Life Is A Sustainable Highway with Allie Kelly

Imagine if your car were powered by solar roads made out of recycled tires? Today we talk with Allie Kelly, the Executive Director of The Ray, a highway that is the future for sustainable roads and transportation. She talks about how her family found Serenbe and Steve challenges listeners with a Serenbe scavenger hunt to find the chair placed in memory of the highway's namesake Ray C. Anderson that features a box with his book hidden inside.

In the five years since its conception, Allie has helped The Ray to implement and build nearly a dozen ground-breaking, world-leading technology demonstrations, including the first solar road in the United States and the world’s first public demonstration of a drive-through tire safety station. Allie has over 15 years of experience working in public policy, first as a lobbyist for UPS in Washington, D.C. then founding Georgia Watch in Atlanta, the state’s only consumer watchdog organization. Allie earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Georgia.

Transcript

Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called Biophilic Solutions. Our last season of Serenbe Stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode. Alright, now let's go back to Serenbe Stories. 

Monica (2s):
Imagine if your car were powered by solar roads made out of recycled tires. Today, we talked with Allie Kelly, the executive director of The Ray, a highway that is the future for sustainable roads and transportation. She talks about how her family found Serenbe and Steve challenges listeners with a Serenbe scavenger hunt, to find the chair placed in memory of the highway’s namesake, Ray C. Anderson that features a box with his book hidden inside. 

Allie (29s):
We were hosting tours of the interstate if you can even imagine that. I understand why people come to Serenbe. But it’s a totally different ball game with people flying into Hartsfield and say, “When can we go down to the highway?”

Monica (43s):
Well, I want to welcome everybody to Serenbe Stories today. Today we have, of course, Steve Nygren. Hey Steve!

Steve (50s):
Hello Monica. 

Monica (51s):
And our special guest today is Allie Kelly, who is one of our residents who actually lives down the street from me in Grange. Welcome Allie!

Allie (1m 1s):
Thank you so much. Great to see you, great to be with you. 

Steve:
Nice to have a conversation today. 

Monica:
Yeah. So glad you could join us. This season, we’re super excited, you are our second interview, and we are interviewing all Serenbe residents because we believe Serenbe residents have the best stories, and they are the original Serenbe stories. And so I’ll kind of start off with the question of like, how did you find out about Serenbe? And sort of how did, how did you and your family move here? 

Allie (1m 33s):
Yeah, that’s, it’s actually a long story and that it spans more than a decade. I started to hear about and understand what Steve and his family were doing at Serenbe through the conservation and environmental community. I started to work in conservation in the state of Georgia in 2000. So my earliest memories of Serenbe are Serenbe’s earliest days, you know, the first roads, the first homes, and, and really the development that was centered around what we know as, you know, the Inn and the Farmhouse. So those are my earliest memories of Serenbe, which literally go back, I guess, now that I think about it, you know, close to two decades. 

Monica (2m 23s):
I know, right? It’s almost 20 years now. It’s kind of crazy.

Allie:
That’s right. And then I have another great memory of Serenbe with Snowmageddon in 2014. I was at Serenbe for a half day retreat for a work event. And it started to snow mid day while we were having lunch served. And you know, how Georgians, I mean, we’re just like, “Oh, it’ll dust a little bit and then it’ll be over. So, of course, we all hung out and we leisurely ate our beautiful and delicious lunch, and I almost did not make it out of Chattahoochee Hills, and it took me 13 hours to get back home. 

Steve (3m 12s):
That was quite an afternoon. And we had another group here, Chattahoochee, now, Board, the same attitude, and they still talk about that. 

Allie:
Yes. 

Steve:
We were all there together. 

Monica:
Yeah, yeah, That, that was definitely memorable. And I will say once people did get home or back to Serenbe, and you know, cause there was a lot of dram on the roads in, in Atlanta, it was kind of a magical 48 hours with people pulling out their cross-country skis, and the woman who owned the wine shop at the time. We were like, somebody, you know, was like, “She told us where the key was” And we just, like, wrote down the wine, we were taking our credit cards. I mean, it was kind of this wild couple of days if I recall Steve. 

Steve:
Yeah. 

Allie (3m 57s): 
Yeah. I, I also remember Serenbe in 2013. That was the first Ray Day that I ever attended, and that was, I think the first Ray Day, which was in July before they moved them to the fall because in the first or maybe the first two Ray Days, they coincided with Ray Anderson’s birthday. And I had twin boys in March of 2013 and had just returned to work with the Georgia Conservancy. And we had a booth at the Ray Day at Serenbe. So that’s the really great memory of coming to work and having, and having Ray Day and Serenbe and the summer. 

Allie (4m 44s): 
And then our decision to move to Serenbe came a few years later. The Ray C Anderson foundation board of advisors, on which Steve serves, that advisory board has an advisory board meeting, and they pair it with Ray Day every year. So a couple of years later, I was now more closely affiliated with Ray C Anderson foundation through my work at REA. So I was invited to stay on for that advisory board meeting. And after everyone had left, it was just me and Harriet Anderson Langford, who’s Ray’s youngest daughter and her husband, Phil Lankford. And Steve and Marie came in and we were just hanging out swapping stories. And my husband eventually walked in from being somewhere out on the trails, looking for, you know, mushrooms or dragon flies or whatever. 

