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Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

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Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#281

Post by babygoat »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #243
skosch wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over many years, laws shape culture though. With all problematic behaviours, citizens fall into three groups: 1) those who refrain out of a healthy sense of personal responsibility; 3) those who persist out of a pathological understanding of personal freedom, and then 2) those who refrain only because they fear personal consequences (ostracism, fines, jail time). My suspicion is that a well-written, well-hated law ca…

That's also how "progressives" sent thousands to the guillotine in 18th century France and starved millions in 20th century China. They wrote laws. People who couldn't get behind those laws (or who were just associated with the wrong people) got screwed. "Get on board or we'll screw you over", which is exactly the dynamic a "well-hated" law creates, is not how a healthy society is run. NY-SAFE is an example of a "wel…

By shaping the culture? That was quite a reach.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#282

Post by Lunatic666 »

viraptor wrote: post #257
deepGem wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a problem even in tropical countries such as India and Singapore. The contrast between outside and inside temperatures is insane. We get headaches and God knows what the long term detrimental health effects are. It's worse in Singapore as the subway is also super cold.

This affects hotels/conference rooms in Singapore a lot. It's a bit absurd - I needed shorts+tshirt to survive the trip to the hotel and then a sweater to survive the conference inside. I'm not sure how can people deal with it every day.

I’m living in SG 5 years now, moved in from Europe. You get used to the temperature outside (Took me two months to get adjusted), so wearing long trousers and a shirt is ok now. That also works for inside. When I’m back home now everything < 25°C is cold!

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#283

Post by jernfrost »

spodek wrote: post #215
friendzis wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While these are personal choices, there must be some incentive. If increased electricity bill from abusing "Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter" compared to conservative temperatures boils down to single digit percentage values (as non-USian I don't know what those values are) of all annual home upkeep expenses, it is difficult to rationalize saving.

> there must be some incentive My experience and observation say otherwise. I have no incentive not to litter when I know no one will fine me. Still I get up and walk trash to garbage cans. Even with all the litter around, most people still walk trash to garbage cans instead of littering. Most people don't shoplift even when they know they wouldn't get caught. Most people stop at red lights in the middle of the night…

Partly agree. It is fine when it puts low demands on you. It is much harder to get people to do the right thing when it is a significant burden.

It is also a question of habit and social norms. A lot of what we claim is internal moral values, is really just social conformism. We don't throw garbage around and shop lift in large part because we don't want to be worse people than everybody else we know.

We see this in countries with a lot of cheating on taxes. It is hard to break out of, because nobody wants to pay taxes while knowing that none of their friends pay. Nobody wants to be the lone sucker doing the good deed. On the flip side you don't want to cheat on taxes if you know everybody else is really particular about paying it.

So I think the establishment of social norms is very important. And to do that one might need to create incentives and rules to kickstart people. As the norms develop you could cut back on the incentives and rules.

I've seen this in my native Norway. Fathers and mothers could split the maternity leave. Although almost no father took advantage of this. It simply wasn't an established social pattern. Your boss would look funny at you if you did it. Then the government mandated that some weeks should be taken by the father otherwise those weeks were lost and could not be used by the mother.

Within few years the social norms around father staying home looking after kids, changed radically in Norway. Hence government policies DO matter for how personal values and behavior develops.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#284

Post by Beltiras »

petre wrote: post #145
hackbinary wrote: post #135

Okay, cool. But the energy still has to be produced somehow. Are we shifting the diesel to coal power plants? So for every km driven, what is the comparative amount of CO2 produced? Is there a net benefit in this regard? Coal power plants might be more efficient, but then we are shifting the smoke stacks. Then what about the batteries? The batteries need to be produced, and they have a useful lifespan, then need to b…

Well, using electric vehicles does create more battery storage to charge using solar during daytime off-peak hours. You go to work, park your car in a parking equipped with chragers and your car charges while you sit and work. The parking lot and the neighbouring buildings can have solar panels on their roofs to supply the electricity. Same during night time off peak hours: you car can charge while you sleep mainly u…

Solar rooftops on cars don't provide enough juice for it to amount to much. Let's say for the sake of argument you could fit a square meter of a car's roof as a 20% efficient solar panel (a ludicrously high efficiency). Solar irradience is roughly 1 kW per square meter giving you roughly 200W. That will provide roughly 1.6 kWhr of energy. This is enough to drive roughly 8 miles on an average EV (20 kWhr/100 miles). That's about half the average commute one-way. Not nothing, but still invokes the question if it's worth the effort.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#285

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #49
ams6110 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While electric buses are almost certainly an emissions win compared to the no doubt primitive and dirty Chinese diesel buses, I doubt it is it fair to call them zero-emission? China burns a lot of coal for electrical power.

