Zan Dubin Scott on Plug In America and Renewable Energy
Zan Dubin Scott is a name known to most of us in the “plug-in” and renewable energy worlds. She is a tireless advocate and public relations professional, volunteering enormous amount of her time and pouring unlimited energy into the cause of electric vehicles and green energy. I’m proud to call her a friend.
… And I was lucky enough to catch her on the phone just now for a short conversation, which I publish here:
Craig Shields: I hope you still have your (electric Toyota) RAV-4. What a cool car. And they’re like hen’s teeth at the point.
Zan Dubin Scott: Of course. And you’re right, they’re hard to find.
CS: It strikes me that you’re one of the rare people who is lucky enough to have a career that is truly built around a personal passion. Would you say that this is true?
ZDS: Absolutely. It’s awesome to be paid for doing what I love.
CS: If I may ask, how did this get started?”
ZDS: Shortly after I married my husband, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. At that moment, he said, ‘Forget about waiting; I’m going to do all the things that I’ve dreamed about.’ And one of those was to buy and install solar panels on the house. So we did that, and we also got the RAV-4. And really ever since then I’ve worked hard for environmental causes.
CS: Please tell me about your involvement in Plug In America. I’ve met Chelsea Sexton and Chris Paine, and I’m a huge fan.
ZDS: It’s an amazing bunch if diverse, though truly committed people. Each one is terrific in his or her own way. I volunteer as the communications director. Plug In America plays a critical role in advocating for electric vehicles, though originally, it was called Don’tCrush.com, while the car companies were gathering and crushing the EVs. There is a story here that millions of people need to hear, and we’re telling that story.
CS: What do you see as the main hurdles to getting where we need to go with respect to EV and renewables?
ZDS: First of all, we couldn’t have asked for better, more visionary people than Obama and (Energy Secretary Steven) Chu. They’ve committed $14.1 billion in stimulus money to EVs – largely batteries and infrastructure. Thousands of companies – some of them small and entrepreneurial – are all hoping to play an important role here. This money will definitely accelerate the process.
CS: When you talk about infrastructure, what exactly do you see developing?
ZDS: A certain level of EV commercialization will be achieved with people simply charging at home. But, for wide scale adoption, we need a standardized public charging infrastructure. If we don’t have that, people are going to be concerned about getting stranded, although that’s never happened to me in seven years of driving an EV. It’s never happened to a single EV driver I know. Still, it’s a chicken and the egg situation. Ideally, we would grow acceptance and infrastructure at the same time.
And there will be fits and starts. BMW’s a good example. The car is great, but there have been some delivery and customer service issues.
CS: What about renewable energy? We can plug in 90 million EVs this evening and not build a single additional power plant. But don’t we have to advocate for clean energy generation as well as consumption?
ZDS: Indeed. And Plug In America is really starting to get onboard with that as well. It’s in virtually everything we publish now.
CS: I seem to recall that your have a deep background in the political side of these issues. And personally, you know that I’ve always said the technology issues are dwarfed by the political issues. Do you mind commenting?
ZDS: Not at all. That’s another role of Plug In America, to correct the misinformation that the public receives from the car companies who most definitely do not want this to happen. EVs have no repairs and use no gas. We’ve replaced the tires and the shocks on our RAV-4, but that’s it. That’s not good if you’re an oil company or a car company. I’m writing a piece just now on the “myths and truths” associated with EVs.
Here’s a good example of how this works. The car companies are pushing for hydrogen fuel cells, because they know that if this is possible at all, it will happen in the distant future. A commitment to hydrogen takes the pressure off of EVs. Chu decommited the DoE from hydrogen. But it’s back. Congress and several states have passed several million dollars in grants to hydrogen. This isn’t an accident. It’s pernicious. The oil companies are pushing hard for it. The car companies are so weak at this point that they don’t have the power to push for this–and I don’t think they would even if they could; at this point, every major car company on earth has made a sincere commitment to EVs.
Having said this
CS: Wow, Zan. Thanks for the update. You never stop. That’s one of the things I most admire about you.
ZDS: Thanks, Craig.
** I’m happy to report that Zan’s husband’s cancer has been in remission for seven years; he’s “out of the woods.”