Allie (5m 47s): 
And so we were all just kind of swapping stories and Marie said, “Where are your twins?” And we said, “Oh, we left the twins with, you know, grandma and grandpa so that we could have a little bit of time.” And she said, “Well, you got to come back next week and bring me those twins.” And we said, “Okay, okay.” So we actually did. We came back the next Saturday with the twins and spent the entire day going around Serenbe and the gator just happened to be the same day that there was a community event at the stable. So we stayed and went to the stables. Our kids played with some other kids. And I remember getting back in the car as the sun was setting. And I looked at my husband and I said, “You know, I wonder if we could make the move. And he said, “I don’t know, maybe.” And that, that’s how it started.

Monica (6m 35s): 
Yeah. And so how long have you been here now?

Allie: 
So we bought the lot in 25th–no, 2016. We built it in 2017. We’ve been here for three and a half years. I think that’s right. 

Monica: 
Amazing!

Steve:
Time flies.

Monica: 
Yeah, it does. Time does fly in so many changes. Did you grow up in Georgia or the South? 

Allie: 
I did. I was one of the last babies born at the original Emory Hospital. 

Monica: 
Oh, wow. Okay. 

Allie (7m 7s): 
I was always an east sider. So I grew up in Decatur, inside the perimeter, when Decatur was still farmland. So I remember rows of corn in my backyard and we also had cows and pasture in the backyard. In fact, my first kitty cat went missing and my parents told me that Buzzi had been trampled by bulls because we were inside the perimeter indicator with kind of–I kind of livestock in the backyard. 

Monica: 
Right. 

Allie (7m 40s): 
Yeah. My mom had a garden and canned vegetables. It’s kind of hard to think about that. And the Atlanta we know and love now because it’s hard to find any open space anymore ITP, but I grew up in Decatur and then eventually we moved a little bit north on the east side, out of the Gwinnett county. And then I went to the University of Georgia for college. So I had sort of lived this very like half brain, half Atlanta, east side of Atlanta life. I moved away for several years, and then when I came back, I bought a house in Forum Park, which is right near Grant Park and the zoo, which we still own. That house it’s a 1918 craftsman bungalow. 

Monica: 
Right. 

Allie (8m 24s): 
So I was just, you know, really the majority of my Atlanta experience has been on the east side ITP. You know, I’ve always been like a biker and a runner around the city. I’ve always worked in Downtown or Midtown. So coming south of the city, south of the airport  was a big shift. But everyday I remind myself when I’m on my commute to take a look around because there’s nothing that beats the way that your eyes are, your hungry eyes are fed when you’re driving through the hill country in a way that you cannot be edified and fed anywhere else in the city, you know, everything else is, there are some really nice pocket parks in the city, of course, and we’ve got Piedmont Park and then we’ve got the parks along, Ponce de Leon, but there’s so much of Atlanta’s become a concrete jungle. 

Allie (9m 13s): 
And just the fact that, you know, I feel like my soul and my very eyeballs get to enjoy just the way that life looks in Serenbe everyday. Even if I’m leaving to go to work or, you know, coming back home at the end of the long day, I still get fed in those ways that she can’t, you know, you just can’t find that. And then the other part of the city, in my opinion. 

Steve (9m 57s): 
And, and I know your boys enjoyed it. I can’t imagine them in the city now when I see them out on the street and about. 

Allie: 
Yeah. Can I tell you a true story? So we moved when the boys were, they were just three or nearly three, and that means we moved into the house. You know? We had bought the lot and we had built for a year. So we had been coming to Serenbe, but, you know, full time moved in and there’s, there tiny little chicken nuggets, right? Toddling along, and my son Wyatt, who’s the younger of the twins. He would cry because we were not getting in the car multiple times a day. He would say, “Why don't we take the car anywhere anymore? I miss the car.”

Allie (10m 24s): 
And we were like, “What? Why? You can’t miss the car, that's crazy.” And then one day we said, “Oh, you know, we’re going to go for a hike on the trail.” And he said, “Can we take the car? I want to take the car on the hike.” And we said, you know, “Why? The car can’t fit on the trail, and that’s actually not where the car is supposed to be anyways. Cars are on roads, we’re going on the trail.” And he broke out into tears, just sobbing that we could not get in the car to go on our hike, which I tell you that story because I think that the addiction to, you know, commutes and car transportation starts really early. And I think it’s, sometimes it seems normal to be in a car on a road and a concrete jungle, but it’s really not. And it can take a little bit of, like astronauts reentering into the Earth’s atmosphere. It can take a little bit of reinjury.

Monica (11m 24s): 
Yeah. Well that’s interesting Allie because of the work you do. So you’re the executive director of the Ray. So like that's kind of a perfect segue. Will you give us, like, an overview of what the Ray is and how it's tied into transportation? 