That is picking nits :-) Not only is China rapidly building nuclear power plants, containing the emissions of one plant burning coal is easier than containing the emissions of the 10,000 buses that plant provides power to operate. There is also a benefit to China converting from oil (something imported[1]) to coal (something available locally[2]). [1] https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Chinas-Becomes-Worlds-... [2…

The nuclear is much worse than coal. The public perception is different, but a few dozen big catastrophes in the coming few generations as the old reactors are pushed for too long will change all that. The thing about nuclear is that its a problem for hundreds if not thousands of years. Coal is green in comparison, when looking at the entire lifetime of repercussions.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#286

Post by titzer »

xfitm3 wrote: post #251
spodek wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. It has at the individual level too for most individuals. Try to get someone to consider flying less. Look at the size of vehicles on the road. How much meat we eat. Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter. All personal choices anyone can make, no legislation necessary. We can blame fossi…

As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly s…

I won't rip you for being honest, and I suspect there are a ton of people out there that behave either consciously or unconsciously like this. It's not sustainable, so society will either have to tax these behaviors at the consumer or ban them at the producer side, or some combination of both.

But I do hope that consumers start to choose better habits, because if we don't, we're going to hit a wall sooner or later.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#287

Post by jernfrost »

abakker wrote: post #67
danans wrote: post #21

It's a strange shift in affairs that China appears to have the greatest incentives (urban pollution, petroleum imports) today to advance clean transportation and energy while the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. Western European countries, for whom fossil fuels don't seem to be an identity politics issue like in the US, are also making more progress in electrifying their transportation an…

I don't know if it really proves anything and it might be OT from your point, but, the confounding variable is that in the US - especially outside of the major urban areas - everything is just very far away in terms of miles. Lacking a car, you can expect life to be very difficult. there are still plenty of places in the US where the range of a tesla might be a borderline problem week-to-week. (though probably not as…

Yes which is why efficient public transport start with city planning. American cities are not built for public transport. They are built for cars.

You need to redesign American cities. The most obvious thing to change is zoning laws. Residential areas, offices and stores need to be more mixed.

Another issue is that many problems exist simply because it is too easy to drive. With easy driving you end up with donut cities where anything of importance is located in a ring around the outskirts of the city. That kills the ability to utilize public transport effectively.

If you discouraged driving more activity would be forced into neighborhoods and into the downtown area, which would make public transport functional. It is much easier to feed people with public transport into a downtown area than into a ring on the outskirts.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#288

Post by Reason077 »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #82
abakker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it really proves anything and it might be OT from your point, but, the confounding variable is that in the US - especially outside of the major urban areas - everything is just very far away in terms of miles. Lacking a car, you can expect life to be very difficult. there are still plenty of places in the US where the range of a tesla might be a borderline problem week-to-week. (though probably not as…

The OP was talking about China. China is bigger than the continental US. I think the persistent myth about the US's size being some unique problem doesn't explain much. What's more, if you think of the EU as a comparison for the US, with the individual counties as analogues for US states, it seems to explain even less. Belgium and Massachusetts are the same size but over has much better transit options than the other…

"China is bigger than the continental US. I think the persistent myth about the US's size being some unique problem doesn't explain much."

Sure, China is huge. But the vast majority of it's population is concentrated on or near the east coast. Most of China's western interior is sparsely populated, even compared to the US.

Even including the interior, the overall population density of China (137/km2) is much higher than that of the USA (35/km2).

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#289

Post by [deleted] »

Reason077 wrote: post #288
freddie_mercury wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP was talking about China. China is bigger than the continental US. I think the persistent myth about the US's size being some unique problem doesn't explain much. What's more, if you think of the EU as a comparison for the US, with the individual counties as analogues for US states, it seems to explain even less. Belgium and Massachusetts are the same size but over has much better transit options than the other…

"China is bigger than the continental US. I think the persistent myth about the US's size being some unique problem doesn't explain much." Sure, China is huge. But the vast majority of it's population is concentrated on or near the east coast. Most of China's western interior is sparsely populated, even compared to the US. Even including the interior, the overall population density of China (137/km2) is much higher t…

[deleted]

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#290

Post by jernfrost »

nickserv wrote: post #153
wereHamster wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the norwegian government is owned by people, unlike the US govt which is owned by corporations. And the people know that it's in their best interest to switch to EV. Also, the norwegian government will end their investments into oil & gas: https://www.ft.com/content/611c2e9e-cad9-11e7-aa33-c63fdc9b8...

In principle, the US government represents the will of the people. Government officials may be corrupt and in the pockets of corporate interests, but clinging to power is an even bigger motivator. If enough voters demand something, they are usually forced into delivering it, at least partly. The major problem in my view is the systematic and continuous disinformation campaigns regarding climate change and environment…

In practice however democracy doesn't work in the US. The system allows a duopoly of two parties which have long ago been bought by corporate interests. You actually need laws in a democracy to prevent government from being taken over by special interests.

In Norway we traditionally secured this by strong limitations on the usage of political ads. Hence you could not fund yourself to political popularity. The other mechanism is that starting a new party is very easy in Norway, so as soon as established parties are not representing the interests of people they will get squeezed out by new parties.

I think what helps Norway, is that we don't view our constitution and political system as an immutable document. We have been far more willing to tinker with the system and improve it than in the US. I think this is down to the fact that getting where we are today is a very gradual historical process.

When our constitution was written it was not a full democracy. It still involved a king with considerably political power. In the US, the country begins with a pretty good constitution very early on. This I think has enforced the myth that there is no need for regular updates and improvements.

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