Steve Bantz, a special soul. May he rest in peace.

Steve was a remarkable person. He cared so passionately about the people and the world around him that he spent the week in DC to work for UCS, returning to be home with his wife in Afton, VA only on the weekends (a commute of about 3 hours each way).

Steve joined us to work on biofuels. Before Steve, we’d dabbled, but did not have the capacity to dive in with much depth. Steve helped us open the door wide on a difficult issue that has only gotten trickier since. He was a talented engineer who dove into the numbers and helped us all better understand the technology and its issues. He also had an impressive knack for visualizing concepts. In working on a report he would sift through photos, cartoons, or easy-to-read graphics that made the science explainable—always with a big smile on his face as he quested to find just the right one.

We at UCS will always be indebted to him for his contributions. And I will always be indebted to him because of how he helped me open my mind with his work and with stories of his life, his travels, his wonderful wife, and his farm.

After UCS, Steve shared his passion and knowledge by teaching science and engineering to middle and high school students before eventually returning to work as an engineer.

Though his loss brings darkness, Steve’s memory, like his life, brings light.

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Photo used with permission from Steve’s Facebook page.

Cutting Car Carbon Emissions in Half: A Triumph By The People

Last year, the Obama administration proposed new rules that would double the fuel economy of new cars and light trucks and cut their global warming pollution in half by 2025. The year before that, the administration finalized standards that will get the ball rolling by cutting new vehicle global warming pollution 25% by 2016. Together, these policies will reduce global warming pollution by some 640 million metric tons in 2030—the equivalent of shutting down nearly 140 average-size coal-fired power plants for a year. They will also save Americans $150 billion in 2030 alone, after covering the cost of the fuel efficient technology. When it comes to benefits for the people, it is hard for any single government action to get cooler and smarter than that!

Nearly 150 years ago President Lincoln summed up better than anyone the kind of nation we must work to protect—the kind of nation that can overcome any challenge.

The newest round of standards is expected to be finalized this summer. I’m not going to count my chickens before they hatch, but unless oil interests and others do some back room sabotage, this will be a triumph of government relying on the best science to make decisions in the best interest of the people.

But it will also be a triumph of efforts by the people. During the first round of standards, thousands of people wrote to the administration supporting efforts to cut global warming pollution from vehicles. After the second round was proposed, over 280,000 people weighed in with the administration to support doubling fuel economy. Hundreds also packed hearing rooms to make sure their voices were heard in Detroit, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Many also wrote letters to the editor of their local or national paper calling for better cars and less oil use.

Making Government Work for Us

These are exactly the kind of things we’re encouraging everyone to do as part of our practical advice on low-carbon living. Cooler Smarter is a guide to personal action, challenging you to cut your carbon emissions 20 percent this year, but personal action comes in many more forms. That’s why the last third of the book is dedicated to tips on how you can multiply the impact of your choices by the hundreds, thousands, and millions by getting involved in your community, your workplace, and your government.

Never talked to your neighbors or uncle about ways to cut back on energy use? We can help you think through how to reach them in the ways that will motivate change. Never written a letter to the editor on solutions to climate change, we’ve got tips for you. And if you’ve never engaged your representatives or other members of government on the urgency of climate change and benefits of climate solutions, Cooler Smarter  can help you be part of a climate victory like the one we’re getting on clean cars.

You may be frustrated by policymaker inaction on climate change, but America is still a country grounded in the principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We’ve got to work hard every day to get closer to that ideal and a key part of that is making sure that our voices are heard when it comes to climate change. And when that chorus gets loud enough, we will change the world for the better.

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Photo Credit: Artist is Elihu Vedder (1836–1923). Photographed 2007 by Carol Highsmith (1946–)

First, a little background for those who don’t follow this stuff regularly. The Highway Trust Fund is a pool of money used to fund highway and mass transit projects. Receipts that credit the fund come from a variety of sources, though presently about 60 percent of the receipts come from gasoline tax. The concern, and a fair one, is how we will continue to fund our highway and mass transit projects as our vehicles get more efficient and use less gasoline.

