We’re living in a time when concerns about energy security, climate change and global economic stability occupy our national discourse. We argue about where to drill, how to mine, how to fix the economy, what to do about a warming climate. Meanwhile, we realize the perils and costs of fossil-fuel extraction abroad and at home. We hold our breath as tar sands and hydraulic-fracturing exploration run rampant. We quietly wonder if all this wacky weather is the new normal. Perhaps we are beginning to perceive the complex interconnections that bind humanity’s fate with the health and vitality of earth’s ecological systems…
Brightfield founder Matt Johnson teaches GO participants about EV charger technology
Brightfield TS was awarded a NC Green Business Fund grant because our vision and execution plan are solid and our community partnerships are robust. One of our proudest partnerships is with Green Opportunities:
Green Opportunities (GO) is an Asheville-based community-based development organization dedicated to improving lives, communities and the health of the planet through innovative green collar job training and placement programs. GO is committed to empowering low-income neighborhoods in Asheville by preparing residents for well-paying jobs, completing hands-on projects that make these neighborhoods safer and more sustainable, and linking the residents of these neighborhoods to jobs and other community resources that lead to greater empowerment.
Local youth participating in GO have engaged with Brightfield TS to learn about emerging EV infrastructure technologies and the integration of EV charging and solar power production.
“Its great to teach GO participants about the future of transportation,” says Brightfield TS founder Matt Johnson. “Its inspiring how eager they are to learn.”
Dan Leroy, GO co-founder adds, “What Brightfield TS is doing is revolutionary; merging the alternative transportation and renewable energy sectors to create sustainable transportation solutions that are designed and manufactured here in Asheville. GO is excited to be a part of it.”
As Brightfield TS grows, we will engage more deeply with GO by offering participants apprenticeships so they can learn by doing and acquire the skills needed to be employed in the growing EV infrastructure and solar power installation job markets. In doing so, we will be a part of transforming our city into a more just, equitable and resilient community. From our perspective, that’s what doing sustainability is all about.
During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, I heard outrage. But in 2008, when gasoline supplies were limited, I heard whimpering: “Please, take my money. Just let me fill my tank one more time.” Supply was a far bigger concern than price. We Americans imagine ourselves as rugged pioneers. How did we become such frightened sheep?
Please skip the usual recitation of wolves: OPEC, Obama, National City Lines, NASCAR. They’re out to blame. Big Oil drills in harsh (and sensitive) environments because we buy oil, at any price.
You’d think we have no choice. But, more than anyone on earth, Americans have options. We don’t have to act like helpless victims. It’s time to look in the mirror and embrace our transportation energy problem. Own it, because ownership is power. We can modify things we own, creating the future.
There are numerous paths to sustainable transportation. For the least sacrifice, Americans should take four steps, ranked here by effectiveness:
Go to http://www.solartoday-digital.org/solartoday/20111112#pg16 to read Dave’s four practical steps to quitting oil.
Good morning everyone. On behalf of myself, Stan Cross, and my BioWheels RTS (now Brightfield™ Transportation Solutions) partners Matt Johnson and Patrick Sherwin I welcome you. Thank you for coming. As residents of the greater Asheville community and as founders of Brightfield Transportation Solutions (BTS), Matt, Patrick and I are invested in building a sustainable and desirable future for our region: a future that enhances the ecological splendor of this landscape, that perpetuates the innovative spirit that defines this region, and that supports economic development that improves the quality of life for all.
We believe that we’ve settled for a world wrought with environmental, social and economic imbalance and injustice for too long. We’re done settling for the status quo because we know we can do better.
This first-of-its-kind Brightfield Charging Station behind me is a profound example of this community’s ability to move beyond the status quo, harness our innovative spirit and leverage our strength to lay the foundation for a sustainable and desirable future.
For the past three years BTS has worked to bring forth our vision to transition American transportation from oil dependency to solar driven.
We’re succeeding by working alongside ourcommunity—designing and deploying durable and intelligent Brightfield Charging Stations, which both provide solar power to the grid when the sun is shining and provide reliable electric vehicle charging 24 hours per day, everyday.
By integrating solar power and EV charging, we’re demonstrating how to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, create quality local jobs, and enhance the development of our regional clean energy cluster.
Today we celebrate the unveiling of North Carolina’s first solar power generating electric vehicle charging station, designed and manufactured right here in Asheville with materials made in America.
