The big picture: How electric buses could change the world

[Judi Lynn]

Henrietta Reily11 mins ago



Electric buses are set to command the bus market worldwide by the late 2020s — and, in 2040, they could make up 80% of the global municipal bus fleet, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

Why it matters: While personal electric vehicle penetration has grown more slowly than many advocates hoped, buses are a more practical means of achieving greater levels of implementation across the world. According to BNEF, nearly all electric buses will have a lower cost of ownership than conventional buses by next year.

BYD is the world's largest electrical vehicle manufacturer, and Bobby Hill, the company's VP of North American sales, spoke to Axios about their growth.

The big picture: China has invested more in electric buses than any other nation, accounting for 99% of global e-bus purchases in 2017. According to Hill, China was just the right place for the technology to take off. "The air quality has been bad for years," he said, "and the government and cities found that it could be rapidly improved if they removed emissions from the largest vehicles on the road." In Shenzhen, China, where BYD is based, 100% of public buses are electric, the first city to attain that goal.

More:
https://www.axios.com/electric-buses-china-united-states-byd-los-angeles-e872ae5a-bb3a-455b-abc4-b98ce6f9d8db.html

[Champion Jack]

1. Bobby Hill.....?

[NNadir]

2. An electric vehicle in a fossil fueled country is a thermodynamic and ethical disaster.

In China, which still has the fastest growing coal industry in the world, it's an ethical disaster.

It never ceases to amaze me how many Americans push this horseshit about electric vehicles around as if all the world's electricity comes out of a wall socket. It doesn't. It is generated, and the most important thing about electricity is how it is generated.

It is a sign of grotesque scientific ignorance, a complete and total disregard for the second law of thermodynamics which states that any energy transformation from one form to another will waste energy. Since clean energy is growing much, much, much slower than dirty energy - fossil fuel energy mainly, although neither the much hyped solar and wind industries can be called "clean" - the use of electric vehicles generally makes things worse, not better.

In China, a few years ago it was reported in the primary scientific literature that electric cars are actually dirtier than gasoline cars when measured in terms of fatalities attributable to air pollution.

Electric Vehicles in China: Emissions and Health Impacts (Marshall et al Environ. Sci. Technol., 2012, 46 (4), pp 2018–202

For EVs, combustion emissions occur where electricity is generated rather than where the vehicle is used.9−11 In China, 85% of electricity production is from fossil fuels, of which ∼90% is from coal. Most electricity generating units (EGUs) in China lack advanced pollution controls. Compared to typical vehicle emissions, EGUs are often located further from population centers; therefore, the exposure and health impacts per mass emitted tend to be lower for EGUs than for CVs.12−15 The net result for China is that it is unclear a priori whether EVs are an environmental health benefit or disbenefit relative to CVs.

Prior research on environmental impacts of EVs in China9,16 and elsewhere17−21 generally compares emission factors or greenhouse gas emissions,22−25 not exposures, intakes, or health effects. Our article works to address this important knowledge gap.

The paper shows (Figure 3 therein) that in China, an electric car produces 4 times as PM2.5 (the worst class of particulates in health terms) and about 50% more NOx.

Now it is true that a bus is cleaner than any type of car, but it is not clear than electric buses in China (or anywhere else) are necessarily cleaner than the direct use of a dangerous fossil fuel. For synthetic fuels made by the reduction of carbon dioxide, in particular DME, there would be no contest.

The reason we are failing to address climate change, and air pollution deaths, is that we believe absurd myths, that is, we lie to ourselves.

Have a Happy Fourth of July.

[Finishline42]

3. Actually it's a step or two in the right direction.

Centralize power generation is much more efficient than having millions of vehicles running around creating their own power with fossil fuels. The batteries could be charged off peak when the power plant turbines are turning creating electricity that nobody is using.

You also completely ignore that the electricity to power the buses could be generated from wind or solar sources thus negating the need to burn coal.

In one respect I agree with you though, it's only a couple of steps in the right direction when we should be running.

edited to add link to LA Times story on going from natgas powered buses to electric (they retired last diesel bus years ago). Story is from a year ago.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-metro-electric-buses-20170721-story.html