The media coverage on this story widely – and incorrectly – stated that CBO was claiming a $57 billion loss in revenue due to the upcoming 2017-2025 vehicle standards. It turns out that the number is off by a factor of, oh, 10 to 20. By UCS calculations, the loss in federal gas tax revenue for the years in question is about $2.5 billion (or $6 billion if you also include state taxes, though CBO’s numbers do not). Don’t get me wrong, this is one of many reasons to revisit how we fund our highways, to be sure, but hardly the “sky is falling” scenario painted by CBO.

So how did CBO arrive at their numbers? Here’s the short version of their logic and math. Note the bolded years below.

1. CBO recently conducted an (unrelated) economic outlook examining fiscal years 2012-2022.
2. CBO pulled an (accurate) statistic from EPA’s and NHTSA’s recent proposed vehicle standards rulemaking about the efficacy of the standards. Specifically, that thanks to the standards, which will be phased in between 2017 and 2025, gasoline consumption in cars and light trucks will be down by about 25 percent come 2040, when the efficient vehicles are on the road in significant numbers.
3. Accounting for a separate policy on renewable fuels, CBO estimated that the 25 percent reduction noted above is closer to 21 percent for actual gasoline.
4. The numbers from CBO’s economic outlook were evidently handy, so “for illustration,” CBO “examined how the fund would be affected if gasoline tax revenues fell in the near term (for any reason) by 21 percent.”

CBO’s analysis isn’t so much inaccurate as it is irrelevant.

They took a reduction in consumption we’ll see in 2040, from standards that don’t even begin to take place until 2017, and applied them to a set of statistics covering 2012-2022. Unless those future 2040 vehicles are Back to the Future-type DeLoreans heading back in time to 2012, CBO’s analysis is, to put it kindly, beside the point.

Moreover, CBO even knows that it won’t be this big. Buried in a footnote more than halfway through the document, it claims, “The new CAFE standards would not take effect until 2017, so they would reduce gasoline tax revenues between 2012 and 2022 by less than 1 percent, CBO estimates.”

This would all be amusing if it didn’t have such serious implications, as this type of analysis could and likely will be used by those seeking to undermine the vehicle standards. The truth is, these standards will substantially reduce gasoline consumption and pollution – that’s, well, kind of the point. The 2017-2025 standards will save more than 1.5 million barrels of oil per day in 2030 alone. Even after paying for the cost of the fuel-saving technology, drivers will still net more than $50 billion in savings in that year alone.

We do need to find new ways to get the money we need to fix bridges, repair potholes, and keep our highways safe, but using shoddy math to pin fictitious budget shortfalls on smart vehicle policies isn’t the way to go about it.

If you are charging a electric vehicle overnight, are you using electricity that would be wasted anyway?

There is typically excess electricity generating capacity overnight because electricity demand is lower than peak times which typically occur during the day. However, electricity production continually changes to match demand. Power plants that are not needed at night are shutdown or their output is reduced to match demand during these periods. In other words, electricity is not being wasted. In some rare cases, wind power has been curtailed, or shut off, because of too much electricity on the grid. This happened recently in the northwest when large river flows and windy conditions created excess electricity production, but is not a common occurrence.

Has the electricity grid been getting cleaner since 2007, and does that impact the results of the report?

In recent years, generation of coal-powered electricity has declined while natural gas and renewables has increased.  As a result newer power plant data is expected to show that EVs powered by the electricity grid have even lower emissions. This trend is expected to continue into the future in part due to state renewable energy standards, 30 of which exist across the country, and the retirement of older, less efficient coal-fired plants (see the map below to see which states have renewable energy standards).  As a result, an EV bought today will get cleaner the longer you own it.

As new data becomes available, we will update our analysis to reflect the changing grid mix.