We have with us today at the podium and in the crowd many of the partners who have helped make this charging station, and the three other stations we are installing in Asheville, possible. It would take too long to name them all, so please visit our website to view the full partner list.
In a moment, I will introduce our distinguished guests here before you whose partnership from the beginning has made this effort a success. After they each address the audience, I will provide closing remarks and then take questions from the media. When Q&A is complete, we will all have the opportunity to interact with the Brightfield and the electric vehicles and their owners who have driven from as far away asKingsportTennesseeto be with us today.
Before I relinquish the podium, I want to convey some key points to keep in mind this morning:
This Brightfield Charging Station and the 3 other Brightfields going in around town are funded by a $376,000 grant made possible through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act with funds originating at the US Department of Energy and provided through the NC Department of Commerce’s Green Business Fund.
This Brightfield and the stations being installed at Land of Sky Regional Council of Governments and at the Reuters Center on the UNCA campus are examples of effective public/private partnership agreements negotiated between BioWheels RTS,AshevilleCity,BuncombeCountyand UNCA.
The Asheville Metro Area is forecasted to have 2000 electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2015. To support the fueling needs of these EVs, our community will need approximately 900 vehicle chargers installed strategically at accessible locations in addition to chargers at vehicle owners’ homes.
To fuel those 2000 EVs with sunshine, we will need to install approximately 5.5 megawatts of new solar power capacity.
If we fast forward to December 11, 2015, with 900 public EV chargers and 5.5 MW of solar installed, we will have created approximately 1,500 quality local jobs, reduced our regional use of imported oil by 43,000 barrels, kept over $2 million fuel dollars in our local economy, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 8000 tons, all of which support the region’s economic development goals.
Moving forward, BTS is preparing to launch the next phase of our vision, which is to make Asheville America’s first EV travel destination where tourists come to drive electric vehicles fueled with sunshine.
Asheville is well positioned to become the nation’s first EV travel destination. The region has successfully branded itself as a dynamic place to visit that is welcoming, vibrant and natural. The tag line “Anyway you like it” speaks to the freedom the Asheville experience offers visitors. BTS seeks to build on this brand identity by offering visitors the ultimate in natural freedom—to drive our mountains fueled on sunshine.
We are cultivating partnerships with destination sites ranging from the Blue Ridge Parkwayto Biltmore Estate to the River Arts District and with hotels such as the Grove Park Inn, The Grand Bohemian and Hotel Indigo. We will Partner with U-Save Car Rental to submit a Tourism Product Development Fund grant, in which we will request funds to procure a rental fleet of electric vehicles, and to install a variety of Brightfield charging solutions at travel destinations and hotels.
By doing so, BTS will revolutionize the green tourism experience and further support Asheville’s Destination Brand by welcoming and inspiring visitors to experience what Solar Driven™ is all about.
Brightfield is Solar Driven. We’ve proven the viability of driving on solar generated electricity through deployment of our Brightfield Charging Stations. Our Brightfields solve issues that plague American transportation: 1) provide us a clean and renewable alternative to polluting and finite fossil fuel; 2) create quality local jobs and sustainable economic development; 3) generate domestic, secure and cost-stable fuel; 4) build more durable and resilient communities.
Here in western North Carolina our electricity comes mostly from coal strip mined in Virginia and West Virginia through the process known as mountain top removal. In fact, North Carolina leads the nation in mountain top removal coal use. Switching from oil to coal for our transportation sector provides a net environmental gain because the electric motor is much more efficient that the internal combustion engine. But the mining and burning of coal perpetuates the environmentally destructive consequences of burning any fossil fuel namely air pollution, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. There’s no way around the fact that coal fired electricity will play a major role in the EV transition, but Brightfield is proving that by incorporating solar power generation from the onset, we can phase in the solar capacity needed to run the growing regional fleet of EVs to reduce the pressure on existing coal fired power plants and eliminate the need to build new ones.
As far as the revenue generation goes, The solar power generated by Brightfields is bundled and sold on the energy markets as Renewable Energy Credits (REC). The RECs are purchased by individuals and companies looking to stimulate renewable power generation and/or offset their own non-renewable electricity use. In North Carolina the RECs are purchased by NC Green Power. The revenue from the sale of RECs covers Brightfield™ operations and maintenance costs and provides cash flow to Brightfield. This is particularly valuable while we wait for the EVs the Brightfields will serve to arrive. With integrated solar power generation, the Brightfield Charging Station is productive from day one every moment the sun is shining.
