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Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

timharford.com

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Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#41

Post by nine_k »

Syonyk wrote: post #16
tarr11 wrote: post #5

The “Cash for Clunkers” program was actually instituted over a decade ago in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System

And having been "grad school broke" during that era, it absolutely destroyed a decade's worth of cheap "runs and drives" grade cars that I drove and most of my friends drove. $100 cars were suddenly $1000 cars in a few months, which was fine if you owned one, bad if you were looking for another backyard project you could limp home and work on for a while. "Destroying the long tail of cheap resources for political poi…

On one hand, it's cheap transportation for less well-off. On the other hand, it's one of the worst pollutants, per person-mile traveled.

A lot if America was built on a presumption of cheap car transportation, when the exhaust was considered free. Now we are starting to pay the price of it, and such places start to look less and less sustainable. But a lot of people lives there, and won't easily move to a metro area and start relying on public transport.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#42

Post by tyingq »

runnerup wrote: post #12
kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

Yes this is similar to China attempting to corner the market on Lithium, but then as soon as they squeezed prices, Chile suddenly built out a massive amount of Lithium production. You cannot "buy all the coal" any more than you can: - buy all the oil (OPEC vs. NA shale fracking) - buy all the lithium (China vs. Chile) - buy all the magnesium (Freeport, TX vs. China vs. get from any seawater anywhere)

It seemed to work for diamonds.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#43

Post by jsmith99 »

kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

There's a counter argument on the Marginal Revolution economics blog which points out that supply of coal mines is inelastic and environmentalists can simply purchase mining rights for mines that are currently uneconomical to prevent it.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/10/be...

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#44

Post by londons_explore »

luckylion wrote: post #24
boffinism wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about increasing throughout, it's about increasing user satisfaction. A system where 60 customers are served an hour, and none of them has queued, is theoretically better than one where the same amount are served, but each has queued for 10 boring minutes. You achieve this by disincentivising queueing.

So people would only go to a stand if there's nobody being served, because being behind the person currently being served is discouraged. Essentially, you'd just move the queue: people would wait for a "spot" to open up (a stand with no customer) and then go there. If it's orderly, they kind of queue in the middle. If it's not, you'll have a large brawl as people try to get in front of each other.

I think you misunderstood the proposed queueing system.... The stand will never be 'open'.

People who arrive join the front of the queue, and are either served next, or someone else joins in front of them, pushing them back. When they're position 2 in the queue, they will only be served if 2 people are served and 0 arrive (low probably). If another person arrives, they're now position 3 in the queue, so 3 need to be served before any arrivals (even lower probably).

At some point, they decide the probability of being served drops low enough that they give up and leave - this will usually happen quickly.

The only way to 'game' this system is to look up the street and join the queue when it looks like nobody else is coming. If many people try to do this, then those people will be waiting forever (both want to join last - stalemate), and anyone who doesn't employ the tactic gets served.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#45

Post by tw04 »

FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

>This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs)

The performance of pretty much every PHEV I've seen is abysmal. The people buying a Model 3 or Model S to replace their BMW or Mercedes aren't interested in something with the performance of a geo metro. So, while on paper a PHEV solution might look better, in the real world it would result in those people just going back to regular ICE. If you outlaw ICE/make those cars unavailable, you'll find plenty of political headwinds and set the entire movement back a decade IMO.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#46

Post by gpm »

FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

Plug in electric hybrids strike me as insanely complex machines compared to Ev's. It strikes me as highly unlikely that from an environmental standpoint our (societies) time is better spent building them, than it is spent increasing the rate at which we can build batteries.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#47

Post by robertlagrant »

lucian1900 wrote: post #35
anamax wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eggs, comrade, eggs. Specifically your eggs. No, there won't be omelets. What are you, some sort of kulak?

We communists frequently argue against such programmes and instead for cheap and rational transportation for the working class, like trains, light rail and biofuel cars for rural areas. And kulaks had it coming, even my great-granddad. Destroying food during a famine is inhuman.

Cheap trains and light rail require very high levels of automation. As long as you argue in favour of that as well it makes sense.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#48

Post by marcosdumay »

runnerup wrote: post #12
kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

Yes this is similar to China attempting to corner the market on Lithium, but then as soon as they squeezed prices, Chile suddenly built out a massive amount of Lithium production. You cannot "buy all the coal" any more than you can: - buy all the oil (OPEC vs. NA shale fracking) - buy all the lithium (China vs. Chile) - buy all the magnesium (Freeport, TX vs. China vs. get from any seawater anywhere)

There are big differences on the availability of resources of all of those. Each one will behave differently if you try to "buy it all out".

In particular, relatively rare minerals that have been extracted in a relentless scale like coal and oil are harder to replace than very abundant ones that have been extracted on an opportunistic way like lithium. (Magnesium is also very abundant, but has seen more intensive extraction.)

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#49

Post by R0b0t1 »

FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

> Driving an EV is a green status symbol now. I wonder if they could in the future be viewed as "battery hogs".

Yes, but this exists now, with the government handouts and tax credits. They overwhelmingly go to affluent people who need these things the least.

There are unsexy trades like replacing oil burning heaters for gas or wood pellet stoves but these often aren't viewed as green enough and the people who would benefit have no one advocating for them.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#50

Post by folli »

bargle0 wrote: post #2

I don’t buy the queue argument. It would devolve in to a bunch of churn inevitably resulting in thrown hands and black eyes.

I think I didn't really get the idea behind it. Wouldn't that be the same as just prohibiting of forming queues altogether? I.e. you're only allowed to order food of noone else is at the cashier?
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