Renewable electricity standards by state as of December 2011

Are the mpg values used in the study real-world or are they based on compliance data for federal fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions?

Our mpg ratings are based on the combined city/highway fuel economy window sticker values, like those found on the www.fueleconomy.gov website.  These values much more closely reflect real world driving than the mpg values used to determine compliance with federal fuel economy standards.  For more information on how mpg ratings differ for compliance testing and window labels, see our fact sheet about translating standards into on-road fuel efficiency.

Did the report consider other air pollution, besides global warming emissions,  from electric vehicles?

Our analysis focused on global warming emissions from operating an electric vehicle and the costs of charging. Other analyses have looked at the air quality implications of electric vehicles. A 2007 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Electric Power Research Institute is one of the most comprehensive analyses done to date. The study looks at projections of plug-in electric vehicles overtime and the change in ozone concentrations and other pollutants that might be expected and finds that the vast majority of areas will see improved air quality.

Air quality analyses require sophisticated modeling to perform because the location and timing of the emissions are important factors in determining changes in air pollutions concentrations and the resulting population exposures to these pollutants.

A move towards more renewables and away from coal will reduce other air pollutants in addition to global warming emissions, and ensure electric vehicles deliver the greatest benefits.

New electricity users vs old users: Does “State of Charge” treat them equally?

Our approach to estimating emissions treats all users of a region’s electricity equally, meaning no matter what device is using the electricity, be it a ten-year old hot tub or a brand new Nissan LEAF, each kWh of electricity they consume is presumed to have the same emissions.

An alternative approach is to use marginal emissions, which represent the additional emissions that are expected by adding a new electricity load to the grid. For example, plugging in your new EV means a power plant somewhere has to increase its output just a little bit.  If that power plant happens to be coal fired, the emissions from charging your EV would be equivalent to about a 30 mpg gasoline vehicle. If it just so happens that excess wind generation is on the grid (the rare occurrence noted above) then you could claim your EV would have zero emissions.

Marginal emission analysis is important for understanding the impact of thousands of vehicles plugging in the electricity grid, or any new demand on the electricity grid for that matter. But for an individual consumer, treating all the electrons coming into your house the same, whether they are powering up your old hot tub, charging your new EV, or powering that new flat screen TV, makes the most sense.

Think about how a marginal type of analysis might play out if applied to gasoline.  Oil from tar sands for example, a growing source of oil, has higher emissions because of the greater energy required for extraction.

So you pull up to the gas station in your new Chevy Volt, the first car you have ever owned, and someone next to you is filling up a 1986 Dodge Ram pickup. You want to know the global warming emissions that will result from consuming the gallon of gasoline each of you is putting in the tank.  Does the gallon of gasoline going into the new Volt  contain more, less, or the same amount of carbon as the gallon of gasoline going in to the old pick-up? Using average emissions – they are equal. Using marginal emissions – they are different.

Kind of reminds me of that trick question, what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?

Our collective decisions to use gasoline and electricity contribute to the resulting emissions from these sources of energy. Marginal emissions analysis is key to understanding the emissions impact of these decisions on a large scale and into the future.  But using the average emissions of gasoline and electricity to understand the carbon footprint of individual vehicle choices, as we do in our analysis, provides a reasonable estimate for an individual.

What data was used to estimate electric vehicle emissions?

The data used to estimate the emissions from power plants is based on data compiled by EPA in their eGrid database. The most recent available version was used, which includes emissions data from plants operating in 2007. We also included the emissions from extraction and transportation emissions of energy sources used in electricity production. For example, the emissions from coal mining and transporting the coal to the power plant are included, as well as the inefficiencies of getting electricity from the power plant to your house. We treated gasoline in a similar manner, accounting for the extraction, refining and transportation of gasoline.

We used Argonne National Labs GREET model to determine the emissions from producing and burning a gallon of gasoline as well as for the upstream electricity generation feedstock emissions described above.