That abundant local sunshine is harvested by the Brightfield’s solar array and put on the grid to power your car. Local fuel is secure fuel. As it stands now, our gas is mostly exported, more and more from Canadian tar sands, which in itself is a very oil dependent form of extraction. And when we buy that oil as gasoline at the pump, only a few cents per gallon stays in the local economy. The rest leaves immediately to be deposited in far away corporate and foreign nation bank accounts. But when we harvest sunshine and send it onto the grid and then draw off the grid to fuel our EVs, more of our fuel dollars stay local where they can serve the local economy.
My friend’s mother died suddenly. The funeral was like all the other’s I’ve been to, a sad affair. Her brother was there, a sheriff recently back from National Guard tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He embodied the look and feel of a soldier; broad shoulders, crew-cut, spying eyes, terse lips. He and I hadn’t ever spoken much to each other in the past..
“Sorry about your mom,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said. “Hard to believe she spent her life as a heart surgeon and died of a heart attack.”
“It really is. Life is full of irony,” I said
“So what are you up to these days?” he said.
I explained the BioWheels RTS story and that we were determined to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure that leap-frogged fossil fuels and got us all driving on sunshine. I did so with caution, assuming that he’d be skeptical of what is so often dubbed left wing environmental propaganda. But I was wrong.
“I never want to see my sons have to go fight in some foreign country to defend our access to oil,” he said. “That has to change.”
Our conversation dove head first into the national security and economic growth opportunities of solar-fueled transportation. As we talked, our differing political views dissolved, replaced by our shared values of integrity, freedom, and durable community—values that are the cornerstones of the BioWheels RTS vision. His enthusiasm was a welcomed surprise.
“Does this mean your going to give up your F-350?” I said.
“Now way?” he said. “I love that truck”
I did not respond. To me it was obvious: if you see the connection between war and oil, and you express a desire to see it end so your kids don’t have to endure what you have endured, then you’d stop driving a gas guzzling truck around town. I found myself slipping down judgment’s steep slope. Truth is there is a gap between most of our values and actions, including mine. Seldom do any of us embody our highest ideals. In the end we are all our worst hypocrites. More of life’s irony.
“Would you be interested in participating in a community forum about the future of electric vehicles in our region? We’d really value your insights,” I said.
“I’d be glad to. Just tell me when,” he said.
Because in the end, there truly is no Us and no Them, only We the People. We’re all in this together whether we drive an SUV or a Hybrid. We’re all part of the problems and the solutions. The problems are huge—war, global warming, smog, volatile energy markets, peak oil—and they will need to be met with solutions that are equally huge. For our country to transition from an oil-based transportation sector to one running on sunshine, we’re going to have to confront our collective fear of letting go.
What I believe we’ll find once we release our desperate grip on the fossil fuel economy that has simultaneously brought us prosperity and debt, security and uncertainty, abundance and ecological collapse is true freedom. But letting go will take trust in our collective ability to forgive ourselves for our part in the problem, unleash our imagination and ingenuity, and create a bright and inclusive future. Let’s leave Us and Them standing on the side of the road holding empty gas cans.
Together we can do this.
Join the ride. Go to BioWheels RTS.com to learn more.
Back in 2007 the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a comprehensive assessment that found that widespread use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in the United States could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and potentially improve ambient air quality. The research measured the impact of increasing numbers of PHEVs between 2010 and 2050, including the nationwide environmental impact of potentially large fleets that would use electricity from the grid as their primary fuel source.
The study assumed that by 2050, PHEV would have a 60% share of the US vehicle market. At that market share, nationwide GHG emissions would be reduced by 450 million metric tons—equivalent to taking 82.5 million cars of the road—and reduce petroleum consumption be 3-4 million barrels of oil per day.
Those numbers are significant especially since they do not take into account powering the electric vehicles with renewable energy. That’s the game changer. As BioWheels RTS is demonstrating, generating enough renewable energy to fuel America’s light duty vehicles is possible, practical and really inspiring.
