A short issue as we head into our Labor Day weekend, focusing on four free learning opportunities this month, two fast approaching this Tuesday. Please let me know about others coming down the pike! I’ll also summarize the advantages of hydrogen fuel cell buses, and share two responses, diametrically opposed (one angry) that I received to my last piece Embracing Anti-Racism And An End To Whanels.
- What does it take to chart a successful path in clean transportation?
- How have clean transportation leaders managed their careers, and what does inclusion mean to them?
- What opportunities and challenges are there for women and minorities in clean transportation?
Also on Tuesday September 8th, but three hours earlier at 10 a.m. PST, Forth Mobility is presenting a free webinar: Clean Transportation For All: Renewable Hydrogen Infrastructure. Register here. Part of that webinar will look at hydrogen buses, known as “the other electric bus” (Lauren Justice gets credit for that moniker). They are used in public transit fleets but not school bus fleets, and they perform head to head with diesel buses as per studies by Renewable Energy Laboratories, which battery electric buses do not yet do. Hydrogen buses are less efficient than their battery-driven brethren, but have the advantages of fueling time, parking footprint and infrastructure footprint being equivalent to diesel. That’s a lot. If you’re scaling up your whole fleet, the infrastructure costs of hydrogen are much lower than battery electric. If you’re just doing a pilot, battery electric infrastructure is cheaper.
In sum, hydrogen fuel cell buses take a big up-front financial commitment (politically difficult) but then perform very well. If they have renewable energy sourcing (the focus of Forth’s webinar), much lower carbon footprint than not.
Coming up September 15-17 is Center for Transportation and the Environment’s online Zero Emissions Bus Conference. And on September 22-24. we have the (School) Bus Technology Summit. (You have to take a survey in order to register, which feels fair.) The latter has just one session listed on electric school buses and infrastructure, but I’m attending other sessions as well. Sorry to be a broken record, but the school bus culture is even more disrupted by COVID 19 than public transit. And the more I understand school bus culture in general, the more relevant I can be as a change-agent, because electric buses are undeniably disruptive to hard-working fleet people. A learning community of peers is crucial to navigate the road to electric, and I’m working to help build that learning community, along with many others.
Concerning my last piece Embracing Anti-Racism And An End To Whanels:
From a colleague, white, I worked with for a number of years:
“I find this article offensive and racist. Your use of the term “Whanels”, and some of the statements you share show prejudice and antagonism toward a group of people on the basis of their skin color. Please remove me from your mailing list.”
A different take, from a person of color:
“Hi Alison, I get your newsletters and they are SO REFRESHING to read. With remote working now, we are bombarded with articles, webinars, interviews around the electrification/clean fuels space, but none address what you are so boldly addressing in your newsletters!”
My brother, an English teacher, remarked that on a quick reading of my newsletter he’d gotten the impression that my No Whanels idea was suggesting there be no white people on panels. Not my intention at all. I went back and saw how my wording was ambiguous and created that impression. So, below and on my website, I’m clarifying:
A whanel is a white-only panel. We’ve all heard from lots of them. Let’s instead have panels that always include at least one person of color. Doing that would more accurately reflect our country, and especially the people who ride and drive our buses. In suggesting No Whanels, I’m suggesting panels no longer be white only.
As before, please let me know if you work in the electric bus or transportation electrification (TE) space and are a person of color. I can happily add you to the No Whanels list below of suggested speakers in the industry. And if you’re a woman in TE, let me know if you’d like to be added to my other list, the No Manels speakers list (a manel is a male-only panel).
No Whanels Speakers List
Malinda Sandhu, Lion Electric
Margarita Parra, Clean Energy Works
Dwight Brashear, South Metro Area Rapid Transit (SMART), Wilsonville OR
Athena Motavvef, Earthjustice
Sandy Naranjo, Mothers Out Front (electric school bus advocacy)
Zoheb Davar, The Mobility House
Gil Rosas, Stockton Unified School District, Stockton, CA (workplace corrected)
Mary Luneta, Climate Parents/Sierra Club
Young Park, TriMet, Portland OR (name corrected)
Johana Vicenta, Chispa/League of Conservation Voters
Onward, and hope to see you Tuesday September 8th!
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?