The Electric Public Bus Dilemma

News from China, an initiative by Melton Fellows from Zhejiang University in advance of the upcoming Global Citizenship Conference 2015 in Hangzhou, China, covers a wide variety of issues concerning China, as well as the world as a whole. This month, the team tackles electric public buses in Hangzhou. This year’s GCC host city of Hangzhou faces an extremely elevated Air Quality Index, commonly known as smog.

The Chinese government takes measures to combat air pollution in Hangzhou and other bigger cities with similar problems. One such action is to promote public transportation powered by cleaner energy sources. Since May 2014, the first electric buses have carried passengers through Hangzhou and an extension of the service is expected for the near future. The use of electric buses can evidently reduce the release of pollutants -- however, while the emission of pollutants in big cities decreases, emissions are doubled in areas where electricity is produced. Plus, electric buses still need quite a long time to charge their batteries and their efficiency is still only half of traditional vehicles.

Despite these problems, efforts to popularize electric public transportation should not be given up. However, it must be ensured that electricity for the buses is produced from clean and renewable energy sources.

Let’s see what the future brings! Don’t miss what’s to come at the #MFGCC2015.