On July 16, we joined our partners at Breaking Barriers Collaborative to host “What the Truck,” a webinar that dove into the details of how the most recent Washington state Legislative session significantly expanded opportunities for transportation decarbonization, with a focus on fleets, charging infrastructure, and trucks.
Thank you to everyone who attended and asked such thoughtful questions. We also want to extend a huge thank you to our panelists for dedicating their time and expertise to this important topic.
Clean & Prosperous Institute and Breaking Barriers Collaborative put together this recap of “What the Truck.” It includes a Q&A with questions we weren’t able to answer during the webinar due to time constraints, and contains clips from our panelists on highly resonant issues including the forthcoming Medium- and Heavy-Duty (MHD) Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) voucher program, updates to the Clean Fuel Standard, and how Washington is responding to federal emissions regulatory rollbacks.
If you are a dealer or Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) interested in staying updated on the MHD ZEV voucher program, we encourage you to monitor this newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for relevant program updates in the coming weeks.
Finally, the Washington State Department of Transportation is hiring two new positions to support the MHD ZEV voucher program! These positions are key to implementing this new program, and we encourage you to amplify the postings to your network.
Climate Commitments in Action: New Clean Energy in Eastern WA
Last week, we detailed the updates to Mapping Washington’s Climate Commitments, which is the single most comprehensive resource that shows where and how revenue from Washington’s landmark cap-and-invest program is being spent. The map features 2,700 unique Climate Commitment Act (CCA)-funded projects totaling $4.74 billion in existing and planned spending through June 2027.
This week, we’re excited to share an example of those CCA resources being deployed into Washington communities!
Avalanche Energy recently announced that the company has secured a $10 million grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce to launch a first-of-its-kind commercial-scale R&D facility for fusion technologies! The facility, called FusionWERX, will be based in Richland, and will bring investment, clean power, and good jobs to Eastern Washington.
Here’s more information on what the facility will do, from GeekWire: “The facility, called FusionWERX, is a public-private partnership offering shared R&D resources to universities, companies, and government labs to support fusion power businesses, the sector’s supply chain and production of radioactive materials.”
To reach our pollution reduction goals, we need to diversify the portfolio of available clean energy we use in Washington state. Using CCA revenue to fund innovative projects like Avalanche’s FusionWERX is crucial to catalyzing those additional clean power pipelines.
Read more in this story from GeekWire.
ICYMI: Renewables Save the Grid in New England
In case you missed it from Canary Media: “A heat wave hit New England’s grid. Clean energy saved the day.”
Here’s our main takeaway: A network of clean energy infrastructure, from solar panels, to electric vehicle (EV) and residential batteries, to wind turbines boosted the resilience of New England’s grid to avoid impacts like rolling blackouts or increased consumer costs.
Renewables boost resilience in the face of climate disaster while reducing the planet-warming emissions that make those disasters more prevalent in the first place.
Another key takeaway: The batteries in thousands of electric vehicles across New England were leveraged to create a “virtual power plant” to feed back power to the grid in times of peak demand. This is another (less talked about) benefit of the EV transition.
Follow CPI on Social Media
Follow Clean & Prosperous Institute on social media to learn more about our work to transition to a clean energy economy. You can find us on these channels:
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