Making the Community Electric

Making the Community Electric. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. Creating new, clean ways to generate power is really only an exercise in futility unless you actually integrate that into everyday living. One Washington community is taking that to heart. Ron Johnston-Rodriguez is the Economic Development Director for the Port of Chelan County and they have jumped into the renewable energy ring with both feet. JOHNSTON-RODRIGUEZ: We started working in the area of electric vehicles about 5 years ago and brought to the state the first plug-in hybrid electric Prius and then we converted the first one in the state. It's been kind of a wild ride since then. Our Port is an economic development organization and we think that electrification of vehicles is rife with economic opportunity. He sees this as a great opportunity for entrepreneurs as well as thinking outside the box. JOHNSTON-RODRIGUEZ: Thinking about some of the problems that the fruit industry is facing in north central Washington particularly as regards labor, the shortages and so on and so forth that this is a more efficient way to utilize the labor you have is to utilize some of the new mechanized and autonomous equipment that is being developed and we see that as really ripe for electrification. In Wenatchee the local LINK transit is moving to an electric system and Johnston-Rodriguez sees this as a move in the right direction. JOHNSTON-RODRIGUEZ: You talk to people about electric vehicles 5 years ago and a golf cart comes to mind, right? Because some of that was just misinformation and the state of the technology at the time. But the fact of the matter is – especially with these advances in batteries we're looking at transit buses being able to operate in a fully electric mode. Route length presents limitations before buses need to be charged and of course there are some issues in the actual charging process. JOHNSTON-RODRIGUEZ: But there are some charging protocols if you will and some new types and styles of chargers that can be incorporated into a transit system like that overhead charger that we'll be having demonstrated in Wenatchee that can change the face of all this. And taking these technologies and transferring them to other applications like agriculture is going to be good for all of us. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org