Leaders in Los Angeles County’s transportation and energy industries recently gathered for a panel discussion in downtown Los Angeles to discuss their commitments to heavy-duty zero-emissions vehicles.
The panel event, hosted by the Los Angeles County Electric Truck & Bus Coalition, brought together leaders from The City of Los Angeles’s LA Sanitation and Environment (LA Sanitation), Southern California Edison, the Port of Long Beach and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice to discuss the progress the Los Angeles region has made toward electrifying its transportation sector – and what lies ahead to reach zero-emissions.
During the panel discussion, Enrique Zaldivar, general manager of LA Sanitation, publicly committed to transitioning the agency’s entire refuse truck fleet of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to zero-emission trucks by 2035.
The commitment to electrify Los Angeles’s refuse truck fleet comes after significant organizing by the Los Angeles County Electric Truck & Bus Coalition, who sent a letter to LA Sanitation in August of 2019 pushing for a commitment to transition away from diesel refuse trucks.
The commitment follows technology announcements from established and start-up vehicle manufacturers, including announcements from truck manufacturers Mack Trucks, Peterbilt, Mercedes/Daimler, BYD and BEV/Lion, which are each offering battery-electric refuse truck models. Electric refuse trucks will replace LA Sanitation’s existing fleet of natural gas refuse trucks.
“LA Sanitation’s commitment to a zero-emission municipal refuse truck fleet by 2035 is just another example of how our region has always been an environmental leader, pushing innovation and early adoption of vital clean vehicle technologies,” says Adrian Martinez, staff attorney at Earthjustice. “By removing polluting fossil-fueled refuse trucks off our streets, city leaders have not only reaffirmed their climate leadership but are making our neighborhoods healthier and quieter places to live.”
LA Sanitation’s commitment to a zero-emission battery-electric refuse truck fleet is the nation’s first commitment by a city government to transition to zero-emission electric refuse trucks.
You can view a live stream of the panel discussion on the Coalition’s Facebook page here.
So they are shifting the carbon burden to the electricity providers. Going electric is good, but to power all of this we need to build more of the new generation nuclear power units as the power source of the future.
Transition to carbon-free electric energy will take nuclear, solar and wind as the generation sources. Battery storage on a utility-scale will be needed so that nuclear can run at its most efficient level and provide a storage medium for excess solar and wind generation during the day
So much invested in the natural gas infrastructure… Electric works well for passenger cars.