Consumers are getting some (slight) relief at the pump these days, as gasoline prices fell 1.8% in the last three weeks to a national average of $3.87. And, for the first time in two-and-a-half years, the national average this week is lower than it was a year ago at this time. By contrast, a mere two months ago, the national average was 40 cents above its year-ago mark.

Though this temporary respite at the pump is welcome news for drivers, a closer examination of gas prices highlights a growing trend that is unlikely to abate anytime in the foreseeable future: pump price volatility.

We at UCS have noted for years that fuel-efficient vehicles insulate consumers from volatility in gasoline prices, and that continues to hold true. But what’s the story at the end of the spectrum? How much does it cost to fuel cars that are fully insulated from gasoline price volatility – because they use no gasoline at all?

As of last week, we have the answers. In a new UCS report on electric vehicles (EVs),  my colleagues Don Anair and Amine Mahmassani found that EVs are, in fact, an excellent choice for cutting fuel costs. The State of Charge report examined the utility rates in 50 major U.S. cities, and showed that EV owners can save $750 to $1,200 each year compared to operating a compact gasoline vehicle that gets 27 mpg, fueled with gasoline at $3.50 per gallon.

It’s true that EVs have a higher sticker price than today’s conventional vehicles, but the fuel cost-savings can go a long way toward defraying the higher up-front cost of electric cars. And, of course, fueling on electricity doesn’t just save money. It also can save more than 6,000 gallons of gasoline over the vehicle’s life (compared to the average new compact vehicle.)

EVs may not be the perfect choice for every driver, but for those who are considering an EV purchase, knowing how much one can save on fueling the vehicle is an important factor to consider. Take a look at the report findings for your region. You just might be surprised at how much you can save by skipping trips to the pump…

Given today’s vehicle market, is buying an electric vehicle really a good option for the climate conscious driver?

The answer is yes, but just how good depends on where in the country you live.

The global warming pollution emitted when charging your electric vehicle depends on how much of the electricity of your area is powered by coal, and how much comes from cleaner alternatives such as renewable sources and natural gas. Even on the most coal-heavy grids, EVs are on par with the most fuel-efficient conventional gasoline vehicles for global warming emissions – making them a good choice, though not necessarily the best. Only in areas where a greater share of electricity comes from cleaner sources do EVs compete with good gasoline-hybrids; in many cases beating even the most fuel-efficient hybrids on the road for global warming emissions.

Can one determine how electric vehicle emissions compare in different parts of the country?

The U.S. can be divided into 26 electric grid regions, each with a unique mix of power generation resources. We performed an analysis of the global warming emissions produced when charging an electric vehicle in each region, and then placed the regions into three categories—Good, Better, and Best—based on how the emissions compare to those of gasoline-powered vehicles. For example:

• EVs in Good regions produce the same global warming emissions per mile as a gasoline vehicle with a fuel economy somewhere between 31 and 40 mpg. This means that their emissions are comparable to the best non-hybrid gasoline models available, such as the Ford Fiesta and the Hyundai Elantra.
• EVs in Better regions produce the same global warming emissions per mile as a gasoline vehicle with a fuel economy somewhere between 41 and 50 mpg. This means that their emissions are comparable to the best gasoline hybrid models available, such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid.
• EVs in Best regions produce the same global warming emissions per mile as a gasoline vehicle with a fuel economy somewhere in excess of 50 mpg. This means that they outperform the best gasoline hybrid models available.

To make sure we are taking the fuel’s full life-cycle into account, our analysis includes emissions not just from burning fuel to power a car or to generate electricity, but also from producing the fuel. So we include emissions from pumping and refining oil into gasoline as well as mining and transporting coal, for example.

Check out the map to see how EVs in your region stack up. Click on the image for a larger version.

So what are the results? Where are the “Best” regions for charging an electric vehicle?

The analysis shows that 45% of Americans live in regions where electric vehicles are the “best” choice, producing less global warming pollution than any gasoline vehicle on the road, including the best hybrids. For those that don’t, EVs are at least a “good” choice, producing significantly less global warming pollution than the average new compact car.

