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China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

bloomberg.com

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Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#91

Post by ekianjo »

hawkice wrote: post #31
twblalock wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The framing of the article is that oil companies need to be more concerned about the Chinese buses than about Tesla. It's a simple rhetorical device, not a statement that Tesla does not matter.

I've sometimes been concerned that headline writing is (metaphorically) subcontracted to buzzfeed everywhere, NYT, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, just about everywhere.

I would be very surprised if they dont have a clickbaity machine learning algorithm to optimize headlines for more clicks. That would be a very natural thing to do in this kind of business.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#92

Post by fabianhjr »

evolve2k wrote: post #61

This points out a new opportunity. Why stop at China for electric busses (yes they are probably manufacturing them locally)? Cities are seeming increasingly more able to be proactive than countries. Encourage local cities to one by one electrify the bus network and this effect goes global. It’s obvious tangible action that citizens can demand and mayors can visibly deliver. Game for those playing at home, do a search…

> Cities are seeming increasingly more able to be proactive than countries.

> Encourage local cities to one by one electrify the bus network and this effect goes global. It’s obvious tangible action that citizens can demand and mayors can visibly deliver.

This is known as Libertarian Municipalism. ( https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Murray_Bookchin#/Libertarian_mun... )

A small book on the matter: http://new-compass.net/sites/new-compass.net/files/Bookchin%...

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#93

Post by nneonneo »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #85
osdiab wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve done a ton of stuff to limit emissions, from flat out banning coal furnaces in some regions (somewhat prematurely) and halting all construction for future coal plants, investing in mass transit much more than any country on the planet, prioritizing nuclear energy, leading the world on solar, mandating all electric scooter car and bus fleets across the entire society. Chinese (yes, people are very outspoken an…

Not to mention plant like a million of trees bordering the Gobi desert. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/china-great-gree...

> so far, more than 66 billion trees have been planted

That’s...a hell of a lot of trees. The article mentions that a lot die without human intervention, which is pretty unfortunate. Makes you wonder if there’s a more surefire way to prevent deserts from expanding...if there is, it seems like China has the will to do it.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#94

Post by gibybo »

Razengan wrote: post #59
lapnitnelav wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it goes very much against the constant growth required by the economy?

Growth of the economy to what end? What is the endgame? What will conjure up the constant resources and space required for the constant growth required by the economy?

>What will conjure up the constant resources

Probably the sun and small scale fusion for at least the next thousand years or so. Eventually other stars/large scale fusion/some type of energy production we haven't discovered yet.

>and space

There is enormous amounts of room left on earth. Everyone on earth could have an acre of land to themselves with 10x the current population, and that completely ignores multi-level construction (either above or below the surface). But long term there is a lot of space outside of earth.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#95

Post by austincheney »

desdiv wrote: post #22
burlesona wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s surprising to me. Do you have any references for that? Why are the ships so emissive?

It's simply not true. It started out as a factoid, but got jumbled into nonsense by a game of telephone: 1. True: 16 of the world’s largest ships produce as much _sulfur_ pollution as all the world’s cars.[1] 2. False: "How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world", headline from Daily Mail.[2] 3. False: "world's 6 largest shipping tankers produce more CO2 than all the world's personal vehicles…

> Separate studies suggest that maritime carbon dioxide emissions are not only higher than previously thought, but could rise by as much as 75% in the next 15 to 20 years if world trade continues to grow and no action is taken. The figures from the oil giant BP, which owns 50 tankers, and researchers at the Institute for Physics and Atmosphere in Wessling, Germany reveal that annual emissions from shipping range between 600 and 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or up to 5% of the global total. This is nearly double Britain's total emissions and more than all African countries combined.[1]

> Passenger Cars: 749.4[2]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/mar/03/travelse...

