Oakland Unified School District is the first to use a 100% electric school bus system
The city’s fleet of 74 school buses serve 1,300 special education students. Parents can track their location in real time and are notified when children get on and off. Quieter than diesel buses and less polluting, they are expected to prevent 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
The local utility installed a new transformer and 171 feet of underground infrastructure where the buses park. Using “vehicle-to-grid” technology, bidirectional chargers on the new buses send energy back to California’s grid, supplying electricity that can power up to 400 homes.
Why We Wrote This
Our progress roundup highlights time-honored work: from conservationists in Greece who after 25 years are seeing record numbers of turtle nests, to Qatar’s national library that is doubling as a museum of its cultural heritage.
Electric school bus startup Zum manages the fleet for $11.2 million a year, half of which is funded by federal, state, and private grants. A 2023 state law says all new or leased school buses must be zero-emissions as of 2035.
Sources: KQED, CBS News, Electrek
A mobile support team has reached 13,000 women in the Peruvian jungle in the past year
Over half the women in the Amazonas region report having experienced violence from their partner or husband. The Nuwa Senchi project – whose name means “strong woman” in the Awajún Indigenous language – brings psychologists to remote areas that are hard to access and where communities are often scattered.
They offer local women psychological services and “dignity kits” equipped with hygiene supplies and information about rights and resources. After attending a workshop, one participant said she felt more comfortable speaking out: “We know our rights and are more willing to respond.” Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, the initiative has also trained community leaders on preventing violence against women.
Source: UNFPA
Loggerhead sea turtle nests have reached record numbers
Greece is home to 60% of the world’s Caretta caretta sea turtle nests. Conservationists began tracking hatchlings, once on the verge of extinction, 25 years ago. Now those same turtles are reappearing to nest in the habitat where they were born.
Jesus Merida/SOPA Images/SIPA USA/AP
Over 1,200 nests were recorded this year on the island of Zakynthos, one of the most important nesting grounds in the Mediterranean and the site of a marine park founded three decades ago. Across Greece, annual nesting numbers have risen to over 10,000 since 2023, from about 5,000 to 7,000. That trend is mirrored to a degree across the Mediterranean.
The success comes following 25 years of conservation measures, including preserving vital beach habitats from threats such as speedboats and tourism. Sea turtles are one of the oldest living species on the planet, dating back over 100 million years.
Source: The Guardian
A national library is preserving Qatar’s cultural heritage
In addition to housing over a million books, the Doha library is home to over 235,000 historic manuscripts, books, maps, globes, and other items of cultural importance. These sorts of materials have long been held privately among families or in mosques, said Tan Huism, executive director of the Qatar National Library, which opened in 2018.
In collaboration with Interpol and the International Federation of Library Associations, the library helps prevent illegal trafficking of valuable items. In 2022, the team helped recuperate nearly a dozen manuscripts stolen from Afghanistan.
“In a museum you get a curator telling a story,” said the building’s architect, Rem Koolhaas. “But in a library, you create your own narrative. The material in the Heritage Library is of such a caliber that it could be considered works of art, so this really makes this building both a museum and a library.”
Source: The New York Times
A fermentation plant is turning food waste into eco-friendly animal feed
In a country where two-thirds of the food and three-quarters of the livestock feed are imported, food also makes up 40% of the waste Japan incinerates. The Japan Food Ecology Center in Sagamihara has pioneered another approach: fermenting 40 metric tons (44 tons) of scraps a day into nutrition for pigs.
The center receives food waste from hundreds of supermarkets and food manufacturers, charging less than facilities that incinerate. The food passes through a metal detector and is inspected by workers to avoid any contamination. Then it is liquefied, sterilized, and sent to huge tanks where lactic acid begins the fermentation process. The result is half as expensive as conventional feed and lasts unrefrigerated for 10 days.
At the center, scraps that are not suitable for livestock feed – with high fat or salt content – are fermented, and an electric conversion generator turns the methane into electricity.
Source: BBC
