Amazingly, American cities did it last year. Did the economy collapse? Did the world end? Nope. The way forward just got a little easier to navigate. So reports the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The work was done by Clean Cities, a network of approximately 90 volunteer coalitions developing public/private partnerships to promote alternative and advanced vehicles, fuel blends, fuel economy, hybrid vehicles, and idle reduction.
According to the report: Seventy-one percent of the 2006 gasoline displacement came from the use of alternative fuels. Thirty percent of that was from the use of compressed natural gas, mostly in heavy-duty vehicles. E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, accounted for 24 percent of gasoline displacement. Coalitions acquired nearly 44,000 hybrid electric vehicles in 2006, a 61 percent increase over 2005. HEV use displaced about 9 million gallons of gasoline. Idle reduction efforts displaced 8.4 million gallons, including 1.2 million gallons from truck stop electrification. Almost 2 million gallons were saved by reducing the number of miles traveled.
Okay, so it’s not enough to save the world, and it has some built-in problems, say, ethanol. But it shows us how and where to start, and how surprisingly easy it really is when you make up the collective mind. Imagine how the problem might transform into opportunity if the big guns in DC ever get motivated.—Julia Whitty is Mother Jones’ environmental correspondent. You can read from her new book, “The Fragile Edge,” and other writings, here.
