Energy Exchange

Leadership, bold action needed to scale electric trucks and buses

By Jason Mathers / Published: July 6, 2021

A recent report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance highlights the urgent need for policymakers to prioritize truck electrification, which could have sweeping benefits for the climate, public health, and American jobs. The annual EV outlook includes (for the first time) a comparison of the zero-emission vehicle adoption path needed to achieve net-zero by 2050, as well as a business-as-usual scenario where fleet operators continued to externalize the health and climate damage from operating combustion trucks.

For large trucks and buses, the difference between these scenarios is stark. According the BNEF summary, “by 2040, zero-emission medium and heavy commercial vehicles are 95% of sales in our Net Zero Scenario, but just 30% in the ETS. This represents an ‘adoption gap’ of 65 percentage points in 2040.”

Posted in Air Quality, California, Electric Vehicles, New Jersey / Comments are closed

New bill will make it easier, cheaper to buy electric trucks and buses

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 22, 2021

By Michael Colvin and Lauren Navarro

A new bill making its way through the California Legislature has the potential to help accelerate the much-needed transition to electric vehicles.

The law, Senate Bill 372, would create state programs that help owners of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses pay for the costs of replacing their diesel-fueled fleets with cleaner, zero-emissions alternatives.

Medium- and heavy-duty trucks create massive amounts of air pollution. This pollution deteriorates air quality and can exacerbate serious health problems for people who suffer from asthma and other respiratory conditions. The pollution is particularly bad along shipping routes and near warehouses, many of which are located in and around low-income communities. So replacing these vehicles with cleaner, zero-polluting versions will immediately improve outcomes for these vulnerable populations.

Posted in Air Quality, California, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

From carbon accounting to carbon accountability: It’s time for banks to step up

By Ben Ratner / Published: March 31, 2021

The Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials recently welcomed its 100th member, a milestone that reflects banks’ growing focus on measuring financed emissions. But while robust carbon accounting is necessary for the long term, it is no substitute for action now. To pick up the pace of Paris alignment, banks must begin targeting financed emissions in carbon-intensive sectors immediately.

Improving data and disclosure is a valid long game, with mandatory climate risk disclosure and corporate leadership playing important roles. But financial institutions already have many of the tools and much of the data points needed to ramp up action in carbon-intensive sectors.

Posted in Methane, Methane regulatons / Comments are closed

A teachable moment: Zero-emission school buses are a winning proposition

By Larissa Koehler / Published: February 25, 2021

Every pre-COVID school day, approximately 480,000 school buses carry more than 25 million children to school across the United States. Most of them run on diesel fuel and spew pollution that causes cancer, triggers asthma attacks and makes climate change worse. Indeed, of the over 40,000 school buses registered in the U.S. in 2019, only 240 were zero-emission (and only about 1% of school buses are electric). This picture will not improve without intervention — barring additional measures, only 27,000 of the projected 560,000 school buses that will be built in the next 10 years will be electric.

Luckily, that intervention is starting to arrive. Today, Senator Cortez-Masto (D-NV), Senator Murray (D-WA), Representative Cardenas (D-CA) and Representative Hayes (D-CT) introduced the Clean School Bus Act a groundbreaking piece of legislation that will provide grants for infrastructure and vehicles, with an emphasis on deploying them in communities hardest hit by health-impacting air pollution.

Posted in Air Quality, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

A 100% clean transportation future requires smart electricity pricing for trucks and buses

By EDF Blogs / Published: October 13, 2020

By Elizabeth B. Stein and Beia Spiller

Zero-emission solutions for trucks and buses have arrived. But converting fleets from fossil fuels to electricity requires more than new vehicles and chargers. It will require smart electricity pricing to ensure that new demand from these power-hungry vehicles doesn’t break the grid, and that costs remain manageable for fleet owners, utilities and all customers.

Making good use of the grid at times when it would otherwise be underutilized keeps electric rates low for all customers. For passenger vehicles that are charged at homes, pricing structures that encourage charging when demand is low and clean electricity is plentiful have produced great results for car owners, the electric system and the planet.

Getting similar win-win-win outcomes for trucks and buses will be more complex, though achievable with the right policies and rate structures.

Posted in California, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

Electrifying trucks and buses is an opportunity for lasting change, one we can’t afford to miss

By Jason Mathers / Published: July 6, 2020

The U.S. is still struggling to contain the spread of COVID-19 and quantify the human and economic consequences of this historic tragedy. But already, leaders are contemplating how we’ll restore our economies. Will we rebuild a replica of what we had, or will we invest in ideas that will make society more resilient, healthier, cleaner and more equitable?

The transportation sector is on the cusp of massive change, and one segment within it is ripe for reinvention: medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. These include everything from semi-trucks and delivery vans, to city buses and garbage trucks — the overwhelming majority of which are powered by diesel engines.

Electrifying this segment was an opportunity for lasting change before the COVID-19 economic crash. Now that countries are considering where to invest to rebuild their economies, it’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.

Posted in Air Quality, California, Climate, Electric Vehicles / Tagged Electric Vehicles | Comments are closed