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

241–250 of 270 posts

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

#241

Post by pygy_ »

benj111 wrote: post #166
detaro wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UN has a definition for "Intact Forest Landscapes". Little of those are left in Europe, the majority in Russia and Scandinavia. Western/Central Europe has only tiny slivers of any.

I'm confused by your point. "Intact Forest Landscapes" seems to exclude any human made forest. So are you against all human planting of forests?

Artificial forests are bound to be less resilient than wild ones.

The lack of biodiversity is a major concern, since we often take shortcuts by planting cuttings, which are genetic clones, or by using an initial pool that isn't sufficiently diverse.

An artificial forest is better than no forest, off course, but wild, ancient forests are more precious, since they are living DNA libraries.

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

#242

Post by seanmcdirmid »

masklinn wrote: post #227
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is occurring in places like Seattle. The overhead electric trolley lines are coming down as batteries become good enough to support electric buses without the PITA of going off line (electric was already needed for many routes in Seattle because of hills). Electric also makes more sense in Seattle because 70% of its electrify comes from hydro.

> The opposite is occurring in places like Seattle. The overhead electric trolley lines are coming down as batteries become good enough to support electric buses without the PITA of going off line (electric was already needed for many routes in Seattle because of hills). A good option (which is being implemented in Lyon) is IMC buses, battery-supplemented trolleys (or electric buses with pantographs): they can go off…

Ya, the new first hill trolley is sort of like that already.

Seattle used to have a lot of dual electric diesel buses that would be diesel outside of the downtown bus tunnel and then catch onto overhead lines before entering the tunnel. However, this didn’t really work out very well (hooking up to overhead wires was error prone). They just use NG buses these days

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

#243

Post by kaybe »

osdiab wrote: post #73
shard972 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you confident they are onboard with limiting CO2 emissions when they are currently looking the other way at rising CFC emissions which are far more harmful.

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…

We are already seeing the Chinese air pollution go down in the data. It's still insanely high, but the peak was reached ~2015 (I think) and decreasing very slowly.

They actually reached a regime where more reduction can increase the pollution because some pollutants react destructively with each other (eg VOCs, O3, NOx).

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

#244

Post by dractori »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #216
mcv wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amsterdam also has a number of electric buses, though I'm not sure how many. I'm also glad to see lots of Teslas and Priuses as taxis. Clearly this is the low-hanging fruit for cutting back on fossil fuels: short range city traffic that's in constant use. It also improves the air quality in city centers.

How Ansterdam taxi drivers afford Teslas, btw?

Given gas prices, cost of oil changes, and the number of miles being driven per year it probably makes economic sense.

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

#245

Post by mcv »

growlist wrote: post #237
mcv wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pointing out that immigration helped rather than hurt the US. The claim that it makes countries poor or underdeveloped is wrong.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Are you saying you have no evidence for your claim, but there's a chance it's true anyway? Sure, it could be. But if it happens, it's more likely a coincidence caused by other factors.

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

#246

Post by kaybe »

growlist wrote: post #179
gibybo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> There is enormous amounts of room left on earth. Bonkers - if we are to believe the environmental lobby (and I generally do), we are already destroying much of the biosphere. You can't have it both ways! Either things get worse for everyone, or humanity starts to control itself.

Oh, the space is not going anywhere. It might not be useful, but it'll be there.

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

#248

Post by captainredbeard »

Razengan wrote: post #190
crumpets wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the last one, those are entitlements requiring the government provide you with things, not rights.

Maybe putting the point in different words will resonate better: There are already numerous examples of authority stepping in to “save people from themselves.”

What motivates your desire to control other people?

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

#249

Post by captainredbeard »

7952 wrote: post #131
Razengan wrote: post #26

Excuse me for this tangent, but when it comes to environmental concerns, why do we still skirt around the largest elephant in the room? Curbing population growth. We have laws against almost every "natural human instinct/desire": X Murder X Rape X Theft, even if you're stealing food when you're starving X Taking shelter in property that you don't own, even if you were freezing to death X In some countries: Being with…

In this thread you haven't been shut down have you? Lots of carefully thought out arguments. I am very suspicious of overpopulation arguments because it is a stalking hourse for alt-right style ethno nationalism. Rather than addressing issues it is a veiled attack on "lefties" and liberals. Blaming the entire environmental crisis on our reluctance to adopt authoritarian controls. And playing on perceived inconsistenc…

[I've been sampling the right-leaning internet for a few years now to better understand it]

FWIW, the majority of right-leaning folks (at least in the US) are vehemently against things like population controls. Go read some of the articles on Breitbart or InfoWars and this will be clear -- most of their concerns involve the government (which is pictured as an ever-left-leaning entity) overreaching in its restrictions on civil life.

The power of social conservative right wingers has been waning for a decade or so now, c.f. Trump.

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

#250

Post by jwr »

artificialidiot wrote: post #159
gibybo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the price were to include a carbon tax, it would likely be at least ten times higher and we would very quickly get rid of our beloved gas guzzlers. Wouldn't you expect a carbon tax to be similar in price to the cost to get the carbon back out of the air? CO2 released per barrel of oil (when converted to various fuels and burned) appears to be around 300-450 kg [1][2], but we can round up to 500 kg to be conservat…

The thing is, if you wait long enough, CO2 will be removed by the plant life anyway so removing it is "free". However if you reflect the price of the removal process which is as _fast_ as it is emitted to the consumer, someone gonna pay through the nose...

> if you wait long enough, CO2 will be removed by the plant life anyway so removing it is "free"

This is a very dangerous misconception and should not be spread around. It is like saying "I don't have to worry about my emissions, because someone else will clean them up for me". Do you have/support enough plant life to clean up your own emissions?

Post reply on HN