Allie (11m 40s): 
Absolutely. I Would be happy to. So I run a five oh one C3 nonprofit charity called The Ray. Our focus is on sustainable transportation and the infrastructure side of sustainable transportation. So I might know a lot about electric vehicles or connected or autonomous vehicles, but our focus at The Ray is really trying to understand how we can build more sustainable, safer, and smart infrastructure and the transportation sector. And specifically we're focused on highways and interstates for a very good reason. Our namesake has Ray Anderson, who was the founder and CEO of interface carpet company.

Allie: 
That was the first part of his career, was building this billion dollar business. He was the first to bring to market in the United States, the carpet tile. So he built his business over, I don't know, a 20 year period from the mid seventies to the mid nineties and gobbled up all the market share because all of the other carpet companies were still focused on wall-to-wall carpeting and Ray Anderson sort of bet the farm, if you will, on modular flooring and specifically the carpet tile. So he captured the market during the 1980s, when everything was going up, right, skyscrapers in high shoulder pads, high bangs, like everything was bigger, higher, you know, bigger, better.

Allie (13m 4s): 
And with skyscrapers, you know, you had modular offices with cubicles and the wiring needed to move to the flooring. So the carpet tile was perfect for, you know, that kind of new approach to office layouts in the skyscraper. So, you know, Ray took advantage of that market opportunity, you know, grew LaGrange business with, you know, three west Georgia boys into the dominant world leader in the production of modular flooring, active in 109 countries for over a billion dollars, you know, kind of checked off his bucket list. Right. Ray had always wanted to be a billionaire, a billion dollar CEO in the early 1990s during the Clinton era raid set some new goals for himself and for the company.

Allie (13m 56s): 
And I, I try to mark time by reminding us of the Clinton area, because I'm pretty sure I was still focused on, like, the Ozone Layer and whether or not my Aqua net hairspray was contributing to the degradation of the Ozone. Meanwhile, Ray Anderson was setting the goals of zero waste to landfill, zero carbon emissions, more renewable energy and more wastewater reuse during that time period. And it really blows my mind in this conversation we have in the 2020 is about decarbonization. That Ray Anderson was so far ahead in 1993 and 94 and 95 publicly saying “My flooring company is going to go zero carbon.” In the process of, you know, being bold enough to set those goals.

Allie (14m 41s): 
He ended up leading the world in the exploration of corporate sustainability and the circular economy. So he was the first to recycle old carpet and new carpet. In fact, the company still goes into landfills and basically dumpster dives for any carpet, not just their own, but they bring the old carpet out of landfills. They have entire warehouses full of old carpet, and then they shave off the fibers that we have the fibers into new carpet. It took them a little bit longer, but they also perfected the process of breaking the carpet backing down so that they can go from old backing and the new backing. And the whole reason for all of this is that Ray realized through a series of events that involved our good friends, John Picard, and Paul Hawkin, who, who have been to Serenbe many times and our good friends of Serenbe, but Ray realized the linear nature of his business.

Allie (15m 33s): 
He called a take make and waste, and he actually labeled himself a plunder because of that take may make ways method that had made all of that money for interface. He felt he used words like convicted. He felt personally convicted for being a plunder and for taking resources and wealth away from future generations by using raw petroleum to make the nylon and the backing for the carpet that was then, you know, how to useful life, maybe 10 or 20 years. And then I went into the landfills and as you know, carpet doesn't biodegrade, neither does scrap tires, right?

Allie (16m 14s): 
So, I mean, these are really onerous, massive waste issues that we have. And Ray decided to address them by going circular. You know, the amazing thing is that he set the goals with the 2020 deadline and the company announced ahead of that deadline, that they are zero carbon. Actually have a new line of carpet of carbon positive carpet that embodies more carbon in the carpet then it emitted in the manufacturing process. And instead of calling it carbon negative and buying into the whole carbon war room, sort of language methodology, the company is really learned from people like Paul Hawkin that we need to regard carbon as our ally and not our enemy.

Allie (17m 3s): 
And we need to be imagining ways that we can draw carbon from the atmosphere back down to earth, where we can love carbon into, you know, new products, into upcycled, you know, relevance or usability in our world. And so interface, even without Ray’s leadership interface continues to break barriers and set new goals for the rest of us to try to follow, you know, by, by creating carbon, not carbon negatives, but carbon positive products that make us feel more positively about and uplifting about, you know, how we can solve climate change by loving carbon and imagining carbon as you know, new products with new relevance in our world.

Allie (17m 53s): 
So that's kind of the legacy of Ray Anderson that my organization carries in its name. And in 2014, former governor Nathan Deal, and the Georgia state legislature put his name on a stretch of interstate 85 south of Serenbe. So if you were to take interstate 85 south towards the Georgia Alabama line at exit 18, you would see a brown DOT sign that says the Ray C Anderson Memorial highway. And that is the beginning of the 18 mile stretch of I-85 that was named in Ray Anderson's honor. And that's really the starting point. And the birthplace of the organization that I run is that very place-based designation of interstate corridor.

