Who’s Counting the Costs?
21st March 2014
The Antiplanner hears his Bullshit Detector go off.
Per capita incomes in Flint, Michigan, are only about half the national average, and poverty rates are three times the national average. So what does the city’s transit agency do? Why, spend $2.4 million for a $327,000 bus.
Of course, this is a special bus: instead of being powered by Diesel fuel, it is powered by hydrogen fuel cells. And everyone knows that hydrogen power has zero emissions. The transit agency is so happy with the bus that it wants to order up to 30 more.
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According to the National Transit Database, Flint’s transit agency drove its hydrogen-powered bus less than 9,000 miles in 2012, but it drives its most popular Diesel-powered buses about 48,000 miles a year. Based on the California study, if Flint replaces one of its Diesel buses with another hydrogen-powered bus and drives it 48,000 miles, it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 38.4 tons per year. Amortizing the difference in the cost of the buses over 15 years results in a cost per ton of abated greenhouse gases of more than $4,000. (Remember, McKinsey & Company says anything costing more than $50 a ton is a waste.) This doesn’t even count maintenance, which–according to a study of San Francisco Bay Area fuel-cell buses–is more than 75 percent greater for fuel-cell buses than ordinary Diesel buses.