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14. Living in a Sustainable City
Sunlight streams through the fall colors of red and gold, as we hike along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Our paced quickened on the Chautauqua trail as we race the afternoon sun. Our breath weakens as we first ascend, then scramble up boulders to our vantage point, the Royal Arch.
To our back is the vast range of the Rocky Mountains, famous for 54 peaks in Colorado of over 14,000 feet. This is Boulder, Colorado, home of the University of Colorado and a community of about 100,000. This is a city that invites you to walk, bike, and use friendly bus services named Hop, Skip and Jump.
In Boulder, the people who defy gravity by climbing massive Flatiron outcroppings are also those who refuse to follow the status quo. Instead of getting all their electricity from a distant coal power plant, they want to create and store their own renewable energy. Instead of total relying on oil from distant countries, they also want to take a lead in using their renewable energy to power vehicles.
Boulder is becoming Smart Grid City. Working with a major utility, Xcel Energy, residents plan to lower utility bills with energy management, improve energy efficiency, and develop city-wide support for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
Smart Grid City will use realtime two-way communications and smart grids throughout the distribution grid. Thanks to pioneers like Boulder, we may all someday benefit from accessing smart grids that include vehicle-to-grid.
The chapter includes a scenario of twenty years from now that shows how people can live in zero-emission communities with flexwork and intermodal transportation that includes electric rail, hydrogen buses, electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrids using advanced biofuels.
Learn about the future of transportation in John Addison’s new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet.
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