Allie (18m 42s): 
You know, the designation of Memorial highways and Memorial intersections is not all that in and of itself. Not all that unique in the state of Georgia. We like to, we like brown signs. There's a peer Howard interchange. There's, you know, right by my right by the Ray C Anderson Memorial highway. There's a highway name for, you know, a singer there's Alan Jackson Memorial highway. There's a Pearl Harbor highway that runs parallel to Ray's highway. So the designation of Memorial bridges and intersections and corridors in and of itself is not that unique, but what Ray’s surviving family did with the family foundation to support research, and eventually to support project activity around sustainable highways, concepts is what has made the REA really unique in the United States.

Monica (19m 39s): 
Well, And I knew that Steve, it looked like you were about to ask a question about the Ray you've been out there, Steve and seen it. I actually haven't been to the Ray. I've seen tons of great, you know, animations and videos, but I'd love Steve. Tell me when you've gone out. I mean, it's kind of blown your mind. 

Steve (19m 58s): 
Oh, I mean, the whole thing is amazing and I've often thought, you know, it's and somebody had said earlier that even without Ray, interface has continued, but, but re-established a complete culture. It's not only in his company, but in his daughters. And then that lives on through the foundation. And I think of Ray changing the way people cover their floors. And what you're doing with the Ray is you're going to change the highway systems in the world and how that covers our earth in a more friendly way. And it's, it's just incredible what y'all done.

Allie (20m 39s): 
Thank you. 

Monica (20m 40s): 
Well, Allie you did. I saw you do a Ted talk, a TEDx talk here in Atlanta. Gosh, maybe a year and a half ago. And that sort of, again, even knowing about the Ray, it really blew me away. I think the topic was like, you know, three technologies that will revolutionize the roads and highways. Can you dig into that a little bit, because I think it's really important for us to think about how expansive the road network and highway network is and what an impact if we sort of revolutionized it, it really could be for the country.

Allie (21m 13s): 
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I think that's what we're seeing with the new administration, by the way. I mean, we're seeing this focus with the Biden administration on the transportation sector, with decarbonization and with sustainable highways as a concept. The cool thing is that we've actually built a sustainable highway ecosystem on a working stretch of interstate with a state DOT and federal highway administration as our partners. So luckily kismet, you know, sometimes we feel like Ray is helping us from some divine place, but luckily we're in a position after five years of project activity with George at the OT that we actually have. Well, first of all, we changed the facts on the ground, right? So anyone who wants to say, oh, you can't do that in transportation. We don't do it that way. Well, we have changed the set of facts on the ground to say, no, actually you can do it. We've done it on the Ray highway and this is how we've done it. And you fundamentally change the conversation and you pivot to the opportunity instead of staying mired in the status quo. And the other thing is that, you know, sort of amorphous, or sort of just sort of vague to hear people talk about, you know, sustainable highways or sustainable transportation, there's never a lot of meat on the bones. And what we want to provide as a charity is, you know, here's the way we've approached it.

Allie (22m 39s): 
Here are the different technologies or the different innovations that are a part of the ecosystem. Here's the documented impact that we're having, you know, on human life, safety on carbon, on water pollution and air pollution and, and increasing productivity. So, you know, we can document everything that we've done and what impact we've had, and then we can help accelerate it and share it and facilitate similar projects in all the corners that we can in the country and of the world. So we've sort of proven that out. We've got more than a dozen projects in place on that 18 mile corridor. We have a formal charter that is permanent with Gita and with the federal highways administration.

Allie (23m 21s): 
So we're married and we also have a strategic operating plan. So, you know, we're sort of papered up in Georgia. We have expanded over the COVID year to 14 states total. So the Ray is actually doing project work across the country with 21 transportation agencies in 14 states. So even before this renewed emphasis on de-carbonization electrification and sustainable transportation, even before the election, we were already scaling. And in fact, we're about to announce a partnership in Texas with Texas DOT the city of Austin and several of their transportation organizations and given what the state of Texas has been going through, you know, with the winter storm crisis, we feel like we're in a perfect position to sort of prove out the fact that our energy and our transportation infrastructure has to modernize and has to become resilient in order for our society and our communities to continue to thrive in the face of changing climate conditions, right in the face of what filling Ford would call, whether we are hurting, we've got to figure out how to become more resilient in our infrastructure.

Allie (24m 39s):  
So, you know, some of the things that I focused on in the Ted talk that we can, can you to really work hard at, on the Ray with our partners in Georgia and across the country. Number one, you know, we're sort of used to seeing acres and acres and acres of roadside land when we're on road trips on the interstate. I don't know why, but it kind of looks like a yard, a front yard and suburbia, or a golf course. It's like, you know, turf grass, Bermuda, mowed short. You know, if there are bushes, they're very tailored, you know, sculpted bushes in the Atlanta area and in metropolitan areas across the Southeast.