So if you want to buy an EV and you live in a region with a “dirtier” electricity grid, what do you recommend?

Well first, it is important to note that the electricity grid has been getting cleaner as older coal plants are retired, and investments in cleaner power from renewables and natural gas increase. So even if an EV purchased today may not be the very best choice for cutting global warming pollution where you live right now, its emissions are likely to improve over its lifetime.

But there are definitely some things people can do right now to improve the environmental performance of EVs in their region. By participating in green energy programs offered by their utilities, supporting renewable energy standards for their state, or even producing their own renewable energy with rooftop solar panels if they own a home, individuals can help electric vehicles live up to their potential as the best choice everywhere.

The book’s lead author guest blogged about the 21 tons of greenhouse gas emissions the average American is responsible for emitting each year. And if you look at this figure in his blog, you will see that personal transportation stands out at 28 percent of that total, more than any other category. As you will see below, the biggest-by-far portion of that comes from our daily driving.

Auto Emissions: The Pac-Man Principle

To understand why our daily driving is such a big part of our personal carbon emissions, you just have to look at a few numbers. (Geek alert, my love affair with numbers continues.)

• There are about 240 million cars and light trucks on U.S. roads—that’s one for every person who has a license.
• Those vehicles are driven 2.7 TRILLION miles a year—enough to make more than 14,000 round-trip voyages to the sun.
• The average auto gets just over 20 miles to the gallon (mpg) at 25.7 pounds of heat-trapping emissions to produce, deliver, and burn a gallon of gas.
  

  David’s 80’s-video-game-inspired Pac-Man Principle: American’s average car and light truck emissions effectively gobble up all other forms of personal transportation.

• Combined, that is 3.3 trillion pounds, or nearly 1.7 billion tons of heat-trapping emissions!

Our autos are responsible for more carbon dioxide emissions than the entire economies of all but four nations in the world.** In comparison, the next largest personal transportation source is air travel. But at only 0.37 trillion miles a year for vacations and visiting friends and relatives, personal air travel just can’t compete with daily driving.

Where do all these numbers lead us? Well, if you take a look at the pie chart to the right, and if you played a lot of video games in the 80s as I did, it leads to the Pac-Man Principle: Americans’ average transportation emissions are dominated by our cars and light trucks, which effectively swallow up all other forms of personal transportation.

Get on the Road to Your 20 Percent Carbon Reduction Today

Some of you may be stunned by our guzzling ways. Others might find this all too obvious. So, now what?

Well, no matter which camp you fall into, the next time you buy a vehicle, boost your mpg. If you are not in the market this year, don’t worry, your time will come—most Americans switch autos about once every five years. Meanwhile, tune up your car, pump up your tires, and avoid aggressive driving and you could save more than $500 on gas in a year. Carpool, take the train, or bike to work once a week and you can save more than $200 a year. And together, just these steps can cut your total annual carbon emissions 5-10 percent.

If you want to learn more about what you can do to cut your personal transportation emissions, or what else can deliver a big bang for your buck when it comes to meeting our 20 percent challenge, check out the book. And if you are waiting for it to arrive in the mail, start right away with our website that shows you 20 personalized ways to start cutting your carbon footprint by 20 percent over the next 20 days.

**NOTE: International emissions data can be found here, but that data is in metric tons of carbon, so you have to convert the 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide for our cars and light trucks into metric tons of carbon. To do so, multiply by both the conversion factor of 0.907 metric tons per ton and the atomic mass of carbon (12) and then divide by the atomic mass of CO2 (44) . You should get about 0.412 billion tons of carbon (412,000 thousand metric tons of carbon).

Some of you EV enthusiasts out there may have noticed that the title “State of Charge” is a reference to electric vehicles. The “state of charge” of your EV tells you how much juice you’ve got in your batteries just like a fuel gauge tells you how much gasoline you’ve got left in your tank. But the name also implies that the results are a snapshot of the current moment, and that the state is subject to change.

