The propane industry’s weird obsession with school buses, explained
The propane industry’s weird obsession with school buses, explained
Electric school buses are better for kids’ health. The propane industry has other ideas.
the propane industry sees an opportunity to seize a share of the auto sector. Its representatives are working hard to convince public officials to switch to propane-fueled school buses, which they claim are “near-zero emissions” vehicles that are better for kids and the climate.
Except — that’s not true. Propane is still a polluting fuel: While it is refined differently than diesel and natural gas and combusted in uniquely styled engines, it still has a measurable impact on air quality and the climate. If PERC’s deceptive marketing to children, parents, and school administrators is successful, the propane industry threatens to lock in fossil fuels and their polluting emissions for another generation of schoolchildren.
A burning fuel will generally always have combustion byproducts
I don't think you need to hedge with "generally", I'm going to say it always has combustion products, and CO2 is the most benign gas product you can really hope for. In this case you're burning carbon and hydrogen with oxygen to create carbon dioxide and water, and there really is a limit to how much energy you can extract from each molecule reacted. There's no way around that, it's a physical limitation.
I don't know what kind of reaction doesn't have by-products, maybe antimatter annihilation.
Fusion reactors have helium by-product which can be harvested I guess.
Point is you need to get pretty exotic and leave the realms of chemistry to get something with "near zero emmissions".
My work is trying to engineer a design /plan for electric school busses connected to the grid.
They are only used for 4-6 hours a day and are stationary the rest. Perfect resource to keep plugged into the grid and help stabilize demand. Our initial study shows they could potentially pay for themselves, but at the very least subsidize their own cost quite significantly.
Given that they're stationary for so long, doesn't that make a compelling case for batteries? Surely vehicles in continuous use benefit more from being connected to the grid. Forgive me if this is naive!
They need enough battery power to do their rounds. Outside that however, that same battery can act as a power bank to the mains. Effectively you can buy electricity when it's momentarily cheap, and sell it back when the price spikes. So long as it's charged for the next run, it's fine.
This provides buffering to the system for intermittent sources e.g. solar, as well as making money from idle busses.
I hate school busses so much. The town should have a bus system. The whole line up of busses at schools puts pollutants all over kids going home. Every single day.
Lots of people all going to the same place at the same time makes a dedicated bus route for it useful. The problem is the use of fossil fuels, not the use of a school bus.
How do rural children get to school then?
Bike, tractor, dirt bike, atv, bull dozer... you know, the normal ways.
Still a bus! Yeah I can see why that might be better as a school bus.