Electric school buses are a breath of fresh air for children | Nearly $1B in federal funding could help clean up the unequal health impacts of diesel pollution.::Nearly $1B in federal funding will help decarbonize transportation and clean up some of the unequal health impacts of diesel pollution
As a child in the 80’s I remember my gag reflex kicking in every time I walked to my bus. The air was so bad that my body physically refused to let me take in a breath.
FWIW diesel-powered vehicles are much cleaner now than they were in the '80s. Diesel fuel is now sulfur-free, and since 2004 progressively stiffer EPA regulations have reduced the NOx and particulate matter output of diesel engines by orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, though, “cleaner” in this case does not include a reduction in greenhouse gases - in fact, school bus engines of today spit out more greenhouse gases per mile than did buses of the 1980s. This is because the EPA diesel regulations limit permitted emissions based on horsepower-miles, so an engine with twice the horsepower (like today’s bus engines compared with older engines) is permitted to emit twice as much junk. And since modern bus engines have much more horsepower, they emit much more greenhouse gases.