2012 Ford Focus Electric (Copyright Ford Motor Company and Wieck Media Services, Inc.)

So, what’s today’s “State of Charge”?

Nearly half of Americans live in regions where driving on electricity is better for global warming emissions than driving the best gasoline-powered hybrids available today. Even in the regions of the country where coal dominates the electric grids, EVs emit global warming emissions similar to the best compact conventional gasoline vehicles – those averaging between 31-40 mpg.

Across 50 of the largest U.S. cities, EV owners can  save $750 to $1,200 on fueling costs each year compared to the average new compact gasoline vehicle filled up at $3.50 a gallon.

And, of course, driving on electricity slashes oil consumption.  Not only are you avoiding trips to the gas pump, very little of the nation’s electricity is generated with petroleum. Less than 1 percent in fact.

This is all good news. But the future for EVs can be even better.

Our current transportation fuel supply is nearly all petroleum.  Our electricity grid, on the other hand, is powered by a variety of energy sources, from coal and nuclear to wind, solar, and hydro. By plugging our cars into the grid, and working to reduce the amount of dirtier electricity sources like coal and increasing renewables like wind and solar, we can clean up both our transportation and electricity sectors at the same time.

The move to a cleaner grid is underway; 29 states and Washington D.C. have standards in place to accelerate the transition to cleaner electricity, and projections for new coal plants have been declining while older coal plants are being retired.

As a result, an EV bought today can actually be expected to get cleaner the longer you own it.

This cannot be said for our oil-powered cars.  New gasoline vehicles burn less fuel on average than older vehicles, and will continue to improve over the next decade thanks in part to new fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards. But the gasoline itself is likely to get dirtier as we depend more on harder to extract oil like Canada’s tar sands and dirtier sources of crude oil. As a result, a gasoline vehicle is likely to emit more emissions per mile as it gets older.

Charging Forward

Our report shows that the State of Charge is strong, and that EVs can play a significant role in reducing air pollution, global warming, and oil use. If we continue to support innovation and infrastructure investments to make EVs more affordable and easier to own for more consumers, the market for EVs will grow. And continuing to clean up our electricity grid will ensure that the full climate benefits of electric drive vehicles are realized everywhere in the United States.

Getting more EVs on the road will take time. As we note on our Model E website, the transition from oil-powered transportation will be an evolution rather than a revolution, but working together we can continue to power up a clean EV future.

To support cleaner energy and cleaner vehicles in your city or state, take action today.

This is part of a series on Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living.

Take the 20% challenge at CoolerSmarter.org

 

All of the authors on the team will be blogging about our findings in the coming weeks but, to start off, I’m turning this space over to our colleague and the book’s lead author, Seth Shulman. Seth has already written five books on the politics and history of science and innovation and their effects on our lives. Read on to learn about what we found and what this latest book meant to him.

Global Warming: Do Individual Choices Matter?

Seth Shulman, senior staff writer, Union of Concerned Scientists

If you had asked me that question just a year ago, I probably would have expressed skepticism. I have covered climate change as a science journalist for more than two decades and care deeply about the issue. But I’ve always thought of it as problem to be solved on the national or international level. So, like many people, I have spent a lot of time dismayed that our leaders haven’t been taking action commensurate with what is suggested by the latest scientific evidence, but relatively little time thinking about what I might do about the problem in my own life, thinking—wrongly, it turns out—that my actions were too inconsequential to make much of a difference.

But then my colleagues at the Union of Concerned Scientists asked me to join a project they had already been working on for some time: an in-depth examination of the most effective steps individuals can take to combat global warming. The project has profoundly changed the way I think about the issue. It has opened my eyes to just how easy it is for most Americans like me to make some simple changes to use energy more efficiently and thereby significantly lower our emissions. What’s more, it has shown me what a surprisingly big difference these changes can make when adopted widely.