Allie (25m 19s): 
And, you know, the environmental benefits are, are pretty limited with that kind of approach to roadside maintenance, you know, turf grass doesn't grow deep and complex root systems, which means that when you've got a lot of stormwater runoff during nasty weather events on the road, you don't have a complex root system to hold the soil from erosion and to keep the sediment from running into waterways. So we've got, therefore, we've got a lot of erosion and we have a hard time keeping the grass growing nicely. And the way the roadside soils are pretty degraded and their quality because of runoff, stormwater, runoff pollution. And they're just getting, you know, they're getting hit by direct sun.

Allie (26m 1s): 
They're getting hit by a lot of wind and they're getting hit by, you know, stormwater runoff during heavy rains, you know, as the storm waters moving quickly off of the pavement. So the roadsides are just not being cultivated for the best and highest use from a vegetation standpoint. And the other thing is that it's just all empty, right? And we sort of get used to seeing that, like, how would it be different? But what we've done at the Ray is on our own highway, we've developed a megawatt solar array using four and a half acres of the DOT road side that clean energy is going straight to the grid. It's a Georgia power project. So Georgia power customers are able to buy into that green and green energy through, through their solar programming.

Allie (26m 46s): 
And we were successful in getting the mandate that solar was also pollinator friendly. So we have removed the vegetation that was growing and have instead replaced it with native low growing pollinator Forbes or the flowering plants and grasses. So we're basically using transportation assets to stand up clean energy infrastructure with a crossover benefit to agriculture, because we're going to be supporting bees, butterflies and other pollinators on that four and a half acres of pollinator friendly property. And it's a 35 year project. So we'll be able to save, we'll be able to preserve that four and a half acres of pollinator friendly habitat for more than three decades. So that's what we've done on the Ray. Now the next step for us is to accelerate that kind of roadside activity and all of the 48 contiguous states. So we last fall released the published the first solar mapping tool for transportation agencies. We looked at every single exit on the 48 state interstate system and evaluated that exit property, you know, when you get off and it makes a diamond with the triangles, or it makes a Cloverleaf with the loops. We looked at all of that empty property, just at the exits and found that it was almost 53,000 acres of suitable property for solar that could support 22,000 megawatts of clean energy, which is enough power to, to power 12 million passenger EVs. 

Monica (28m 30s): 
What! That’s unbelievable. 

Allie (28m 33s): 
We have 20, we have enough property just available today on the interstate system at the exits alone to generate 22,000 megawatts of solar energy

Steve (28m 47s): 
And the exciting thing Allie is, is this moving the right thing or the environmental thing to do to the economic thing to do. And I think that's, that's the powerhouse. 

Allie: 
Yep. That's exactly right. These are great deals for DOTs, right? Our state DOT, just with our one megawatt site, doesn't have to, is not responsible for maintaining that property for the next 35 years. So on day one state DOTs, when, because when they, when they assign the land license or the land lease and turn the control of property over to the utility, the utility is then responsible for that property for the term of, of the arrangement or the term of the contract. 

Monica: 
That’s incredible. 

Allie (29m 29s): 
So they went on day one and then we've seen we're assisting Texas, Illinois, and Maine and Maryland right now with roadside solar initiatives in Maine, the DOT was able to number one, mandate that all the sites would be pollinator friendly. They're saving a total of $9 million on the DOT power bill through power purchase agreements that they negotiated. They're getting a land license fee for the 20 years that the contract period and they're keeping all of the renewable energy credits. The DOT and Maine is deciding to retire their renewable energy credits. But an alternative would be that you can make money from those wrecks on the renewable energy credit market. So I, when I talked to other DOTs about this, I remembered our Southern cakes, right? If you go down to Dublin or to Metter Georgia, you can stop at one of the barbecue restaurants and you can get the 16 layer caramel cake where someone has taken dental floss, and they have created 16 layers out of the yellow cake. And that's how I feel like these roadside projects can be packaged with benefit and leverage for the DOT. You know, you can reduce your outside costs, reduce your energy costs, and then layer on all of these other value centers as well.

Monica (30m 55s): 
Well, I feel like I just heard on a podcast that there's sort of this 20, 35, you know, clean energy, you know, research plan that came out in one event was, you know, if we can take what I think is 10% is solar and wind right now across the country. And how do we expand that? How do we bring more renewables? And one of them was saying that in order to do that, you would need, at least you would need at least two states the size of Connecticut covering, you know, solar that both of those states until you hear that and think like, well, how do we do that? Where is that land? But what you just told me is the land, or at least a part of the land,

Allie (31m 36s): 
It's a lot of the land. We don't have to go into, like, our farmlands or our grasslands to get the land. Now, there are ways where we can do agriculture and renewable energy together. There's a way to pasture, you know, sheep and goats and cows co-located with solar. So I don't want to, I don't want to discount any of those efforts, but this is publicly owned property. That's been a part of our interstate system, and this is what the DOTs call a compatible use, which means that we get to continue to prioritize the safety purpose of the roadsides, but it is a compatible use to also use that property for renewable energy generation. 

