Last week’s story on the electrification of school busses brings up an important point. If electric powered school busses are to be effective, then all electricity used to charge the batteries must be solely from non-polluting sources. If not, then the greenhouse gas emissions are only being transferred from the tailpipe to a large generating plant.

While a large fossil fueled generating plant may be more efficient, one needs to consider that the power must be transported from the plant to the vehicle, incurring losses along the way. And don’t forget that the act of charging a vehicle is not 100% efficient, so those losses must be included as well. 

The bottom line is unless the electricity that is used to charge the vehicle is 100% non-polluting, it’s a folly to think this will help the environment.

Ken Roller

Middlebury