Union bus manufacturers like Thomas Built, BYD, and IC Bus (Navistar) are building these buses in facilities where wages, benefits, and worker voices help ensure that electrification creates strong communities and jobs that you can raise a family on. These clean buses are also good for the local and U.S.
In total, EPA is making a $5 billion investment over 5 years to replace polluting school buses with clean vehicles. The federal government is also making big waves to help school districts electrify their fleets: The EPA recently doubled the first year of funding for the Clean School Bus Program to nearly $1 billion for school districts in all 50 states, all thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. When the Antelope Valley Transit District converted its public transit bus fleet from diesel buses to electric, it quickly tallied well over a million dollars in fuel savings. Electric buses eliminate this uncertainty and save serious money. In 2022, the cost of diesel went through the same cost spikes as gasoline, complicating the finances of school districts nationwide. When they’re not carrying kids to and from school or field trips, buses sit idle and can recharge when renewable energy production is high and electricity is cheapest on our grid. And fueling a vehicle on electricity has always been cheaper than gas or diesel fuel: A few years ago, Chicago estimated that each of its electric transit buses saves $25,000 per year in fuel costs. Electric vehicles are cheaper to maintain than internal combustion engines, with far fewer moving parts. It saves the school district money and helps the local economy. The magic electric school bus doesn’t just protect kids’ health and our climate. ⚡️ #RightToZero #CleanRide4Kids /qNTozfPHeC- ATHENA September 22, 2021 Check out the magic electric school bus! This is the biggest - and by far the most exciting - EV I've ever driven. Kids deserve a ride to school that won't pollute their neighborhood. This is pollution we can start cutting now.
In California, for example, 41% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. The average loss of lung function is about equal to growing up in a home with parents who smoke.Īnd it goes without saying that combustion engine buses – whether they run on diesel or on fossil gas pump out climate pollution that cooks our planet’s climate. Research shows that children who grow up in more polluted areas are at greater risk for reduced lung growth, from which they may never recover. Their lungs aren’t fully developed, and they tend to be outside and active more than adults – meaning they breathe in more of whatever junk is in the air. The roughly 40 children on a bus inhale as much or more bus-generated pollution than is inhaled by the entire surrounding community.Ĭhildren are particularly vulnerable to harm from air pollution. Diesel exhaust produces some of the dirtiest, most toxic pollution in existence that fouls the air in our neighborhoods and directly hurts kids riding in diesel buses.Ī 2005 UC Berkeley study looked at pollution from southern California school buses and found that a disturbingly large amount of that pollution gets inside the buses, where the kids riding the bus then breathe it in. There are so many reasons to electrify school buses it’s actually difficult to list them all, but let’s start with health. It’s time to hit the accelerator on clean rides for kids. It truly doesn’t get much better than this.įederal climate bills passed this year made billions available for electric school buses, putting school districts in a prime position to move ahead on electric school buses. The magic electric school bus not only gets kids to school with no exhaust and no pollution, it saves school districts money, creates jobs, protects the climate, and helps communities with a backup energy supply. are starting to convert their fleets from dirty diesel buses to pollution-free electric ones, sparking a transformation in how the country’s 25 million schoolkids get to school every day. What if schoolkids could ride a magic carpet to school – swift, smooth, silent, with no tailpipe and no exhaust fumes? Alas, magic carpets don’t exist anywhere except in cartoons – but electric school buses do, and they come pretty close.
0 kommentar(er)
