A longtime clean energy supporter recognized by community.
Chicago Area Clean Cities, a nonprofit coalition of government and corporate organizations promoting use of clean fuels for clean air in Chicago and throughout Illinois, honored Marcy Rood of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory as a Clean Fuels Champion for her committed support of clean fuels initiatives.
Rood, a principal environmental transportation analyst and technology integration manager who leads an Argonne team of technical experts supporting DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office’s Technology Integration program and its Clean Cities Network, has long-standing ties to Clean Cities. She held management positions within the program and is a former deputy director of Clean Cities at DOE. (The Vehicle Technologies Office is part of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.)
“We need to set the stage for future generations so that they will have clean vehicles accessible to all, and trucks and buses that are emissions free.” — Marcy Rood, Energy Systems division
She was also recently named deputy director and chief operations officer of the action center for the Net Zero World Initiative, a multilaboratory effort to accelerate global energy system decarbonization and worldwide investment in net-zero energy systems.
Since 1995, Rood has helped Clean Cities grow from one coalition (the city of Atlanta) with seven stakeholders to a network of more than 75 coalitions with roughly 18,000 diverse stakeholders. Together, the coalitions prevented nearly 5 million tons in emissions in 2020, according to the Clean Cities Coalitions 2020 Annual Activity Report.
“While the goal of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 was to reduce our dependence on imported petroleum, and we at the federal level were working toward energy independence and security; cities were joining the voluntary Clean Cities program because of the clean air benefits of alternative fuel vehicles,” said Rood. “We always managed to find a role and a value to communities and fleets to save on fuel costs and to improve air quality, while supporting national goals.”
Coalitions were well positioned to take on new clean transportation initiatives as industry and government priorities changed. DOE nurtured these coalitions by providing tools and resources based on technical analysis from the national laboratory system and fostering peer exchange opportunities between Clean Cites coordinators.
In addition to promoting clean fuels and clean air nationally and in Illinois, Rood helped internationally. For instance, she supported the U.S. natural gas vehicle industry as it identified opportunities and expanded its reach in transportation markets abroad. She also assisted other countries in adopting the Clean Cities model.
Over the years, work varied by types of fuels, vehicle technologies and intended audiences, but Rood steadfastly worked with industry and coalition stakeholders to build stronger transportation markets and provide resources such as emissions and total cost of ownership analyses for greater adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, electric vehicles, idle-reduction technologies and telematics. Telematics is the global navigation satellite system technology integrated with automotive navigation systems that aid communication with and control of vehicles on the move.
Today, she and the team of analysts at Argonne continue to help state and city planners, fleet managers and utilities with building clean transportation programs and seizing funding opportunities. In more recent years, Argonne’s team has also supported DOE’s efforts to educate consumers about the purchase and charging of an electric vehicle.
“Clean Cities promotes all alternative fuels — propane, renewable natural gas or natural gas, biofuels, electrification and more,” said Rood. “There are a ton of resources that DOE offers through its national lab system to support industry and fleets, and to provide information to the general public.”
Rood shared her hopes for future Clean Fuels Champions.
“My hope is that advanced vehicle technologies can be adopted into the everyday lives of individuals in rural areas, over-burdened urban areas and tribal areas,” said Rood. “I’d also like to see trucks that operate in dense urban areas run on a clean fuel, such as hydrogen, electric or renewable natural gas. We need to set the stage for future generations so that they will have clean vehicles accessible to all, and trucks and buses are emissions free.”
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) mission is to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050, and ensure the clean energy economy benefits all Americans, creating good paying jobs for the American people — especially workers and communities impacted by the energy transition and those historically underserved by the energy system and overburdened by pollution.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.