A Small Step to Save a Special Place

March 9, 2007 – Vol.11 No.50

A SMALL STEP TO SAVE A SPECIAL PLACE.

Lush tropical land surrounded by turquoise blue waters. White sandy beaches and glorious sunsets on the Gulf of Mexico. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Manatee County, Florida?

Unfortunately, sea level rise from melting glaciers will put this place under water: That is if stronger hurricanes fueled by warming ocean waters don’t wipe out the place first. Only the stunning sunsets will remain after the land has disappeared beneath the waves. Who’ll be there to see them?

Who wouldn’t to try to keep the worst of global climate change from happening? Who wouldn’t try to preserve this beautiful spot of the world, and thousands of others like it?

For Manatee County the preservation effort may begin in the school yard. The School District of Manatee County in Bradenton, Florida is the first in the country to take delivery of two plug-in hybrid electric school buses. The buses, built by IC Corporation with hybrid drive provided by Enova Systems, can achieve fuel economy 70 - 100 percent better than a stock diesel bus. Emissions are reduced up to 90 percent.

The buses can be plugged in overnight to charge a large bank of batteries. The grid-supplied, battery-stored electricity is drawn down over the day’s driving cycle. The vehicle’s diesel engine works in parallel with the electric drive motor to achieve the highest fuel efficiency.

The buses are also outfitted with a Global Positioning System (GPS) that allows school managers to track the exact location of the buses as well as monitor their performance through a password-protected Internet web site.

The buses are part of a fleet of 19 hybrid school buses in the Hybrid Electric School Bus Project organized by Advanced Energy of Raleigh, North Carolina. The 17 remaining buses will be delivered to other school districts in the nation later in 2007.

Manatee County is bordered on the north by Tampa Bay, and to the west by the Gulf of Mexico. The Manatee River slices through the center of the county.

Visit the Hybrid Electric School Bus Project at http://www.hybridschoolbus.org/ Enova Systems at http://www.enovasystems.com/ and IC Corporation at http://www.ic-corp.com/