Reduce Your Carbon Emissions 20% This Year

Our new book, Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living, has just been published by Island Press, the result of UCS’s two years of research on the subject by a crack team that included climate scientists, technical experts, and economists. The book challenges each of us, no matter what our circumstances, to reduce our emissions by 20 percent in the coming year—an achievable and meaningful first step—and it offers a menu of strategies to get the job done. (We’ve even developed a website that you can use to reduce your footprint by 20 percent.)

Cooler Smarter is chock full of information including some surprises about which of our actions matter most (many details about those to come). To get the answers, our experts painstakingly tracked both the direct and indirect emissions resulting from every dollar spent by U.S. consumers, analyzing the climate impact of our decisions on hundreds of topics from home insulation to diet. But let me start by sharing the big picture results.

Your Carbon Emissions and What Matters Most

The average American is responsible for emitting a whopping 21 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. To give that number some perspective, that’s more for each one of us than an average car would emit driving around the world at the equator.

The average American is responsible for 21 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide split between five major categories.

On a per capita basis, Americans emit almost four times more carbon dioxide than the global average, and twice as much as citizens do in places like France or Japan with a standard of living similar to our own. That’s a lot of carbon. But here’s the good news: There’s no question Americans can use energy more efficiently—without breaking much of a sweat. Many of the suggestions in Cooler Smarter will save you money, others are great long-term investments, and some will even improve your health. And they are easier to implement than you might think.

The figure to the right shows the breakdown of the Average American’s emissions into five major categories which pretty much boil down to: the car you drive, the way you heat and cool your home, the electricity you use, the food you eat, and the stuff you buy.

You Can Make a Real Difference

If you are skeptical that changes in these categories can make a difference (as I once was) consider this: If everyone in the country cut their overall emissions by just 20 percent, it would be like shuttering 200 of the nation’s 600 coal fired power plants. Let me say that again: It would be like saying goodbye to ONE THIRD of our nation’s most-polluting sources of energy which could make an enormous difference to global warming.

But I’ll give you another example of the kind of difference these changes can make that’s a lot more personal. Among my many former wasteful habits, I used to leave the laser printer in my home office turned on 24/7, again figuring that it didn’t make much of a difference. Cooler Smarter has taught me that just hitting that single “off button” on that single one of my many gadgets will save me more than $130 per year on my electric bill. It’s just one of many easy changes I’ve already made on my path to a 20 percent reduction in my emissions that are actually helping my wallet and the planet at the same time.

Cooler Smarter gives you the tools you need to lower your emissions in each of the categories above and also offers techniques to help you inspire your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers to do the same. Individual action alone can never replace the need to press for changes on the state, national, and international levels. But our leaders won’t be compelled to change unless we as citizens show them we value a low-carbon future and take action in our own lives. In other words, I’ve rekindled my understanding that on this issue, like so many others, we need to work for change from the bottom up and the top down. You can learn more, use our tools to help you reduce your emissions by 20 percent—and pick up a copy of the book —by visiting our website www.coolersmarter.org.

Seth Shulman is senior staff writer at UCS, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and co-author of Cooler Smarter.

Likely to be produced alongside the 2013 Leaf in Nissan’s Smyrna, Tennessee plant, the model provides an alternate option for shoppers seeking an EV with luxury appointments. It joins the ranks of other new and upcoming luxury electric-drive vehicles including the Tesla Roadster, Fisker Karma, BMW i-series, and Cadillac ELR.

A 24 kWh lithium-ion battery pack (the same size as the pack in the Leaf) provides juice in the LE to a 100 kW electric motor. The LE Concept’s design yields 134 horsepower and 240 pound-feet of torque, slightly more in both categories than that of the Leaf.

While concept models often never make it to showroom floors – rather, they serve to hint at powertrain options or design cues to come – in this case, most of what you see is what you’re going to get. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn commented at the model’s unveiling that the LE Concept is 85 percent of the way to its final production form, and will be on sale in the next 24 months. Let the waiting lists begin…