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China is putting ~10k electric buses a month on the road: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/china-is-adding-a-lon...
And they are still using coal to produce electricity.
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I agree there are worse types of power plants than nuclear: no SO2, NO2 or PM10, but at the risk of the release of Cesium-134, Cesium-137, Iodine-131, Xenon-133, strontium-90, plutonium-239. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/radioactive-isotopes-from-fukushima-meltdown-detected-near-vancouver/ https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/nuclear-accidents-fact-sheet
Depending on the rates, I'd take a risk of Cesium than the certainty of SO2, CO2, NO2, etc.
Somebody also mentioned that old decommissioned plants have their smelter quite radioactive and need to be handled accordingly. Can't find it now though...
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human powered transport like walking or cycling works great in dense cities, it's more space efficient so it scales better too.
Is there actually proof that it "works great"? Asking for myself every time I try to cross the street in downtown Manhattan and have to look for a cyclist on the sidewalk, going against traffic, blowing through a red light, or fighting with another cyclist.
I commute with a bike every day in Paris, France. The infrastructure isn't great but it's OK, and it's improving. The thing is: I'm a big, strong guy who can legally outrun most cars and motorbikes in such a big, dense city. I can fight my way in traffic, mostly because the law authorizes bikes to go both ways in most streets, to run red lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop, to ride between traffic lanes, etc. Most people are terrified to ride here so you only have the most reckless persons on bikes, including me. Although I'm respect the law (which does not make riding safe because no one wants to be anywhere near a big bus/truck, or between vehicles, or stuck in a diesel tailpipe…), I end up riding dangerously making people think that biking is only for reckless guys.
The worst is that, the more I respect the law, the more drivers get angry at me for taking to much space or slowing traffic down. So you move as quick and close as possible to vehicles and pedestrians. That's absurd but that how it is.
It's an infrastructure problem. The more you give space to bikes, the more reckless bikers can finally ride prudently, or prudent people dare to ride (making reckless bikers a tiny minority). It's the same with cars: what would happen if the infrastructure made car driving dangerous? You would only have road hogs and people would just hate cars.
Electrification of surface transport is the most obvious way to improve air quality in dense cities. This needs to be a priority.
If by "electrification" you mean "switch to public transportation," I agree with you. If by electrification you mean "burn dinosaurs four miles away," then I don't agree with you.
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How so? A car's ICE is much less efficient than a power plant.
Planting a lot more trees will have a major impact on pollution reduction. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18215002 Half the plastics on the planet were made in the last 13 years https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/plastic-... EV transport is currently limited and unless solar, wind or hydro is used electricity has to be generated somewhere.
You can plant tree, reduce plastics production AND switch to EV. For some reason, every time the case for the electrification of transport is presented, other legitimate, complementary causes are put forward as opposable. As if reducing emissions was a zero-sum game…
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human powered transport like walking or cycling works great in dense cities, it's more space efficient so it scales better too.
Plus it provides health benefits! Its not for everyone in every big city but certainly the Dutch model of transitioning cities from cars to transit and pedestrian/cycle focus is probably the clearest model for sustainable and healthy tansport out there.
Cycling infrastructure is amazing. It is almost always faster to travel by bike than by car.
They did it so long ago and the world still hasn’t caught up. I’m very sad about that.
Also somehow the amount of cars per capita is still very high in NL.
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If by "electrification" you mean "switch to public transportation," I agree with you. If by electrification you mean "burn dinosaurs four miles away," then I don't agree with you.
Regenerative braking. Max efficiency at urban speeds.
If by "max efficiency" you mean "less terrible than just wasting that energy" then sure but it's still a lot less efficient than a highway cruise.
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If by "electrification" you mean "switch to public transportation," I agree with you. If by electrification you mean "burn dinosaurs four miles away," then I don't agree with you.
Burning dinosaurs 40 miles away will improve air quality in cities, even if it's the same amount of pollution, the bulk is away from dense population
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human powered transport like walking or cycling works great in dense cities, it's more space efficient so it scales better too.
cycling isn't space efficient and doesn't really scales that good. It is a luxury ttransportation mode for low/mid density US cities not capable/not willing to build true mass transit modes. Look at the packed subway in say Moscow ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCZKXHsZo68 ) and compare to the best possible bicycle situation - mid-80s China http://www.theurbancountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/83... - around 1…
Additionally, low density US cities are one of the worst places I’ve seen for cycling, because not only is everything spread out, but also the multi-lane roads everywhere make it much more dangerous than equivalently populated towns and cities in Europe. Despite having cycled through central London (UK) and just over 1,000 km along the Rhine, there’s no way you’d see me cycling around Salt Lake City or Sacramento. I’ve cycled around Davis (CA), but Davis has better than US average cycling infrastructure — almost as good as the average level in the UK.