Photos courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Last Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan boarded an electric school bus in his home state of North Carolina. The bus would have been silent without the hum of a diesel-powered engine if not for the eager questions of Durham’s Southern School of Energy and Sustainability students.
Regan was in Durham for a ribbon-cutting ceremony with community leaders and elected officials including SACE’s Senior Electric Transportation Program Manager, Dory Larsen, to celebrate funding for 38 new electric school buses coming to Durham Public Schools. The $15 million grant comes from the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which uses funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to replace existing school buses with zero-emission school buses.
Students wanted to know the EPA’s true motivations for investing in clean school buses. Was it an advantageous move in the clean energy market? A legal requirement? Or perhaps Regan, a Biden-Harris Administration member, was investing in cleaner air for the next generation.
“We are investing in you,” Regan said during a press conference after the electric school bus ride.
Photos courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Regan, a North Carolina local, wasn’t the only government official with a personal connection to Thursday’s event. U.S. Representative Valerie Foushee (NC-04) once drove a school bus before climbing multiple levels of local government in Chapel Hill to U.S. Congress.
“As a former school bus driver myself, I am grateful for this significant federal investment that goes beyond upgrading buses and prioritizes the health of our children, our community, and generations to come,” Foushee said in a statement to SACE.
Energy and the environment have played key roles during Foushee’s time in government. Foushee voted in favor of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as a State Senator for North Carolina’s 23rd District in 2021 and is a supporter of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
For Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams, a former teacher and school administrator, the Clean School Bus Program means being able to breathe easily.
“This new fleet of electric buses means even more to me, as I struggled with asthma as a kid and dealt with the smoke and fumes that can cause an attack,” Williams said. “Investments like these go a long way in ensuring that future generations have all the tools that they need to thrive in the classroom and beyond.”
Electric school buses emit zero tailpipe pollution, meaning students and drivers are at no risk of exposure to particulate matter and nitrous oxide from their school buses. These pollutants can contribute to respiratory disease, heart disease, cancer and other health problems. Lowered school bus emissions have even been shown to correlate with improved school performance.
“This federal investment in clean transportation will significantly reduce harmful emissions and air pollutants,” Congresswoman Foushee said.
Electrifying fleets also helps states lower their total contributions to carbon emissions, generating fewer greenhouse gas emissions and investing in a cleaner environment for students to grow up in.
Jackson Keith, a student at the Southern School of Energy and Sustainability, said he was grateful to be a part of the Clean School Bus Program.
“It was good to see people in power give back to the community,” Keith said. “Seeing people in the news taking care of the environment and taking strides to improve climate change with electric buses is great to see.”
Alexa Izquierdo, who introduced Administrator Regan as a student speaker at the event, said she has always been passionate about making changes to address climate change.
“I am glad that Durham is taking initiative to step forward to make a difference with climate change because a lot of people want to make changes but don’t take the steps to,” Izquierdo said.
Investing in the Clean Energy Generation
These students exemplify the Clean Energy Generation, a movement that bridges people of all ages and backgrounds with the common goal of addressing the climate crisis. With investments like the Clean School Bus Program, electric school buses and clean air could eventually be the new normal for generations to come.
“Last week’s announcement with EPA Administrator Michael Regan is a great reminder that the Biden-Harris Administration is making key investments into our youth and our environment,” Mayor Williams said.
There is currently a new round of funding available with the Clean School Bus Rebate Program, which school districts can apply for through January 9, 2025, at 4:00 p.m. ET. Watch this clip from our webinar with Maggie Dolan from EPA Region 4 on the EPA Clean School Bus Program for more information and resources to help you apply for your own electric school bus fleet.
JOIN THE CLEAN ENERGY GENERATION
The post EPA’s $15M Investment Brings 38 Electric School Buses to Durham, Protecting Kids’ Health appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
EPA’s $15M Investment Brings 38 Electric School Buses to Durham, Protecting Kids’ Health
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Australia’s $17B Grid Expansion, Recycling Blades to Steel
Allen covers Suzlon hitting 2 GW in a single Indian state, Nabrawind’s crane-free turbine install in Namibia, Antora’s South Dakota thermal battery, Australia’s $17 billion grid expansion, and Shimizu recycling old turbine blades into steel.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
GOOD MORNING.
The wind industry is not just getting bigger.
It is getting smarter.
And today … we have the proof.
Let us start in India.
SUZLON GROUP just crossed a milestone.
Two gigawatts of wind orders … in a single Indian state.
The latest deal … sixty-five turbines at three megawatts each
for a company called SUNSURE ENERGY.
SUNSURE is not a utility.
It is an independent power producer
building round-the-clock clean energy
for data centers … electric vehicles … and heavy industry.
