Riding an electric school bus seems like it would be a strange experience. As a child, I remember the bus being a loud and smoky place that left me smelling like diesel. Today there are electric buses on the road that are not only emission-free but also relatively silent. Kids can’t just talk to their friends on the bus, they can breathe.
First all-electric school bus fleet to serve a major school district Began taking children to classes in Oakland, Californialast week 74 buses Also works as a giant battery When they’re not moving: They plug in and are supplying enough electricity to the local grid to power about 400 homes. I don’t know about you, but my child self would have been thrilled by this futuristic reality and hoped flying cars were just around the corner.
Electric school buses are here and can solve many problems: prevent diesel pollution from harming children’s health, release less greenhouse gases that are warming the earth, and provide energy storage where you least expect it.
The roadblocks that prevent every kid from getting on an electric school bus aren’t going away, even as the federal government pours billions of dollars into electrification efforts. Substitute roughly 480,000 school buses Roads are already a big enough cost in the US, but the big challenge is upgrading the power grid so it can support the charging infrastructure to keep these fleets on the road.
Finding this problem is more than worthwhile. Diesel exhaust, a known carcinogen, can also do that Causes of asthma And Loss of academic performanceDisproportionately affects Black, Latino, Indigenous, and low-income communities who ride the bus more often And there is also a lack of access to healthcare. the children particularly weak To be harmed by air pollution from diesel school buses, not only because their bodies are still developing, but also because they can spend hours inhaling fumes on long routes. Electric school bus Also very quietWhich is good for the ears of both the child and the driver. Cleaner buses have even been linked High school attendance.
School buses carry more than 26 million children each year Largest public transport system in the country. The number of vehicles for each school bus on the morning-afternoon route is less. Nevertheless, since 90 percent of the country’s school buses are diesel-powered, the carbon footprint of the fleet is significant. Diesel- and natural gas-fueled buses About 9 million metric tons of greenhouse gases are emitted annuallyThat is equal to the emissions produced by generating electricity for one million homes annually. Electrifying all these buses is equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.
So electrifying this fleet is a no-brainer. Not only would it reduce toxic emissions by a huge amount, filling the streets with electric school buses would also save a ton of money. School bus maker Blue Bird says its electric school bus 14 cents per mile cost To work against 49 cents for diesel buses.
Not counting the revenue that school districts can generate by using these buses as giant batteries. Because they operate on a fixed schedule, electric school buses are uniquely suited Sell excess energy to the grid During peak hours, when they are not being used. In Oakland, these two-way chargers and an upgrade to the grid are needed to accommodate the 2.7 MW needed to charge the bus fleet. Although federal funds helped pay for the buses, local utility PG&E, Grid update cover.
But not every school district, like Oakland, is sending dozens of new electric school buses onto the route at once. As this is happening across the country, school districts are also committing to purchasing electric school buses In 49 states as well as US territories and several tribal nationsCurrently 200,000 students are picked up and dropped off by electric school buses. According to Sue Gander, director of the World Resources Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative, the shift is happening as older diesel buses are phased out and school districts roll out one or five electric buses at a time.
“At this point, we’re in a transition period that’s about replacing your old buses that are wearing out with new electric versions,” Gander told me. “There’s still a lot of capacity on the grid available to do that.”
The transition to electric school buses is growing at an impressive rate thanks, in part, to increased state and federal funding to support the effort. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act established the five-year, $5 billion Clean School Bus Program, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, to help local school districts purchase electric buses. Some states have their own Rebate ProgramWhile New York is a step ahead by all new requirements Purchase of school buses must be electric Starts in 2027 and provides $500 million to pay for it.
Also using money from many states $2.9 billion trust fund that came out of Volkswagen diesel settlement in 2017 and 2018 To buy electric school buses and upgrade their charging infrastructure.
With an upfront cost of about $350,000, an electric school bus costs three times more than a diesel one. Some of this difference can be made up through fuel and maintenance savings, not to mention available public money. Fund that wave A ghazal led Number of electric school buses. 485 new electric school buses hit the road in 2020, this is the number new bus In 2023 there were 3,267. If you count what school districts and private operators have committed to, there are more than 12,000 electric school buses on the road. This is about 2.5 percent of the total number needed to replace the country’s fleet of diesel school buses.
despite can you readAll this money does not make the electric school bus free. A EPA Internal Watchdog Report Last year said school districts don’t have a problem buying electric buses, but they have trouble finding enough power from the grid to charge them. Federal rebates available for electric school bus purchases typically do not include the cost of upgrading local utility infrastructure, including new transformers and more transmission lines, which can take nine months to two years to install.
Still, by the end of the decade, you’ll see thousands more electric school buses on the road. The big question then is whether kids will drive them.
About 40 percent of children go to school by bus As recently as 2009Ridership has declined due to various reasons including Lack of bus drivers And Increasing suburban sprawl Schools are being pushed to the edges of cities instead of the center where children can walk to school.
That school pick up line bends In a hellish scene of idle cars and SUVs Spreading their own emissions on the sidewalk, where children wait for their parents. Just imagine if they could spend that time talking to their friends on a quiet, new electric school bus breathing fresh, clean air.
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