The Dept. of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reports that there is sufficient spare “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity tofuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles were they plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: “We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets,” said PNNL scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer. “The estimates didn’t include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn’t include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don’t operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity.”
In the meantime, big kudos to the Senators and Representatives, led by the co-sponsors of the bipartisan Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act, who sent letters to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) asking them to work together toward allocating $90 million in budget year 2008 to speed the commercialization of plug-in hybrids. Click to view the House and Senate letters.