Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#311

Post by aoeusnth1 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #285

ChuckMcM wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It really depends on your values. If you honestly think the nuclear waste we produce now will make a significant difference in people's lives 10000 years, then sure it's a problem. In my opinion your epistemology is suspect, but within that value framework, it makes sense.

Regardless of the questionable assertion that people won't have figured out a way to safely contain nuclear waste 100 or 200 years from now - I'm more concerned about civilization still being a thing in 100 years from now to be worried about the effects of our waste on the cockroaches that remain when we are gone.

I think if you take an honest look at likely scenarios, Coal is not green in comparison to nuclear regardless of the relative weight you place on the value of human health and lives now vs. 100 years from now.

Nuclear is safer for the far future and is safer for people now.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#312

Post by inferiorhuman » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #63

inferiorhuman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's sad is that the majority of electric buses being purchased both in America and around the globe aren't manufactured in the US. Detroit should have gotten started on this, sure. But who in Detroit? There just aren't that many American coach builders left in the transit space. GM's bus division got sold off in the 80s, and eventually got sold to Volvo. Flxible eventually went out of business in the 90s (not he…

Here in Los Angeles, LADOT has a handful of battery electric buses in their fleet, for the short DASH routes near downtown [1]. LADOT is the smaller, municipal counterpart to the county's Metro system. The buses themselves are a bit shorter than an average city bus, though that is typical for DASH. I wouldn't call them tiny. I guess that because they're so quiet, when the bus makes a turn, a loudspeaker on the front…

Well tiny is relative, they were probably 25-30ft long which is fairly standard in the US. Meanwhile San Francisco has 40 ft and 60 ft hybrid and trolley coaches.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#313

Post by archagon » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #171

simonh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the one thing that really surprised me when I first visited the US in the 90s. We'd stop at a store or restaurant somewhere and the nearest neighbouring stores on either side would be 200m away, with their own huge parking lot and no pedestrian route between them. We were driving from Chicago to LA and so when we'd stop I'd want to stretch my legs, but the barriers in the way made a walk like that rally diff…

Yes, and it all looks the same. We call it "Generica" :)

As an aside: this is one of the running themes in "Little Golden America", a book that chronicles a coast-to-coast American road trip underdtaken by two Soviet humorists in the 30's. The title in Russian is "Single-Story America", in reference to the flatness and uniformity of the country between the few major cities. Really fascinating account, and much of it still rings true to this day.

(My review, if anyone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2114423486)

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#314

Post by njarboe » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

wool_gather wrote: post #234

sveme wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston and Munich are about the same size; yet the public transportation system in Munich is significantly better (speed, coverage, comfort of stations and trains, accessibility) than that in Boston. That does not have to be. Instead they spent a couple of billions on the big dig.

In fairness, while the Big Dig was a total crapfest while in progress, the end result made a tremendous positive difference to the walk- and bike-ability of that area. It's still not perfect (four+ lanes of angry commuters), but it's not like they could just get rid of I-93. Totally agreed on the dollars for transit part, though. Still way too much emphasis on making cars' lives easier in Boston at the expense of eve…

"cars' lives"

Every car at the moment contains a person. Objectifying people so it is easier to hate on them is not nice. People should realize by now that it is not just privileged rich assholes that drive cars. A well working personalized point-to-point transport system (cars plus roads) can save the person working 70 hours a week at two low paying jobs much precious time.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#315

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #120

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a simple example look at the difference in the character horse between the two character systems. If you are a foreign learner just looking at typeset ways of representing this character, then the difference may seem great between traditional and simplified. But in fact, the rapid way of writing 'horse' before the script reform, is where the simplified form was eventually taken from. > The strokes are still sugg…

> writing often drastically limits the number of strokes. I’m sorry, but I must question your experience with Chinese, because all this is covered in any reasonable introduction to the script reform. No, it's not the same. When you make the abbreviated strokes you try to simulate things. It's not turning four apostrophes into a straight line. I also like the little dig about my knowledge about Chinese writing. > This…

> It's not turning four apostrophes into a straight line.

