grown in a hot house in January in Denver, or local wood if your forest can't sustain logging) and that the most efficient vehicle available transports it;
• Combine your errands or arrange for delivery: the trip from a store to your home can have the biggest impact in terms of goods transportation. Fewer trips are better. And a delivery service usually maximizes the efficiency of its deliveries each day;
• Don't buy or send goods via air; and,
• Buy less stuff.

Rocky Mountain Institute is an independent, entrepreneurial, non-profit think-and-do tank. We drive the efficient and restorative use of resources. Sign up for RMI e-lerts here. 

This week, a team of experts including the Rocky Mountain Institute announced a major project to green the Empire State Building, an icon of the New York City skyline.

A comprehensive set of green retrofit projects will reduce the building's energy use by as much as 40 percent, saving $4.4 million annually once the projects are fully implemented.  (Read about the project in detail at esbsustainability.com.)

These sustainability measures are part of a larger $500 million upgrade program, and the extra costs of green retrofit projects should pay for themselves within three years.

While an impressive feat by any measure, you might think the results are unique to large-scale retrofits. After all, the Empire State Building has over 100 stories and two million square feet of space in which to capture energy savings.

Fortunately, the principle applied to the Empire State Building is simple: Take the right steps in the right order. And that concept applies to any home or office greening project.

Save energy first

Finding the simplest ways to save energy always comes first -- and often these opportunities are right in front of you.

• Purchase an adjustable thermostat, install efficient CFL lightbulbs, add insulation, or even replace older leaky windows to reduce how much energy your house needs.
• See this list for simple actions you can take in your home or office.
• Research the state and federal incentives that are available and listed in this database.

The Empire State Building made efficiency its first and top priority as well. Play this game to learn more about the ESB retrofit projects and how to put them in the right order.

To drastically improve insulation and save energy, the Empire State Building Co. will upgrade 6,500 windows and install reflective barriers on more than 6,000 radiators. A demand control ventilation project will reduce outside air infiltration by adjusting its power to the amount of people in a given room.

Tenants will also receive support to better monitor how they are using energy, thereby encouraging behavioral changes and increasing energy savings without any compromises in comfort.

Look at efficient supply second

Because of putting efficiency first, the Empire State Building was able to save lots of money on its energy supply systems. For example, efficiency measures reduced the cooling load by 1,600 tons, meaning the building can now retrofit its existing chiller plant instead of purchasing additional heavy industrial chillers.

Similarly, if you are replacing an old or broken heating, ventilation, or air-conditioning system, try reducing how much energy you need first. This will enable you to purchase a smaller, less-expensive system.

Measure your progress

Continuously monitoring how you and your building are using energy is the final "right step." In the Empire State Building, tenants will receive sub-metering data, but tracking energy use is becoming increasingly common in homes and small offices. Read this New York Times article about a recent home energy monitoring pilot project in Seattle.

While the Empire State Building may seem like a pie-in-the-sky example -- albeit one that will inspire tenants and owners in other large commercial buildings to take green retrofits seriously -- the principle of capturing efficiency first holds everywhere.

Jonah Taylor is an analyst at Rocky Mountain Institute. Subscribe to free RMI e-lerts here.

How cutting costs throughout the solar industry will make panels affordable soon

Though solar power has been around for three decades now, it provides barely 0.1 percent of U.S. electricity.

Power from the sun remains considerably more expensive than fossil fuel technologies or other renewables such as wind and geothermal, and high costs have largely relegated solar panel installations to special applications like off-grid homes.

As a result, few people are aware that large-scale deployment is a viable solution to reducing carbon emissions.

Yet the solar industry is set to surprise a whole lot of people. Prices are coming down quickly, and the industry is hoping to revolutionize our energy system.

Solar power growing fast

Solar power has achieved tremendous development recently. Growth rates have averaged nearly 50 percent per year for over a decade. Yet for the technology to contribute a large fraction of our electric supply, this growth must be maintained for at least another 10 years to come.

If current trends continue, photovoltaic (PV) systems could contribute 10 percent of our electricity sometime in the early 2020s, a major gateway to future advances.

Yet the challenge of maintaining 50 percent growth rates for another 10 years cannot be overstated and will be particularly daunting with the current recession.

Ensuring solar prices continue to fall

Historically, solar power prices have dropped as the industry has grown. This trend must continue, and recent analysis by RMI's Energy and Resources Team confirms that today's technologies still have significant cost reduction potential.

• Economies of scale: As PV companies grow, they and their supply chains -- those who produce the silicon and glass for example -- will mature. Manufacturers can then benefit from dropping prices of products including steel wire, advanced chemicals, and electronics.
• Energy and resource efficiency: Each new manufacturing facility can and will be able to produce PV panels with less energy and materials.

Consider that consumables like lubricant, abrasive, chemicals, wire, and ink account for a large part of the PV cost structure and are frequently wasted. At the wafering step, for example, wafers are cleaned after they are cut and then cleaned again before cell processing. This requires excess water and chemicals.

In the future, waste like this will be driven out by a combination of process improvement, engineering breakthroughs, and adoption of best practices.

• Standardized installations: Today, most rooftop installations are designed and permitted individually, then built in place. As solar installations become more widespread and competition increases, installers will reduce costs and complexity by building standardized plug-and-play systems.

If opportunities like these are captured, solar power could be widely competitive by 2015. See this recent report by Photon Consulting for details.

We can look forward to cost reductions accelerating demand for PV systems and driving the industry to scale. As the industry grows, it will achieve additional cost reductions, enabling more demand. This virtuous cycle will propel solar power into the mainstream.

Can't wait for solar prices to drop?

In the meantime, as costs continue to come down, government subsidies and stimulus money can make solar a great investment today.

The federal government offers a 30 percent tax credit on investments in solar power installations. Utilities and state and local governments offer additional incentives. For example, in Colorado, Xcel Energy provides rebates of $3.50 per watt of system cost.

Programs like these can reduce the cost of a PV system by 75 percent. Savings in utility bills can then quickly pay back the purchase price.  Check out the DSIRE Database for detailed information about financial incentives in your state.

Sam Newman is a consultant on RMI's Energy and Resources Team.

When you go outside to get some fresh air, are you actually making the air less fresh?

From mountain biking to skiing, outdoor sports do not come without an energy burden. Even running, a sport without a massive energy-consuming infrastructure, has consequences.

According to an analysis by Runners's World magazine (based on carbon figures from Green Design Institute and Carnegie-Mellon University), the carbon footprint of a serious runner adds up to 5,449 lbs of carbon dioxide per year.

This number includes the energy used to manufacture and transport shoes durable enough to withstand 300 to 400 miles of pavement pounding, as well as water bottles, clothing, and transport to and from races.

Some of the many energy uses include:

• 3 pair of running shoes (average number bought by a runner every year): 430 lbs CO₂
• 3 pair of synthetic socks: 89 lbs CO₂
• 2 pairs running shorts, 99 lbs CO₂
• 1 pair of running tights, 79 lbs CO₂
• 1 running shirt, 48 lbs CO₂
• 1 load of laundry to wash and dry running gear: 225 lbs CO₂ per week

Fortunately, these numbers are not fixed. In the hopes of mitigating how much carbon each runner consumes, many sporting goods companies are rethinking how they make their products.

Efficiency, using less material

Reducing how much material is used per item is an easy first step.

Brooks recently designed a new, lightweight shoebox made from 100-percent recycled paperboard. While maintaining its strength, the shoebox weighs 13 percent less than the company's previous version. Overall, this saves the environment 1,680,617 lb. of paper, 14,285 trees, and 3,361,233 kW of energy, enough to power 672,246 homes.

Designing out toxicity, bio-mimicry

Rocky Mountain Institute promotes the concept of bio-mimicry, producing products to mimic nature's processes. With bio-mimicry, manufacturing goods doesn't require toxic chemicals or inputs. For example, many newspaper and publishing companies have already replaced oil-based inks with soy ink, which has far fewer volatile organic compounds.

Companies like Brooks appear to be following the same path. Brooks recently introduced the BioMoGo, a midsole that biodegrades at a significantly faster rate than traditional synthetic midsoles. According to the company, the BioMoGo contains a "non-toxic, natural additive that exponentially increases the rate of bio-degradation by encouraging anaerobic microbes to break down nutrients into reusable byproducts."

Brooks' creative bio-mimetic design allows the shoes to biodegrade in about 20 years in a landfill, as opposed to traditional midsoles that take hundreds of years.

Recycling, closing the loop

Reusing materials in order to avoid extracting virgin resources again and again is another major aim of sustainability initiatives.

Along those lines, Patagonia developed its clothing recycling program, Common Threads, to take back and recycle its polyester Capilene baselayer, an underlayer often worn by outdoor athletes.

Using a process called ECOCIRCLE, the recycled polyester garments are granulated into small pellets, broken down to their molecular level, purified, then reconstituted back into polyester thread that can be woven into new garments.

Detailed environmental analysis shows that this process results in 76 percent energy savings and a 71 percent reduction in greenhouse gases versus manufacturing Capilene from new raw material.

Similarly, Nike now collects used shoes and incorporates them into sports surfaces like basketball courts and tracks.

Plenty of exciting developments around sporting goods and running accessories are afoot.

Next time you make a purchase to support your athletic habits, think beyond your own fitness, and consider our planet's health as well.

Betsy Herzog is Rocky Mountain Institute's Knowledge Manager.

Whether you think the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will help solve environmental and healthcare problems or you see the act as an unnecessary expansion of the federal government, you would probably rejoice in the opportunity to make the government 10 percent, 20 percent, or even 30 percent more efficient.

We have a chance to do just that with the economic stimulus package--but only if we spend the $15 billion dollars designated for energy efficiency retrofits wisely. The legislation includes $8.7 billion for energy retrofits and conservation in federal and military buildings, and $6.3 billion for state and local energy efficiency programs

To be clear, by increasing the efficiency of the government, I am not focusing on the government's commitment to make federal buildings 25 percent more energy efficient. I am referring to the government itself and how it can make its workers more efficient through daylight retrofits.

