Let's talk about another hot topic, electric vehicles. The US electric industry has significantly
focused on electric transportation. This includes electric vehicles and charging stations to modeling the way by changing out some of their own fossil fuel power utility fleet vehicles for those that require electricity to run. There are some plug-in hybrids that have an electrical motor powerful enough to produce electricity beyond just for use in that vehicle. That means the power can be exported, so there you have it, storage, PG&E in California has done some amazing work with their own plea incorporating vehicles that can service generators to power their worker's tools and potentially even an entire neighborhood. Right now utilities use generators in areas that are down and connect these generators to grid sections to bring neighborhoods online one at a time. And they're looking at the plugin hybrids to fill this role. While this is extremely exciting news, we do need to keep in mind that at this point, it's more for isolated applications.
Most people that are really earnest about climate change will say that the first step is to decarbonize
the electric sector. In other words, have a larger percentage of renewable resources so that the carbon footprint is fairly small. And we're already there in the northwest. The step two that they will usually
point to is electrifying transportation. If you really want to make an impact on the carbon footprint of our society, you need to go after transportation and electric utilities want to be part of the solution. And I think electrification of transportation is a worthwhile effort. There are a lot of institutional barriers though, that keep utilities from participating. There are, in some cases, laws or regulations that prohibit utilities from encouraging electrification. In some cases, there are regulatory tests of cost-effectiveness. Just how far you can go to try to promote electrification of transportation, so it's not an easy thing. But that's a realistic second step for making a significant impact on climate change efforts.
So this vehicle in this lab is being used to understand how vehicles interact with a residential system. So when you're plugging your electric vehicle in, how does it interact with the grid? How does it interact with the home and a building? And so, that's why we have this little vehicle here in this lab. We do a wide variety of research on electric vehicles, everything from developing the battery systems, the drive trains, the overall system of the vehicle itself and to prove its efficiency. And then also how to improve the different types of charging operations as well.
We're working on building energy codes in our states and cities. We're working on transportation
policy to increase support for mass transit systems to increase support for electric vehicles which is
an energy efficient and clean vehicle technology that's just emerging in the marketplace. We're quite, Bullish on the future for electric vehicles. Moving off of petroleum fuels, on to electricity for our cars and trucks. There's no doubt the future is getting more exciting when it comes to EVs. This is one for us to keep an eye on.
focused on electric transportation. This includes electric vehicles and charging stations to modeling the way by changing out some of their own fossil fuel power utility fleet vehicles for those that require electricity to run. There are some plug-in hybrids that have an electrical motor powerful enough to produce electricity beyond just for use in that vehicle. That means the power can be exported, so there you have it, storage, PG&E in California has done some amazing work with their own plea incorporating vehicles that can service generators to power their worker's tools and potentially even an entire neighborhood. Right now utilities use generators in areas that are down and connect these generators to grid sections to bring neighborhoods online one at a time. And they're looking at the plugin hybrids to fill this role. While this is extremely exciting news, we do need to keep in mind that at this point, it's more for isolated applications.
Most people that are really earnest about climate change will say that the first step is to decarbonize
the electric sector. In other words, have a larger percentage of renewable resources so that the carbon footprint is fairly small. And we're already there in the northwest. The step two that they will usually
point to is electrifying transportation. If you really want to make an impact on the carbon footprint of our society, you need to go after transportation and electric utilities want to be part of the solution. And I think electrification of transportation is a worthwhile effort. There are a lot of institutional barriers though, that keep utilities from participating. There are, in some cases, laws or regulations that prohibit utilities from encouraging electrification. In some cases, there are regulatory tests of cost-effectiveness. Just how far you can go to try to promote electrification of transportation, so it's not an easy thing. But that's a realistic second step for making a significant impact on climate change efforts.
National Renewable Energy Labs is doing some extensive research on EVs. I was able to take a look at one of these projects in their lab.
So this vehicle in this lab is being used to understand how vehicles interact with a residential system. So when you're plugging your electric vehicle in, how does it interact with the grid? How does it interact with the home and a building? And so, that's why we have this little vehicle here in this lab. We do a wide variety of research on electric vehicles, everything from developing the battery systems, the drive trains, the overall system of the vehicle itself and to prove its efficiency. And then also how to improve the different types of charging operations as well.
We're working on building energy codes in our states and cities. We're working on transportation
policy to increase support for mass transit systems to increase support for electric vehicles which is
an energy efficient and clean vehicle technology that's just emerging in the marketplace. We're quite, Bullish on the future for electric vehicles. Moving off of petroleum fuels, on to electricity for our cars and trucks. There's no doubt the future is getting more exciting when it comes to EVs. This is one for us to keep an eye on.
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