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Environmental Action Guide 2020

PSA: California’s Fight Against Climate Change: Zero Vehicle Emissions by 2035

Policy analysis by Arren De Los Santos, Kiki Courtney, Deja Newton, and Czarina Pineda-Abaya.

Overview

With this PSA, we look at Governor Gavin Newsom’s September 2020 EXECUTIVE ORDER N-79-20, in which he orders that all new cars and passenger trucks will be zero-emission vehicles by 2035, to swiftly and dramatically reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The responsibility for implementing this order has now been passed onto CARB, auto dealers, and drivers. We want to see a plan that accounts for all the citizens of California. We need a detailed plan that can fight the climate crisis we are facing and bring us to a brighter and healthier future.

Reading Room

Want to learn more? Here are books from our collection related to this topic.

Overcoming Barriers to Deployment of Plug-In Electric Vehicles

At the request of Congress, "Overcoming Barriers to Deployment of Plug-in Electric Vehicles" identifies barriers to the introduction of electric vehicles and recommends ways to mitigate these barriers. This report examines the characteristics and capabilities of electric vehicle technologies, such as cost, performance, range, safety, and durability, and assesses how these factors might create barriers to widespread deployment. "Overcoming Barriers to Deployment of Plug-in Electric Vehicles" provides an overview of the current status of PEVs and makes recommendations to spur the industry and increase the attractiveness of this promising technology for consumers. Through consideration of consumer behaviors, tax incentives, business models, incentive programs, and infrastructure needs, this book studies the state of the industry and makes recommendations to further its development and acceptance.

The Tesla Revolution

In clear, unsensational style, Willem Middelkoop and Rembrandt Koppelaar offer a layman's tour of the energy landscape, now and to come. They show how rapid technological advances in batteries and solar technologies are already driving large-scale transformations in power supply, while economic and geopolitical changes, combined with a growing political awareness that there are alternatives to fossil fuels will combine in the coming years to bring an energy revolution ever closer. Within in our lifetimes, the authors argue, we will see changes that will reshape economics, the balance of political power, and even the most mundane aspects of our daily lives.Determinedly forward-looking and optimistic, though never straying from hard facts, The Tesla Revolution paints a striking picture of our global energy future.

Three Revolutions

In Three Revolutions, transportation expert Dan Sperling, along with seven other leaders in the field, share research-based insights on potential public benefits and impacts of the three transportation revolutions. They describe innovative ideas and partnerships, and explore the role government policy can play in steering the new transportation paradigm toward the public interest--toward our dream scenario of social equity, environmental sustainability, and urban livability. Many factors will influence these revolutions--including the willingness of travelers to share rides and eschew car ownership; continuing reductions in battery, fuel cell, and automation costs; and the adaptiveness of companies. But one of the most important factors is policy. Three Revolutions offers policy recommendations and provides insight and knowledge that could lead to wiser choices by all. With this book, Sperling and his collaborators hope to steer these revolutions toward the public interest and a better quality of life for everyone.

Plug-In Electric Vehicle Integration

This authoritative new resource provides a comprehensive introduction to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), including critical discussions on energy storage and converter technology. The architecture and models for sustainable charging infrastructures and capacity planning of small scale fast charging stations are presented. This book considers PEVs as mobile storage units and explains how PEVS can provide services to the grid. Enabling technologies are explored, including energy storage, converter, and charger technologies for home and park charging. The adoption of EV is discussed and examples are given from the individual battery level to the city level.This book provides guidance on how to build and design sustainable transportation systems. Optimal arrival rates, optimal service rates, facility location problems, load balancing, and demand forecasts are covered in this book. Time-saving MATLAB code and background tables are included in this resource to help engineers with their projects in the field.

Vehicle-To-Grid

This book explores the connection between the stationary grid and plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) power storage. Topics covered include: the impact of PEVs and V2G on smart grid and renewable energy systems; distributed energy resource with PEV battery energy storage in the smart grid; power conversion technology in smart grid and PEVs; power control and monitoring of smart grid with PEVs; PEV charging technologies and V2G on distributed energy resources and utility interfaces; economic, social and environmental dimensions of PEVs in the smart grid. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in electric vehicles and smart grid technologies, and policy-makers and planners developing smart grid infrastructure and sustainable transport initiatives.

Grid Electrified Vehicles

Grid electrified vehicles or plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) are gaining attention world-wide as a potential low carbon technology. Because it is still an immature technology on the market, there is limited knowledge about the control strategy design; the environmental life cycle rating; the business model behind electricity charging'; charging behaviour's interaction with local electricity grid voltage drop, under dumb or smart grid scenarios; and the monitoring apparatus needed to acquire real data on daily usage of these technologies. This book aims to provide insight into these PEV issues.

The Powerhouse

A worldwide race is on to perfect the next engine of economic growth, the advanced lithium-ion battery. It will power the electric car, relieve global warming, and catapult the winner into a new era of economic and political mastery. Can the United States win? Steve LeVine was granted unprecedented access to a secret federal laboratory outside Chicago, where a group of geniuses is trying to solve this next monumental task of physics. But these scientists- almost all foreign born-are not alone. With so much at stake, researchers in Japan, South Korea, and China are in the same pursuit. The drama intensifies when a Silicon Valley start-up licenses the federal laboratory's signature invention with the aim of a blockbuster sale to the world's biggest carmakers. The Powerhouse is a real-time, two-year thrilling account of big invention, big commercialization, and big deception. It exposes the layers of competition and ambition, aspiration and disappointment behind this great turning point in the history of technology.

Transitions to Alternative Vehicles and Fuels

Transitions to Alternative Vehicles and Fuels assesses the potential for reducing petroleum consumption and GHG emissions by 80 percent across the U.S. LDV fleet by 2050, relative to 2005. This report examines the current capability and estimated future performance and costs for each vehicle type and non-petroleum-based fuel technology as options that could significantly contribute to these goals. By analyzing scenarios that combine various fuel and vehicle pathways, the report also identifies barriers to implementation of these technologies and suggests policies to achieve the desired reductions. Several scenarios are promising, but strong, and effective policies such as research and development, subsidies, energy taxes, or regulations will be necessary to overcome barriers, such as cost and consumer choice.

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