Baby boomers’ parents must have loved their shiny trolley buses, when the newfangled idea first arrived in town. They followed freshly-laid tracks through city streets, with sprung-loaded trolley poles drawing clean electricity from cables overhead. Ah, how wonderful, they must have thought, smooth silent propulsion with no fumes whatsoever. Although they were causing fumes elsewhere, which makes decarbonizing city buses as important as ever.
Decarbonizing City Buses Was Just a ‘Pipe Dream’
Baby boomers’ parents were unaware of global warming just beginning, in those tranquil days of careless electricity. They did not teach their kids about the dangers of air pollution, and so they too did not know the harm they were causing.
Although the baby boomers might have complained about smelly fumes from automobile tail pipes, because they did not like the smell. Society slept on regardless, blissfully unaware of the legacy their smoky coal power stations were leaving for future generations.
Nowadays we are somewhat wiser, at least on paper that is. We are discovering that decarbonizing city buses is a small important gearwheel, in a giant project to decarbonize our atmosphere. But are buses the right place to start?
Anywhere and Everywhere is the Right Place to Begin
Trolley buses are at the farthest point of a system, which supplies electricity from power stations to end users. They are an outward sign of a fossil energy flow early baby boomers welcomed, although the diesel engines they replaced were only the tip of the iceberg.
We have to remove the carbon from fossil-fuel energy generation, to inefficient consumption. This includes fully decarbonizing city buses, by replacing them with battery-powered ones. Every little bit helps these days. With storage batteries by our side we have the tools we need in our hands.
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Electric Bus Transport Driving Real Change
