Area schools begin running hybrid buses (Iowa)

[jpak]

http://www.farmnews-iowa.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=5748

Nevada—The kids riding on one bright yellow school bus in Nevada don’t really know that they’re making history, but the Nevada School District, scientists and farmers know that they are.

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“A conventional bus currently gets about 6 to 6.5 miles per gallon,” he said. “Our hope is to get 10 to 11 miles per gallon with the hybrid electric bus.”

Rich Scott, transportation director for the Nevada Community School District, said the hybrid bus his district is using runs diesel on its rural routes, then switches to the electric engine back in town. So far, he has been impressed with the bus’ performance. This bus is being used daily on regular routes, field trips and for after-school activity routes, too.

“When it’s electric, we get 14 to 15 miles per gallon and we’re burning 20 percent soy,” he said. “We haven’t done testing on emissions, but the engines by 2010 will be cleaner than air.”

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[liberal N proud]

1. Never thought of Iowa as tree hugger's

LOL, There are not that many trees.
I never thought of the state I grew up in as a green state, but with the windmills and ethanol blends and now hybrid buses.

They could become as green or greener than Vermont. WOW!

Great news

[TlalocW]

2. Some of the buses - both city and school in Tulsa, OK, and suburbs

Including the buses on the University of Tulsa route, run on Compressed Natural Gas, of which we have an abundance. I have a Ford cargo van I use for my side business but drive almost all the time now, that is dedicated CNG. It burns more cleanly, is American produced, and only 90 cents a gallon (whoo-hoo). It would be cool if they would start producing CNG-Electric Hybrids. I bet the emissions would be pretty clean from that.

TlalocW

[ChazII]

3. It would be great

if more school districts made this type of change.