Solutions to Pollution on Display During Florida's Smoggy Week
Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?
OK, here's the good news: this past week, officials from Florida's transit agencies and school boards learned about buses without tailpipes — clean, quiet zero emission buses that cost less to own that any other type, buses that will eliminate a major source of carbon emissions and smog.
The bad news? We needed those buses yesterday — literally. As the state celebrated May as Clean Air Month, in the past week Floridians from Jacksonville to Sarasota suffered from harmful levels of smog — O3, or ground level ozone — that has made it really tough to breathe for folks with asthma and COPD and, on some days, for all of us.
Smog: An Unseen Health Threat
Unlike particulate pollution that we get from forest fires and really dirty diesel trucks, you can't see, taste or smell smog. Like a sunburn you don't feel until you get home from the beach, smog burns the inside of your lungs. People with pulmonary issues suffer at lower levels than the rest of us. Kids with asthma have to interrupt their games on a playground to whip out inhalers as smog reaches just 60 parts per billion — 17% lower than EPA's current standard of 70 ppb.
Where does smog come from? FPL, Duke and the other utilities burning coal and "natural" (we call it fracked) gas, to be sure. But more than those guys, it's you and me, driving our cars. Unless you drive an EV, that is.
AAA sees a strong future for electric vehicles, citing a new survey that shows that 1 in 5 Americans want one. Fifty million Americans, or 20%, will likely go electric with their next vehicle purchase, up from 15 percent last year.
Thanks to Florida's $166 million from Volkswagen, the solution to this pollution could be here soon, in large numbers statewide that make it possible for everyone to go electric and replace many of our dirty diesel buses. We could also have many more EV charging stations, thanks to VW and Sierra Club's settlement agreement with Duke Energy that results in the utility spending $9 million on EV charging stations for places like multi-unit homes and interstate exits — places we need to be able to charge if more of us are going to drive cars without tailpipes. We especially need rapid charging stations at every exit on our highways for the new generations of EVs that go ~ 250 miles on a charge, so we'll all be able to take them across the state or on longer trips outside of Florida.
With VW potentially contributing $25 million for EV charging stations in Florida, not to mention installing their own network nationwide, we could very soon reach the tipping point to the switch to EVs that so many now desire.
Another reason EVs are on their way: automated vehicles (AVs) are in the last stages of development, as we saw at a demonstration in Tampa on Wednesday. These cars can all be electric and will make roads safer. Furthermore, they'll eliminate the need for many of the asphalt surface parking lots that make Florida hotter as they also prevent natural stormwater percolation into the aquifer. And when they do park when out of service to recharge, AVs will take up 50% less room, as they can park close together without needing to allow passengers to exit.
Even UPS is starting to make the switch. On the transit front, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, PSTA, will take delivery of its 1st two zero emission electric buses this month, and they just ordered 2 more to serve low income neighborhoods in S. St. Pete, to help improve air quality there. The Broward County Commission is expected to order its first 15 electric buses at its 9 a.m. meeting Tuesday morning, May 22.
All the electric buses now being made in America were on display at the American Public Transit Association's convention in Tampa, where they were parked across the street from where the Tampa Bay Lightning are now contending in the Stanley Cup Playoffs (we thought that was fitting). Go Bolts! Go Electric!
Our THANKS to all who took the FDEP survey on how best to use our $166 million from the VW diesel scandal settlement to reduce smog emissions from transportation!
Special thanks to Sierra Club volunteers in every group in our Florida Chapter, all over the state, who asked thousands to have their say, from Earth Day to yesterday. We expect FDEP to release the results later this month, and for EVs to come out far ahead. We'll share the results soon.
Thanks again for helping Florida take a major step forward to clean up our smoggy skies, as we fight the climate change that threatens our future. Other states are, the rest of the world is — why not us?