Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 270 posts

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

#121

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mikekchar wrote: post #119
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees don’t make water come on it’s own. A lot of the planting is intrinsically unsustainable. That is the problem with top down authoritarian directives, execution is lacking. Follow through is lacking as the government declares success after they sign the order and then forget about it after patting themselves on the back.

While this is true, forests do hold a lot of water. One of the problems with dry places is not so much that there is no water, but that the water is inconsistent and only available for a short period of time. Forests act like a sponge and hold water for long periods of time, which can literally transform ecosystems. That said, I know literally nothing about the Gobi desert ecosystem and whether planting a forest will…

You have to do this very carefully. I’ve heard stories about farmers intentionally planting required trees they were given upside down because they thought they would do more harm than good to the soil.

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

#122

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jseliger wrote: post #55
natch wrote: post #25

Now they need to get off coal as the source of much of that electricity. I’m not saying they won’t though... I’m pretty sure they are onboard with both cleaning up their environment, and limiting their CO2 emissions.

China is actually running nuclear AP1000 reactors: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/nuclear-shares-soar-china-plans-11... . It seems serious about nuclear power, unlike the U.S.

Not to mention solar and wind in the west, if only they the grid to get clean energy where it was needed (which they are working on; at least Lanzhou has been cleaned up a lot).

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

#123

Post by sdrothrock »

Flollop wrote: post #118
tomnm wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

https://e360.yale.edu/features/chinas_reforestation_programs... Not only that, there are concerns around lack of biodiversity in the trees being planted: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907125303.h...

I've often wondered if those programs would eventually lead to widespread allergies developing among the population due to the rapid increase in a single kind of pollen, like Japanese hay fever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan

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

#124

Post by arcticbull »

austincheney wrote: post #106
arcticbull wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

92 lost nuclear warheads including one near Seattle/Vancouver, one near New York and one near Miami ( https://genecurtis.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/lost-nuclear-bom... )

Just for clarification its not anywhere near Miami (that is a small map graphic). It is right off the coast of Savannah, GA. There have been numerous books written about it and there is a wikipedia page about it.

Yep, you're absolutely right. I'd heard about the other two, I just assumed the third even though it’s listed in my link X_x

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

#125

Post by est »

cinquemb wrote: post #19

I think the bigger concern for China in regards to this is slowing the pull on their fx reserves in light of their overall demand [0]. Indonesia and Malaysia are taking the biodiesel approach with decent amount of success at cutting their fx spend [1]. Why China cant pursue something similar to Indonesia and Malaysia probably has to do with their Ag policies/capabilities/climate. [0] https://ycharts.com/indicators/ch…

> Why China cant pursue something similar

China plans to push 100% ethanol fuel at the end of 2020.

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

#126

Post by mikekchar »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121
mikekchar wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is true, forests do hold a lot of water. One of the problems with dry places is not so much that there is no water, but that the water is inconsistent and only available for a short period of time. Forests act like a sponge and hold water for long periods of time, which can literally transform ecosystems. That said, I know literally nothing about the Gobi desert ecosystem and whether planting a forest will…

You have to do this very carefully. I’ve heard stories about farmers intentionally planting required trees they were given upside down because they thought they would do more harm than good to the soil.

It is interesting to consider the effect of authoritarian power systems and collective land ownership on that kind of initiative. Just after I posted my reply I started to wonder if the Japanese miracle would have succeeded if illegal wood usage didn't result in execution. As you say, social systems are complex and it's important to take that into consideration when implementing any large scale project.

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

#127

Post by clomond »

Not all that surprising when you consider the utilization % of any typical bus versus car. Given a bus may be driving on at least 1 maybe two shifts, means it is driving around 12-16 hours typically per day. (50-75% utilization).

Most cars as personal vehicles(unless they are in a ride hailing service or taxis) will have a typical utilization closer to 2-8% of the time as they drive for maybe 1 or 2 hours a day.

I have similarly found many oil "demand models" not using "electric miles traveled" as a key metric and rather using something more simple like "# of vehicles replaced". Utilization is important, but often ignored or not thought about.

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

#128

Post by throwaway5752 »

austincheney wrote: post #100
throwaway5752 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How many days was Kuwait over 130F last year?

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

#130

Post by m0zg »

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…

> 66 billion trees planted so far

News in 10-20 years: massive wildfires decimate Africa. It's pointless and dangerous to have more trees than the waterbed can support. California re-learns this lesson nearly every year.

Post reply on HN