Wind paired with solar and battery storage.
Power that does not stop when the sun goes down.
SUZLON is already building six hundred and sixty-four megawatts
of additional commercial and industrial projects in the same region.
And SUNSURE … backed by PARTNERS GROUP of Switzerland …
has seven gigawatts in development across India
with a target of ten gigawatts by two thousand thirty.
That is not government-led.
That is private capital chasing wind.
Now … across the ocean to Africa.
A Spanish company called NABRAWIND [NAH-brah-wind]
just solved a problem that has plagued remote wind farms for years.
How do you install a turbine
when you cannot get a crane to the site?
Their answer is a system called SKYLIFT.
No heavy-lift cranes. None.
A self-erecting tower combined with a blade installation tool
they call the BLADERUNNER.
They just put up a GOLDWIND six-megawatt turbine
at a wind farm in NAMIBIA.
And here is the part that changes the math.
Traditional crane installation needs calm air.
Six to eight meters per second. Maximum.
NABRAWIND’s system works in fifteen meters per second sustained …
with gusts up to twenty.
That site blows hard. All the time.
Which is exactly why they chose it.
When complete … seven turbines …
two hundred and thirty gigawatt-hours a year.
About six percent of NAMIBIA’s entire electricity demand.
NABRAWIND was acquired by Australia’s FORTESCUE last year
as part of its industrial decarbonization push.
So India is stacking private-sector wind orders.
Africa is installing turbines without cranes.
And in SOUTH DAKOTA …
they are storing the wind itself.
A California startup called ANTORA ENERGY
just built a five-gigawatt-hour thermal battery
at an ethanol plant in BIG STONE CITY.
More than two hundred solid carbon blocks.
When the wind blows at night and nobody needs the power …
the blocks absorb cheap electricity and heat up.
When the plant needs energy …
the blocks release heat or generate electricity
through special cells that capture light
from superheated material.
Think of it as a giant toaster oven battery.
Full power expected by October.
The plant’s president put it simply.
Nobody has got a switch for the wind.
It blows when it wants to blow.
Now … down under.
The AUSTRALIAN government just announced
the biggest single expansion of its electricity grid.
Nineteen renewable energy projects.
Seven-point-eight gigawatts of generation.
Seven-point-nine gigawatt-hours of battery storage.
Seventeen billion dollars in private investment.
Nineteen thousand construction jobs.
Power for four million homes.
Among the largest … RWE’s [arr-vay’s] THEODORE wind farm in QUEENSLAND.
One-point-one gigawatts. Up to one hundred and seventy turbines.
Three billion Australian dollars.
RWE … the same company building offshore wind
in England and Denmark …
is now building onshore in AUSTRALIA.
And the AUSTRALIAN government is not stopping.
They just opened the next round of tenders.
Another five gigawatts.
Finally … JAPAN.
Major contractor SHIMIZU [shee-MEE-zoo] CORPORATION
has developed a way to recycle old wind turbine blades.
Not into park benches. Not into landfill.
Into steel.
The blades are cut and crushed into a material
that goes into electric furnaces
to adjust the carbon content of steel …
making it harder and stronger.
JAPAN expects to replace one hundred to two hundred turbines a year
by the two thousand thirties.
That is two to three thousand tonnes of blade waste. Annually.
SHIMIZU has built about twenty percent
of the wind power facilities in JAPAN.
They see this technology as a way to grow
their entire wind energy business.
So … let us step back.
India stacks two gigawatts of private-sector wind orders.
Africa installs turbines in gale-force winds … without a crane.
South Dakota stores surplus wind in superheated carbon blocks.
Australia backs nineteen projects with seventeen billion dollars.
And Japan turns old blades into stronger steel.
From the factory floor to the scrap yard …
from the wind farm to the furnace …
the industry is solving problems
at every stage of a turbine’s life.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 25th of May 2026.
Join us for the UPTIME WIND ENERGY PODCAST tomorrow.
We’ve all heard ideas like the one being expressed here, though this one sounds extreme. Jail sentence? Education is exclusively an exercise in pounding in bad habits?
What’s the outcome for students in the very worst of our schools that make no attempt whatsoever to help its pupils learn to think critically? Well, their kids learn to:
- Read and write
- Do math, at least through algebra
- Understand some level of history and geography
- Make friends and get along with others
- Establish independence from the parents
- Gain the qualifications for employment
What’s the alternative? Illiteracy? Social isolation? Child labor? Poverty? Neurotic sloth? Being a burden on society?
Is it a coincidence that the countries with the best educated children are the happiest, sanest and most productive nations on the planet?
If you’re a competent woman working at the highest echelon in the U.S. government, better start packing your bags.
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