Daylight retrofits replace artificial lighting with daylight and are a specific type of energy retrofit. Examples include adding skylights and windows to dingy offices, replacing old leaky windows with modern windows that admit more light but less heat, adding sensors that turn down electric lights when there is plenty of daylight, and replacing broken mini-blinds with awnings, light reflectors, and modern shades.

These daylight retrofits cut artificial lighting use, which saves energy directly. Also, lights produce heat; so turning lights off makes buildings cooler, saving air conditioning energy.

More importantly, daylight and window views are proven to increase our efficiency performing tasks. Studies show that daylight increases workplace productivity by 6 to 15 percent, boosts student test scores by 7 to 26 percent, and expands retail sales by up to 40 percent.

A blog we wrote earlier this year detailed how a daylight retrofit increased weavers' productivity at a famous blanket making and commercial interior fabrics company.

Unfortunately, for over half a century, providing daylight to workers was considered a luxury. Therefore many government buildings are dreary, lacking natural light. This costs the government a lot of money: higher lighting and air conditioning bills, and lower worker productivity.

The energy retrofit stimulus money offers an opportunity to solve this problem.

Daylight retrofits can be conducted with simple off-the-shelf technology, making them "shovel-ready." And while there are many types of retrofits that will save energy and create jobs, only daylight retrofits will also increase the efficiency of our government.

Erik Bonnett is an analyst on Rocky Mountain Institute's Built Environment Team, BET.

Last week, I rode in one of the first factory-made plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: A pilot Ford Explorer plug-in courtesy of Progress Energy.

As we cruised the streets of Raleigh, NC, the car didn't make a sound -- since we were at low speeds and it was early in the day, the battery did all the work and the gas engine never came on. After the ride was over, Mike from Progress Energy drove the Explorer back to its parking spot at their headquarters, where he hopped out, plugged it into a brand new outlet, and headed back to work.

Plug-in vehicles could be one of the most important new "green" technologies: They are widely covered in the press, and pilots like the one I rode in are rolling out in several cities.

And while the recently passed stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, contained some very generous incentives for plug-in vehicles, much work remains to be done.

With the surge of industry and citizen interest, combined with federal support, I'd say we have a very good shot of hitting President Obama's goal of one million plug-ins by 2015. But one million is one half of a percent of the fleet -- a good start, but a small start. How do we make sure the first million are a screaming success, and that we accelerate to 10 million, and 100 million soon?

Rocky Mountain Institute has a hypothesis: The solution lies in preparing our cities and communities.

Getting ready for plug-ins isn't going to be a massive overhaul, but it does require some planning and targeted shifts in several important sectors. Examples include changing electrical code to allow for charging spots, creating special electricity pricing for plug-ins, and teaching citizens what to expect from a plugged-in lifestyle.

While this transformation can happen everywhere, each community is unique. RMI believes that if each community convenes members of its affected sectors -- from utilities to city government, universities and dealers, to business owners -- they could craft and implement a successful location-specific, system-wide plan to get ready for plug-ins.

Toward this end, RMI created Project Get Ready. It will:

1. Create a dynamic "menu" of strategic actions that city and regional leaders can take to be a plug-in pioneer. We launched that menu at www.projectgetready.com.

   We're calling it a "menu" because each community will be different. The menu allows you to pick your favorite items and order -- without-any-mayonnaise (metaphorically speaking), if that's what suits your community best.
   

2. Provide a web database of all national (and some international) plug-in readiness activities.
   

   This is also available at the website, and it's also dynamic. We're hoping people send us their success stories to build on our base of examples as the plug-in transformation gets underway over the coming months and years.
   

3. Work one-on-one with at least three cities on creating their coalitions and charters. We're starting with Raleigh and the Triangle in North Carolina, Indianapolis region in Indiana, and Portland, Oregon.


4. Quickly expand to at least 20 communities in our network. We will convene these communities, as well as technical players regularly to discuss their lessons learned and best practices, and report these conversations on our website.


5. Document the progress made by participant cities in order to help quantify future demand. We will give automakers and other technology providers a portal that shows them where people are passionate and committed for early vehicles, how many vehicles they want to buy, and who to contact in each community.

We are seeking partner cities, technical advisers, and (of course) funding to endow the project for years to come. Please get in touch by visiting projectgetready.com and leaving a comment, or emailing Smartgarage@rmi.org.

From our partner cities, we're asking three things (visit our site to learn more): Convene a meeting of the many affected stakeholders in your area, create a local readiness charter (your five-year plan), share this plan on our website, and participate in discussions with other cities about successes and failures.

Communities and cities have taken the lead again and again in regards to climate change and the green economy in America, and the plug-in transformation will be no exception.

Laura Schewel is a consultant on Rocky Mountain Institute's transportation group, MOVE.