Plugging in School Buses

Happy Earth Day eveyone! Here's a snippet from A Siegel's diary on Daily Kos about recent measures the Obama administration is taking:

Hybrids are too often thought of simply in terms of personal vehicles.

They are also penetrating the big vehicle market space. Consider the average delivery truck and all its starts/stops. There is a lot of energy to capture there, which is why UPS is pursuing hybrids. And, as per Walmart and its hybrid trucks, they are hitting the semi-trailer world. There are also efforts to apply hybrids to trash trucksand offer the opportunity to silence those squealing brakes at 5:45 am. Ann Arbor, Michigan, has started to get hybrid buses as is London. And, well, now they're coming to a school system (maybe) near you.

The Department of Energy just announced $10 million to go to another round of plug-in school bus development, to fund some 60 buses in a second round of testing.

For a number of years, there has been a Plug-In Hybrid Electric school Bus (PHEB, though I prefer PHESB) test program.

Last week, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced a $10 million grant to Navistar to fund about half the program to build and test some 60 PHEBs

"These projects will help move technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace by improving their durability, reducing their costs, and validating their performance in real-world settings," said Secretary Chu. "By investing in the vehicles of the future, we will create new jobs while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and improving our environment."

This is great, that there is more money going into this arena and that PHEBs are on the Secretary's radar scope.