Allie (32m 18s): 
And then the other opportunities. So we've just talked about above ground, right? The terrestrial piece that we can see, but we're also focused on the below ground. So, you know, right now our energy grid is AC oriented and renewable energy is generated in DC, which means that every clean electron that we generate, we lose a part of that energy and converting it to AC energy, to put it on our grid. And the line losses end up being, like, significant. We're losing as much as 80% of the energy that we generate by converting it from DC to AC and then over long distances of line losses. And so what we're working on at the Ray, and it's actually something that the new secretary of energy, former governor Jennifer Granholm mentioned in her televised confirmation hearing, but we want to bury DC oriented transmission lines underneath the solar facilities on the right of way and the land that we already own.

Allie (33m 20s): 
And that way by building, you know, pipelines, if you will, of DC oriented energy, we can connect the west coast and the east coast markets with the renewable energy that's produced in the middle of the country. And along the Southern belt that joins the deserts with us in the Southeast. And it will also just bring clean energy to the road side, which is where we're going to need a lot more energy for whether it's hydrogen fuel cell powered or Evy, you know, medium and heavy duty freight. People don't understand that, you know, an 18 Wheeler or a class eight truck that's electric requires a megawatt or a megawatt half charger.

Allie (34m 2s): 
So if I use one truck on one megawatt and a half charging station that draws the power of 1200 American homes, so 1200 American homes worth of power for one charging session for one battery electric class, eight truck, we haven't done the math and America yet on this. We know we need to convert our medium and heavy duty fleet to being clean energy, but we haven't done the energy math on it. So what we're trying to do at the Ray is to generate clean energy above the brown, as a tourist, you know, as a terrestrial project concept or vision, but then under the ground, we want a Berry DC oriented transmission to provide not only the interstate system for travel, but the interstate system for electrons to get from where renewable energy is generated to where it's consumed on the coast.

Steve (34m 59s): 
And then Allie, you're doing a lot on the ground. Can you talk about the highways that can actually charge your car? 

Allie: 
Yeah, that's right. I was named to the board of the aspire center, which is the national science foundation center. That is the tip of the spear and America for wireless dynamic, Evy charging and Elaine. So we've proven that we can, that we can transfer up to 50 KW at highway speeds without any wires. What happens is you have coils in the pavement and the coils are able to distribute energy and a magnetic field received in the cars under carriage by our receiver.

Allie (35m 46s): 
And that receiver receives the energy safely from the magnetic field and brings it into the car's battery. It's going to require a megawatt per mile of energy input from the roadsides, which is why we really needed to focus on the energy piece of the transportation puzzle. They have to come together as one, you know, clean energy and clean transport ecosystem, but at a megawatt, a mile, we could charge your vehicle at the highest level of convenience while you're driving at highway speeds at 50 K w and the documented efficiencies of power transfer are 87% efficient or higher. We've documented 87 to 94% efficiency and power transfer while you're driving.

Steve (36m 34s): 
And so you can drive coast to coast and an electric car without stopping —

Allie: 
That’s the vision. 

Steve: 
To charge. 

Allie: 
That's the vision. 

Steve: 
And you've actually, you have test strips to do this. How, what, what's the longest strip?

Allie (36m 45s): 
Yeah, so Harriet and I raised, youngest daughter Harriet is the founder of the Ray and the president. She and I have been out to Utah, which is where the aspire center is headquartered. And they've got a, they've got a test track and a lab and Harriet, and I have actually driven around in a heavy electric bus watching the energy come in from the road, as it's received from the receiver, watching it on a, on a computer screen, validating the technology. It's going to change our world, and it's going to happen fast over the next, you know, 5-10 years. We're gonna see, we've already seen it with micro mobility, right? With e-bikes and with scooters, but we're going to see mass electrification. We are going to see more and more convenient ways to charge that electrified transportation. We're going to see further evolving fuel cell technology for the heavier trucks, and it will be a both and proposition for us. And then we're going to see, you know, air and that's, you know, there's a lot of opportunity for unmanned aerial vehicles or air taxis, you know, drones, carrying people.

Allie (38m 3s): 
There's going to be more and more opportunities for….. A close colleague of ours who used to be at US DOT. His name is John Porcari. He was the deputy secretary of DOT under Obama. He says that air taxis will fly the con-concrete compass using the rights of way. So we're going to be able to leverage this land, not only the subterranean peace for high voltage DC transmission, and also broadband, right? We'll be able to do that. We'll be able to bridge the digital divide and the clean energy transmission divide with the same single project. But we're also using the same roadside, gonna build solar and wind at scale. And then we'll be able to have, you know, next generation air taxi, or a drone technology flying the concrete compass of the interstates using the right of way

Monica: 
It's mind-blowing. 

Allie (38m 58s): 
In fact, the United airlines just invested 2 billion and air taxis as a way to take people to the airport without having to fight congestion and, and fight for parking.

Steve (39m 13s): 
And this is all technology that's happening right now. It's just a matter of when it scales and is affordable. I mean, this is around the corner.

