John Wayne Airport Getting Shiny New Electric Buses

Now THIS would be so cool at the airport. Photo of electric bus in New Zealand: Matthew25187/Wikimedia Commons

John Wayne Airport will soon start replacing all of its compressed natural gas-powered buses with zero-emission electric buses, County of Orange officials announced yesterday. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s Airport Zero Emissions Vehicle and Infrastructure Pilot Program will provide a $2.1 million grant that will fund about 80 percent of the purchase of three 35-foot electric shuttle buses.

“The ZEV program is designed to facilitate the implementation of zero emissions vehicles at Airports, encouraging technology advancement and raising community awareness,” said Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Lisa Bartlett in a Sept. 23 news release sent out by airport officials. “By switching to electrically-powered shuttle buses the Airport will reduce emissions and improve Airport air quality.”

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), lowering pollution emitted by buses and heavy trucks “is critical for improving air quality and reducing global warming emissions in communities around the country.” In fact, this UCS fact sheet states that “a battery-electric bus on today’s electricity grid is the lowest-carbon option in every part of the country.”

The shuttle buses at John Wayne Airport move people between the terminal and the public and employee parking lots located on Main Street. The FAA grant will start a four-year project that will see three or so older CNG buses replaced with electric buses each year. The first phase of the project also includes electric charging stations and the infrastructure needed to support the buses. John Wayne Airport officials hope to have the new buses running by 2021.

While eliminating bus emissions is great, it would be even better if we could do something about commercial airliners. According to this New York Times story published on Sept. 19, a recent United Nations forecast found that airliners emitted about 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, and will put out about 2.7 billion tons of the greenhouse gas by 2050.

“Airlines, for all intents and purposes, are becoming more fuel efficient,” said Brandon Graver, who led the new study, in the story. “But we’re seeing demand outstrip any of that. The climate challenge for aviation is worse than anyone expected.”

 

6 Replies to “John Wayne Airport Getting Shiny New Electric Buses”

  1. Wow, awesome weblog structure! How lengthy have you been blogging for?
    you made blogging look easy. The whole glance of your site is
    great, as neatly as the content! You can see similar: najlepszy sklep and here sklep internetowy

  2. We stumbled over here different page and thought I might check things out.
    I like what I see so i am just following you. Look forward to going over your web page
    again. I saw similar here: sklep online and also here: ecommerce

  3. Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wished to say that
    I have really enjoyed surfing around your blog posts.

    In any case I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and
    I hope you write again very soon! I saw similar here: E-commerce

  4. Great items from you, man. I’ve take note your stuff prior to and you are
    simply extremely excellent. I really like what you have obtained
    right here, really like what you are stating and the way through which you say
    it. You’re making it entertaining and you continue to
    take care of to keep it smart. I cant wait to read much more from you.
    That is really a wonderful web site. I saw similar here:
    Dobry sklep

  5. Hi there! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords
    but I’m not seeing very good gains. If you know of any please share.
    Thanks! You can read similar art here: List of Backlinks

  6. Wow, incredible blog layout! How lengthy have you been blogging for?
    you make running a blog glance easy. The overall glance of your website is magnificent, let alone the content!

    I saw similar here prev next and it’s was wrote by Howard84.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *