We're saved!: Heroic Energy Department hopes to replace one in every 8,000 school buses with a plug-in hybrid

Creating a Plug-In Hybrid School Bus - thedailygreen.com

Energy Secretary Stephen Chu (an honoree for a 2009 Heart of Green Award from The Daily Green) focused on how this initiative will reduce global warming pollution by slashing the amount of oil needed to ferry children to and from school. (“By investing in the vehicles of the future," he said, "we will create new jobs while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and improving our environment.”) But deploying these buses will also clean the air breathed by millions of school children every day.

There will only be 60 buses manufactured under the plan envisioned by the Department of Energy -- but over time, this technology should show the way forward, so that old polluting diesel buses become a thing of the past.

National School Bus Fuel Data

ASBC estimates the number of school buses in the U.S. to be 480,000