Allie: 
That's right. So we have to have a culture of, yes. And getting the federal government to adopt into that culture of, yes, we have that opportunity before us, over the next four years, we've got, you know, the mindset of at the federal government level of allowing autonomy, allowing more and varied use of drones, of unmanned aerial vehicles. And for the first time you have a secretary of energy reaching out to the secretary of transportation, people to judge and saying, I can't wait to work with you on these projects, never before in America's history, have the energy and transportation sectors at the highest level come together in collaboration and partnership like that.

Allie (40m 8s): 
So we've got the culture of yes. Happening at the national level and what the race seeks to do is to work at the state and local level to bring everyone along. We've got to get on the same sheet of music. So we're all playing the same song. And then we're out there in the chorus trying to make sure that we can bring, you know, all 50 states and certainly the 48 contiguous states as quickly into this future, as we can, because it's going to create jobs and it's going to be great economic development. Yes. And yes, but we also have a limited window of time to think and act boldly around climate change and around carbon and around sustainable systems that look more like, well, what Ray built at interface?

Steve (40m 50s): 
Not only aren't you working with other countries as well?

Allie: 
We are, yes. We'll actually be participating in the Australia Multi-day Sustainability Fest, which is coming up, it's called Forever Fast. We do a lot of work with the EU and with the UK, we used to host people every week on the Ray highway. We were, we were hosting tours of the interstate. If you can even imagine that I understand why people come to Serenbe, but it is a totally different ball when people fly into Hartsfield and say, when can we go down to the highway? And we used to do that, you know, once, twice, even, you know, three or four times a week before COVID, and we're, we're really looking forward to getting back to, you know, to that kind of community again, where we can be together and, and, and be, you know, having the kinds of breaking bread and having the kinds of problem solving conversations that we were, that we were so fond of before the pandemic.

Monica (41m 55s): 
Yeah, no, this is incredible. And the, in the hopefulness, the positivity tied into the metrics, I think is so important, right? Because nobody believes it until, you know, kind of it's on paper. It's just incredible Allie, what you're doing.

Allie (42m 12s): 
Yeah. I tell a story because I think this is really, it brings it back to Ray Anderson. So his daughter, Harriet, goes to the state Capitol in 2014 for the signing of the house resolution by the governor. And she's driving back home to LaGrange where she and Phil live and Ray's old house with Shugg, right. So they go back to the Anderson home and Harriet and Phil are sharing a celebratory adult beverage on the back porch, overlooking Pinewoods lake. And Harriet looks at Phil and she says, “Oh, hell, Phil, I've just put the name of the greenest industrialist in the century on a damn dirty highway. Now, what are we going to do?” And he said, “Harriet, what do you mean dirty highway?” And she says, and Steve will, no, this is, sounds so much like Harry that must be true. She says, “Well, Phil, think about it, right? Every time it rains, the stormwater pollution, the vehicles are emitting carbon. People are dying by the thousands on our roadways system. They're scrap tires, tire shreds, litter on the side of the road,” She goes <inaudible> down the list. And then she says, “What's sustainable about a highway.” Right? So she's had the epiphany just like her dad. She doesn't know why, but she's like, “Oh, I just put Ray Anderson's name on a highway.” That was her Pitney. And then she starts to catalog the work that she has to do. She's not afraid of it. She's boldly saying, here's the, here's the challenge. And, and Phil says, “All right.” He gets this, he gets a smart phone out. And he says, “I'm going to Google it.” And he Google's sustainable highway in 2014. And, you know, I came back?

Allie (44m 7s): 
Nothing, nothing. So that's, that's where we're starting from. I mean, we're starting from a family legacy and just DNA. Right? Problem solving boldly. No, I don't know how to get there, but I know how to take the first step. I know how to ask the question. What's a sustainable highway? Right? And so, yeah, I mean, we've, we've done what, I mean, honestly, not many people thought that we could work in the state of Georgia with federal highways administration and with Georgia got to build out a sustainable highway and they were also sort of scratching their heads saying, why would you want to do that anyway? And here we are in 2021, and we're the premier test bed in the United States for transportation technology, proving out the concept of sustainable highways. And it's here in Georgia. And we're just trying to share it with the world as fast as we can.

Steve (45m 7s): 
And then you will bring major jobs or can bring major jobs to the market. And that’s one of the big things. And I remember the first board meeting where Harriet rolled out and they were fairly modest. I mean, by comparison to what you're doing today, it seemed challenging. They, you know, and, and everyone that thought, well, I don't know, you know, if you know, can you do this? And now you have so blown away, even the wildest dreams that Harriet had in those first moments. 

Allie (45m 38s): 
Yeah. My favorite project is the one that feels most like Ray. We were able to upcycle nearly 45,000 pounds of scrap tire rubber into one mile of road resurfacing. The federal highway administration gave us the permission and paid for one mile of our 18 mile stretch to be resurfaced and rubberized at fault. And in the, in the paving of that one mile of the Ray, we got rid of 45,000 pounds of scrap tires straight out of the landfill that we're never going to break down. They were never going to biodegrade in the landfill. They were going to be with us forever. And now we've transformed that waste into a higher performing really safe roadway surface.

