So what's it like spending three days with 80 super smart, hyper critical and incredibly motivated people who are trying to change the world? Intense.

The RMI Smart Garage charrette (which I believe is French for "to hold captive") took on the opportunities and challenges of electrifying transportation and how it would impact the grid. It was an interesting process watching people from complimentary and clashing industries problem-solve together without the industry "rah-rahing" that accompanies most conferences.

In the end, with the critical help of the Rocky Mountain Institute facilitators, participants came up with six reasonable and impactful projects for bringing plug-in vehicles to market.

One project focused on understanding the lifetime value of batteries, which may be best monetized by utilities, who would take ownership of them after three years and find second and third lives for them as distributed storage to buffer the grid.

Another was to create a marketing initiative around the vehicles, including processing demographic data about prospective buyers as well as a comprehensive pitch that shows how PHEVs improve life. Another project focused on grid infrastructure build-out and how to pay for it.

The national policy project would create a consistent federal and state policy to realize the full potential of plug-in vehicles. A standards project would tie the developing grid and vehicle wireless communications standards so that PHEVs can be part of the grid management (eg. demand response) solution.

Finally, there's a package of incentives and requirements that would be used as a template for cities to build a market of 100,000 or more PHEVs that would be purchased within 2-3 years.

Several of these projects will likely come to fruition, with charrette participants already given homework assignments to carry forth with the ideas and to begin to organize volunteer networks to complete them.

Charramblings

The first two days of the charrette reminded me of starting a complex recipe but you don't know what you're baking. You break a lot of eggs, and then throw in handfuls of ingredients and swirl them with no clear picture of what the final product will look like.

During this time there were many highly opinionated people offering creative solutions to the challenges, but each time a promising idea was presented it was usually quickly knocked down a peg by someone else who found a fault. (I hereby name this uncontrollable reflex to naysay "Charrette's syndrome.")

Then, at the end of day two, the batter is laid out in a pan, and lo and behold, with the right amount of mental heat, solutions rise up as something that is much tastier than you ever would have imagined.

Some tidbits overheard during the three days:

Steve Hauser, VP at smart grid technology company Grid Point, says he hears often from AARP members worried that smart grid technology and PHEVs will greatly increase the price of electricity.

Michael Potts, CEO of RMI, said that the most "wacked" (greenest people) he's met work for utilities. They are early adopters of solar, wind. He is also surprised that so many people are assuming a linear gas price increase. The volatility of the past will continue into the future. From the car guys he's spoken to, PHEVS are "all that customers want to buy," so everyone needs to make sure that the innovation matches consumer expectation.

Several times I heard concerns about vehicle to grid (V2G), which includes using bi-directional flow of energy up and down to the grid, as being hyped too much as a "false messiah." People shouldn't be talking about V2G now as it will take many years to implement (10 or more), and that people should set more realistic expectation when making decisions. Most of the utility and auto folks I spoke with have no interest in pursuing V2G in the first few years.

Lovins Spoonfuls

RMI's Amory Lovins, the sage of Snowmass, was around to distill, provide context, and elaborate, on the topics that were being discussed at the moment. Here are a few of his musings:

-- There is no reason to suppose that oil prices will always remain high. Gas prices have always been volatile, and business who are setting their competitive analysis based on higher prices are making a mistake.

-- Wal-Mart can be a big player in providing vehicle charging stations. By putting solar on their rooftops and giving the power to customers who park and shop, they can make a lot more money than by selling power to the grid.

-- The army has just hired an energy czar, and the Department of Defense is likely to do the same.

-- Vehicles can be made much lighter (1/3 of current weight), and when that happens, it drastically reduces the amount of energy that's needed to be stored on batteries. Under this scenario, the batteries for all-electric vehicles could be manufactured for as little as $2,000 to $3,000.

-- The 800-pound gorilla in the room (or more accurately not in the room, since they weren't invited) is the oil industry, which has the most to lose. Smart energy companies may want to hedge their bets against the electrification of vehicles by investing in some of the technologies. This is a logical diversification strategy.