[2] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100USI5.pdf

According to the data it appears I am not completely wrong. The maritime transportation sector is of roughly equal CO2 contribution to the US passenger vehicle fleet in 2007. According to the trend indicated by The Guardian in the next 15-20 years (from a 12 year old article, which would be a few years from now) maritime transportation emissions could rise by 75% while the US passenger auto fleet emissions remain flat thereby indicating a slice of tankers contribute more CO2 emissions than passenger vehicles.

These sources weren't hard to find or read, so I am not sure why you think my statement is false.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#96

Post by nneonneo »

zaroth wrote: post #60
hyeonwho4 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. A TI-class supertanker has a length of 380m, breadth of 68m, for a surface area of less than 7 acres, and run on a 37,450 kW engine. (Wikipedia). Meanwhile, a 50 MW solar installation in Ohio takes 500 acres of space.( https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/anatomy-of-a-50... ). You would need to find a way to increase the surface area by a factor of 10 without ruining the aerodynamics, or use wind…

That is actually way closer to possible than I thought it would be. Of course, that stil only lets you run under power during the day!

Assuming OP’s numbers are right, it’s actually a factor of 50, not 10. Somewhat less close to possible.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#97

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

melling wrote: post #77
crumpets wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That revision is still clickbait. The US being the #1 producer of oil doesn’t say anything about usage. Example: a country could simultaneously be a low user while being a huge producer - Norway.

I understand your made up hypothetical example but it has no value. Wouldn’t it be more worthwhile to deal with reality? The US is by far the largest consumer of oil and we love large vehicles. https://qz.com/1344537/by-2020-suvs-could-make-up-50-of-us-c...

Why do we need to include the US in the title at all when the story is about e buses in China?

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#98

Post by thewhitetulip »

nneonneo wrote: post #93
thewhitetulip wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention plant like a million of trees bordering the Gobi desert. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/china-great-gree...

> so far, more than 66 billion trees have been planted That’s...a hell of a lot of trees. The article mentions that a lot die without human intervention, which is pretty unfortunate. Makes you wonder if there’s a more surefire way to prevent deserts from expanding...if there is, it seems like China has the will to do it.

Well, at the start they'll die without human intervention, sure. But wait for 30yrs, let the land be revived and let nature take her course. I am pretty sure that we'll see lush green forest near the Gobi desert and the desert might also be pushed back.

I dislike the dictatorship in China but this effort is unparalleled.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#99

Post by seanmcdirmid »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #84

By this logic, we should "forget" all the go green initiatives because China (and Africa) are building a "Green Wall" to stop their respective deserts from widening. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/china-great-gree... I say this is mainly about China because Africa has modified their green wall project and instead of planting billion trees from East coast to West coast, they are helping communities to thr…

The trees planted in the Gobi in 2008 are already mostly dead because they couldn’t commit enough water resources to maintain the ones they carelessly selected. As a result, the Beijing dust storms that were gone since 2009 started coming back in 2015.

Whenever the Chinese government does something, don’t assume it will be sustainable by default.

Re: China's e-buses dent oil demand more than electric cars do

#100

Post by austincheney »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #66
austincheney wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The entire worldwide shipping industry accounts for about 3% of humanity’s CO2 emissions. To my knowledge personally owned vehicles account for a similar percentage of total CO2 output, so that number while small is a red herring. People tend to generate more CO2 per capita as a result of air conditioning than from the vehicles they drive.

You are very incorrect on most of what you've posted here, but this is embarrassing since you could verify this with basic math. An air conditioner typically consumes in the neighborhood of 4kW, less than half the day, less than half the year. So, being generous, 6000kWh annually for air conditioning. Gasoline has the equivalent of 34kWh/gallon, which implies air conditioning uses the equivalent of 176 gallons of gas…

> An air conditioner typically consumes in the neighborhood of 4kW

That is not true globally. I live in Kuwait, which can get up to 140F during the day in the summer.

At any rate if you want numbers (since people are crying about research without doing any of their own) here are some: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19438999

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