While GM’s truck models continue to sell faster than slushies in the summer, the company has also invested millions into more environmentally friendly products like the Chevrolet Volt EREV, the Spark EV and the upcoming Bolt EV.
However, green products are only green to a certain extent: the manufacturing of battery cells can be extremely harmful to the environment and, like any power generated to your home, the plug attached to your Bolt EV could be receiving its power from a coal-fired power plant.
While GM can’t control the generation of power to your home (and ultimately to its EVs), it can cut back on the waste generated by its own plants. Take the Fort Wayne Assembly plant, for example.
The plant, home of the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500, is powered 43 percent by methane gas captured from decomposing trash in a nearby landfill and it now ranks No. 5 among the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s top 30 generators of onsite green power.
To put that into context, the 53-million kilowatt-hours of green power it generates could supply the equivalent electricity use of more than 5,000 American homes annually.
GM is one of the largest industrial users of landfill gas in the United States. Fort Wayne Assembly has used landfill gas for 13 years and just last year brought the generation process onsite to quadruple usage.
Fort Wayne won’t stop there, either. The company is committed to using 125 megawatts of renewable energy globally by 2020, a goal it expects to exceed next year.
While full size trucks may be the antithesis of green motoring, GM has done an admirable in transforming the way some its plants use renewable energy.
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