Richland Real Estate Blog

One of the first things I remember learning after we moved to the Tri-Cities is that Richland has the highest percentage of brainiacs in the state of Washington. I think “brainiacs” is measured in terms of PHD’s per capita or something like that. Obviously, that’s due to all the scientists and engineers working at Hanford and living in Richland.

I was just reminded of all this while reading some news online tonight. According to a new study, we have enough off-peak electrical power in the country to replace 70% of our gas-powered cars with electric-powered hybrids.

Batteries for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could store enough energy to meet the nation’s 33-mile average commute, researchers said. If drivers charged vehicles overnight when demand for electricity is low, most regions of the country would have plenty of off-peak generation, transmission and distribution capacity to handle that region’s hybrid vehicles.

And where did this study originate? At the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, of course.