the propane industry sees an opportunity to seize a share of the auto sector. Its representatives are working hard to convince public officials to switch to propane-fueled school buses, which they claim are “near-zero emissions” vehicles that are better for kids and the climate.
Except — that’s not true. Propane is still a polluting fuel: While it is refined differently than diesel and natural gas and combusted in uniquely styled engines, it still has a measurable impact on air quality and the climate. If PERC’s deceptive marketing to children, parents, and school administrators is successful, the propane industry threatens to lock in fossil fuels and their polluting emissions for another generation of schoolchildren.
A burning fuel will generally always have combustion byproducts
I don’t think you need to hedge with “generally”, I’m going to say it always has combustion products, and CO2 is the most benign gas product you can really hope for. In this case you’re burning carbon and hydrogen with oxygen to create carbon dioxide and water, and there really is a limit to how much energy you can extract from each molecule reacted. There’s no way around that, it’s a physical limitation.
I don’t know what kind of reaction doesn’t have by-products, maybe antimatter annihilation.
Fusion reactors have helium by-product which can be harvested I guess.
Point is you need to get pretty exotic and leave the realms of chemistry to get something with “near zero emmissions”.
The closest thing I can thing of is hydrogen, burning it just makes water, which while still a by-product, is the cleanest and least harmful product of I’m pretty sure any combustion reaction
Oh that’s true actually, you could probably call that emissions free in the sense that it really is harmless. I don’t know how I overlooked that tbh.
A lot of people are afraid because hydrogen fuel cells have a tendency to go boom, in terms of catastrophic failure.
There’s the going boom factor and the fact there is no good pressure vessel that can stop the hydrogen from slowly leaking out through the walls.
Also looking that up I just discovered this:
“Hydrogen is such a potent indirect greenhouse gas that it “could undermine the climate benefits of decarbonisation efforts,” warned Ilisa Ocko, a senior climate scientist at the EDF”
So… that creates a new problem before it gets out the tailpipe.
I don’t know what it is precisely, but I imagine that the lifetime of free hydrogen in the atmosphere is extremely short - like on the order of hours. Probably not much to worry about.
If you don’t know, then pertinent information by leading climate scientists who do know, and are worried about it, is available at the link in my comment.
But since you seem inclined to make broad sweeping dismissals based on little more than your own admitted ignorance when you could’ve just spent like 60 seconds reading, I doubt this quote from the article will help you:
“Hydrogen is a potent short-lived indirect greenhouse gas that is 200 times more potent than carbon dioxide at the time it is released, kilogramme for kilogramme,” Hamburg told EURACTIV.
Hamburg is a former professor of environmental science who served as a lead author for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He says hydrogen is problematic because it interacts with methane in the atmosphere.
“Hydrogen that leaks to the atmosphere is such a potent greenhouse gas because it extends the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere, causing it to stick around and continue contributing to the greenhouse effect,” he told EURACTIV.
“Hydrogen reacts to form tropospheric ozone, which also contributes to the greenhouse effect. And hydrogen also breaks down into water vapour in the stratosphere, which also contributes to the greenhouse effect,” he added.
Maybe it will help other people to know why what you said is wrong.
My work is trying to engineer a design /plan for electric school busses connected to the grid.
They are only used for 4-6 hours a day and are stationary the rest. Perfect resource to keep plugged into the grid and help stabilize demand. Our initial study shows they could potentially pay for themselves, but at the very least subsidize their own cost quite significantly.
Given that they’re stationary for so long, doesn’t that make a compelling case for batteries? Surely vehicles in continuous use benefit more from being connected to the grid. Forgive me if this is naive!
They need enough battery power to do their rounds. Outside that however, that same battery can act as a power bank to the mains. Effectively you can buy electricity when it’s momentarily cheap, and sell it back when the price spikes. So long as it’s charged for the next run, it’s fine.
This provides buffering to the system for intermittent sources e.g. solar, as well as making money from idle busses.
Ohhh I see. I was imagining busses somehow powered by a rail/cable at all times lol, which in hindsight doesn’t make any sense. The reality is very cool! Thanks for sharing.
I hate school busses so much. The town should have a bus system. The whole line up of busses at schools puts pollutants all over kids going home. Every single day.
Lots of people all going to the same place at the same time makes a dedicated bus route for it useful. The problem is the use of fossil fuels, not the use of a school bus.
How do rural children get to school then?
Still a bus! Yeah I can see why that might be better as a school bus.
Bike, tractor, dirt bike, atv, bull dozer… you know, the normal ways.