Steve (46m 21s): 
Well, I  mean, the economics work, as I remember, because while it's more expensive, the life of that highway is much longer and it, it it's maybe a cash flow issue, but it's certainly an economic no-brainer if you will, for departments of transportation. 

Monica: 
Well, especially—

Allie: 
That’s right. 

Monica: 
Especially now that the department of transportation is going to be saving all this money. 

Allie: 
That's right. And making all this money

Monica: 
Exactly. They can reinvest. Well, Allie, I want to ask you one last question. Well, I guess I should ask one, two, last questions. One. How can people connect with you guys and how can they help and how can they, you know, amplify your story? Tell us, tell us where to find you

Allie (47m 1s):
Sure thing, so we have a website which is theray.org, therapy.org. And we’ve got tons of materials on the website, also some really cool videos, and you can reach me through the website too. I’m just, well for Serenbe, I’m around the corner, but you can reach me at allie@theray.org. We’re also very prolific on social media. We’re on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook at The Ray Highway. So those are two of the easiest ways to get up to speed and to get involved. We have a volunteer program. So let me know if you want to volunteer for the Ray Highway. We also have a virtual reality version of the Ray and experience that we can do over zoom, over teams. We didn’t realize we were going to have the pandemic, obviously, but we thought we would. We wanted to be able when we were on the speaker circuit, right? We wanted to be able to take the VR headset with us and invite people to ride The Ray right there, you know? At the conference center in the hallway and we developed it right when the pandemic hit. In fact, we unveiled it. We were featured at the giant construction expo out in Las Vegas called Con Ag– Con Expo. They actually rebuilt the Ray as a part of their expo, and I was out there in Vegas for two days. The week that we shut down, I was backed by Friday the 13th, with a group from Pirelli Tire from Italy. If you can believe that! 

Monica (48m 29s): 
I had Italians and New Yorkers on The Ray Highway, the day that we shut down the state for the pandemic, and so we had just debuted the VR experience in Vegas that week. And so during the pandemic, we’d still been riding The Ray with hosting friends, you know, using that VR experience. So can easily do that as well for anyone who’s interested in diving a little bit deeper into any of the projects that we’re doing on The Ray. 

Monica (48m 56s): 
Brilliant! And then the last question I want to ask is back to Serenbe. What’s the one thing you want people to know about Serenbe as an insider? 

Allie: 
Wow. I mean, as an insider, I love Ray-Way. I know where Ray-Way is, and I know what Ray-Way means, and so as an insider, you know, I, I love that the family, I love so much and I’m so devoted to, and the legacy that I try to live up to every day of my life is represent in my own community. That is really, really special for me and my family. So you know, maybe I would challenge people to try to go find Ray away. 

Monica (49m 51s): 
That’s great. I love it. 

Steve: 
Or Allie, I have another challenge for them. Can they find Ray’s Memorial Chair with the box that has his book in it? 

Allie (50m 3s): 
Wow. 

Monica: 
That’s a good one. 

Allie: 
I’m going to sign up for, I’m going to sign up for that one <inaudible>

Monica (50m 11s): 
Me too, I like that. Well, Allie, thank you so much for all your time and your inspiration and thanks for being a neighbor and finding us. And we look forward to hearing more about The Ray and championing all the work you’ve been doing. 

Allie (50m 27s): 
No, I appreciate the opportunity to tell my story and to talk about The Ray. 

Monica: 
We’re here for you. 

Steve (50m 33s): 
We’re so proud of what you and Harriet and the foundation are doing and, and thrilled that you chose to move your family here. And of course your husband’s gift could tell a whole story too, on, on nature and, and you know, the states. So number one, birder, I think still, so it’s just great having your whole family. 

Monica (5m 56s): 
We might have to do a follow-up with them. 

Steve: 
That’s right. 

Allie: 
Yes, just be prepared. Tell him not to use scientific names. That’s going to be important. I’ll just, I just want to end by saying, like, I feel like I’m the luckiest person on the planet because I get to live in Serenbe, which is the best place, and I have the best job. So thanks for, thanks for letting me, I guess, gloat on your podcast because I felt pretty darn lucky. 

Monica (51m 21s): 
We’re lucky to have you. 

Steve: 
I wish all of our listeners could see the glow in your face. That would be great. So thanks so much Allie. 

Monica: 
Thank you. 

Monica (51m 31s): 
Thank you for listening to Serenbe Stories, new episodes are available on Mondays. Please subscribe and leave us a review and visit our website to learn more about guests, episodes, and everything Serenbe at serenbestories.com. This episode is supported by the Inn at Serenbe. Nestled in the rolling countryside of a bucolic Serenbe where guests can walk on the 15 miles of trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village. Relax at the pool, hot tub, or in the rocking chairs on a wraparound porch. Play on the croquet lawn, grab a canoe, or jump on the Inn Ground trampoline. Connect with nature and each other all while staying in a luxurious space at the Inn at Serenbe. Book your stay today at serenbeinn.com. S-E-R-E-N-B-E-I-N-N .com