We look forward to partnering with researchers to calculate the full environmental cost and benefit of driving on sunshine. We’ll be looking at the full cost of our Brightfield™ Solar Charging Stations including the embedded energy in all the station’s materials. We’ll also look at the benefits of generating solar power instead of relying on oil, coal, natural gas or nuclear power to fuel our cars and trucks.
We believe that transparency and integrity are the guide posts we all need to follow.
http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/CorporateDocuments/SectorPages/Portfolio/PDM/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf
Bill McKibben wrote: “The technology we need most badly is the technology of community – the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair.” I think he’s right. Whether we’re talking about energy, transportation, food systems, education, the economy, government, or any other current ailing part of America, we’re ultimately talking about a failure to find effective and inclusive solutions.
When we’re born in or immigrate to this ‘Land of Opportunity’, we’re promised our individual rights. without a requirement to commit to individual responsibilities. Without individual responsibilities we have no foundational allegiance to community. Instead we create a hyper individualized society that continually acts as if the individual parts are greater than the sum of the whole. And down the rabbit hole we go; the right to free speech without the responsibility to listen to other points of view, the right to freedom of religion without the responsibility to respect and honor all religious traditions, the right to free press without the responsibility to communicate honestly, etc.
If we’re going to repair our national sense of community, we’re going to have to begin to take personal responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Brightfield™ RTS is part of a new era of community-based business. We are a company that has the right to make money, but also the responsibility to help build a more durable and resilient community, and to do so with honesty and transparency. That’s why we’re installing electric vehicle charging stations that generate renewable solar energy. Beyond the environmental benefits of harnessing the power of the sun versus burning fossil fuels, the community benefit of harvesting local energy is tremendous: fuel dollars stay in the community instead of going to Big Oil and foreign governments, quality local jobs are created, local health effects from tailpipe and coal power plant emissions are reduced, and a vision of a desirable future where America drives on sunshine is made real.
To succeed at transforming America’s transportation sector takes serious community cooperation across sectors including governments, neighborhoods, educational institutions, manufacturers, investors, activists… the list goes on. This is not easy work, but it is rewarding work that must be done because when we come together with a shared sense of purpose the result is not only solar powered transportation, but a region that is re-learning how to cooperate to get things done.
We’re all in this together.
I often find myself defending the idea that we can fuel electric vehicles with solar power. Obviously, I’m convinced we can drive on sunshine otherwise I never would have co-founded Brightfield™ Responsible Transportation Solutions (RTS). My optimism makes me an easy target for those who doubt that electric vehicles are viable, or that solar power is anything more than boutique energy.
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that electric vehicles are going to claim a share of the market. But powering the vehicles on sunshine? I can’t see that happening,” he said.
“Why not? The sun delivers more power to the earth every day than man has generated throughout the entire industrial revolution,” I said.
“The sun delivering power and us harnessing it are two different things. It’s a pipedream,” he said.
“But isn’t it fueling America’s automobiles with clean renewable sunshine a pipedream worth dreaming?” I said. “Look, if we were having this conversation circa 1860 and I was telling you that I had a great idea for powering America that involved digging hundreds of millions of years into the ground to pump up oil and process it into energy to fuel a technologically advanced global economy what would you say?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And if I told you that my vision would require an annual military budget around $100 billion to secure and defend oil reserves on 6 continents, what would you say?”
“That you were nuts,” he said.
“So then how come you don’t see our dependency on oil as nuts?” I said.
“Because it works. I put gas in my car and off I go. Simple.”
“Simple until you look at all the external costs,” I said. You got the military costs plus the costs resulting from the environmental damage from the over 6000 barrels of oil spilled each year and the great unknown long-term costs of global warming.”
“Fine. It’s not so simple, but it still works,” he said
“And so does generating electricity from solar panels and using that energy to fuel electric vehicles. Fossil fuels are nothing more than ancient solar energy. Why go through all the effort and strife to access old solar energy when the sun going to deliver more than we need tomorrow and the next day?” I said.
“I don’t know. It just seems far-fetched. Our economy is based on fossil fuels,” he said.
“I’m just talking about replacing the oil we use in our cars,” I said.
“Still seems like a big leap for America to take,” he said.
“It is. That’s the beauty of it,” I said. “We have the opportunity to take a big leap that will create jobs, eliminate our dependency on foreign oil, provide secure locally sourced fuel, reinvigorate American ingenuity, and significantly reduce our contribution to the global warming crisis. What’s to loose?”
Take the leap.