Yes, it definitely is. The reduction of four strokes to one at the bottom for the character for "horse" is a perfect example of how the simplified form proposed by the Chinese state merely copied the rapid way of writing the traditional character. Again, I must question your familiarity with this subject.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#316

Post by coryfklein » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 7:51 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #236

alimw wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

Not yet proven at commercial scale, and likely to be expensive: "Although the processes involved in CCS have been demonstrated in other industrial applications, no commercial scale projects which integrate these processes exist; the costs therefore are somewhat uncertain. Some recent credible estimates indicate that the cost of capturing and storing carbon dioxide is US$60 per ton,[173] corresponding to an increase i…

Actually increasing my residential rate by 50% to get zero CO2 emissions at the plant sounds like a great deal to me. I would have expected the price to be even higher.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#317

Post by coryfklein » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 7:55 PM UTC

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #128

jac_no_k wrote: post #126

Cyclist here in Tokyo with hybrid buses. The hybrid buses start from stop on purely electric power. The diesel engine seems to kick in at speeds above 10kph. Compared to the large amount of exhaust belched out of diesel only, as cyclist sometime stuck behind a bus, the electric start is a big relief. Can't wait until Japan adopts the same all electric design.

Here in Germany with have quite a few hydrogen powered buses. Examples: (German) https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/huerth/ab-2019-neue-wa... But also elsewhere in Europe (here: South Tyrol, Italy): http://www.greenmobility.bz.it/en/projekte/die-bozner-wasser... Nothing but water vapor coming out of them.

> Water vapor is the most potent greenhouse gas owing to the presence of the hydroxyl bond which strongly absorbs in the infra-red region of the light spectrum. [1]

Though I can't tell whether water vapor created at the surface has the same effect as water vapor at altitude.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#318

Post by coryfklein » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

chaoky wrote: post #118

make3 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as machine translation is a field of machine learning research with the largest budgets and even though it's not perfect it's already pretty good, in 30 years it will likely be solved and it may not really matter which language you know

Machine translation is AI-hard. If this happens in 30 years we might as well have reached the singularity as computers will understand natural language and all of its meaning completely.

If Google Translate hasn't surpassed OP's ability to speak Chinese in 30 years then I'll eat my hat.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#319

Post by hackbinary » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

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…

Thank you all for the thoughtful replies and it seems to me that moving to electric transport is the way forward.

I would like to point out that the article in the main was about China, where they are building out significant coal capacity. However it does seem that on balance it does seem the right thing to travel to trade bus diesel engines for static coal generation.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#320

Post by bertil » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

DoctorOetker wrote: post #194

bertil wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 has numerous industrial applications, so you typically don’t store it but bottle it and send it elsewhere. Beer manufacturing (to add bubbles) is an anecdotic use; green house or urban farm agriculture is a growing need.

the need for CO2 is extremely low, why is carbonating drinks even referenced whenever carbon capture is mentioned? the amount of CO2 absorbed in the drink will be released upon opening the drink, or else burping or farting. the amount of CO2 the plants in a green house absorbs is offset by atmospheric CO2 not absorbed by the plant... yes CO2 has niche uses, but whenever I see people mention CO2 utilization in the con…

I mentioned beer because the process of capturing CO2 from fermentation and re-injecting it was invented by my family a century ago and apparently was the first of its kind (according to my uncle).

My cousin and a friend of my father are working on accelerating plant and algae growth with CO2-rich atmosphere and water, in urban farms (not greenhouse) and mixed-use aqua-farming respectively. Neither have reached scale yet, but the projects seem promising -- enough that both have considered colocating with industrial CO2 emitters.

I also believe that some people are looking into re-using CO2 to store energy from solar power: focus solar rays and get CO2 to react into longer chain hydrocarbons thanks to catalyst. I’m less familiar with that process.