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Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

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Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#41

Post by kevincox »

jupp0r wrote: post #28

This has cost the German government 2.5 billion Euros [1]. That’s $1388 per metric ton of CO2. Current direct air capture technology is estimated to cost between $132 and $342 per metric ton [2]. If the goal was to reduce carbon emissions, this was a giant waste of money, even compared to the most expensive forms of carbon reduction. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.9-euro-ticket-kost... [2] https://www.…

Of course this isn't the whole story.

- You need to subtract the cost of road maintenance that may have been saved with less cars driving.

- You need to add gas tax that wasn't collected.

- You need to add the sales tax for trips that people took that they may not have otherwise.

- You need to subtract the healthcare costs of reduced pollution and accidents.

- Capturing carbon is less efficient that preventing it begin produced in the first place because that ignores the carbon emitted in the production of fuels and materials.

Basically the word is incredibly complicated. It is hard to equate this "nearly free" far with direct carbon capture.

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#42

Post by jupp0r »

hnaccount_rng wrote: post #34
jupp0r wrote: post #28

This has cost the German government 2.5 billion Euros [1]. That’s $1388 per metric ton of CO2. Current direct air capture technology is estimated to cost between $132 and $342 per metric ton [2]. If the goal was to reduce carbon emissions, this was a giant waste of money, even compared to the most expensive forms of carbon reduction. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.9-euro-ticket-kost... [2] https://www.…

But that really wasn’t the intent. The intent was to lighten the burden of the parts of the society that did not profit from the gas subsidy. What you see here is basically the knock on effect of what essentially-free public transport changes in travel behavior without the time to actually affect vehicle inventory (ie it’s a lower bound) There is also the point of scale, I wouldn’t bet on the capacity for carbon remo…

That’s the cost of today’s direct air capture. When scaled up, these costs will go down due to economics of scale.

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#43

Post by Ragnarork »

jupp0r wrote: post #28

This has cost the German government 2.5 billion Euros [1]. That’s $1388 per metric ton of CO2. Current direct air capture technology is estimated to cost between $132 and $342 per metric ton [2]. If the goal was to reduce carbon emissions, this was a giant waste of money, even compared to the most expensive forms of carbon reduction. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.9-euro-ticket-kost... [2] https://www.…

> That’s $655 per metric ton of CO2. Current direct air capture technology is estimated to cost between $132 and $342 per metric ton

Ah yes. Let's totally forget about the actual traveling of passengers that this allowed in the first place.

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#44

Post by jupp0r »

kevincox wrote: post #41
jupp0r wrote: post #28

This has cost the German government 2.5 billion Euros [1]. That’s $1388 per metric ton of CO2. Current direct air capture technology is estimated to cost between $132 and $342 per metric ton [2]. If the goal was to reduce carbon emissions, this was a giant waste of money, even compared to the most expensive forms of carbon reduction. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.9-euro-ticket-kost... [2] https://www.…

Of course this isn't the whole story. - You need to subtract the cost of road maintenance that may have been saved with less cars driving. - You need to add gas tax that wasn't collected. - You need to add the sales tax for trips that people took that they may not have otherwise. - You need to subtract the healthcare costs of reduced pollution and accidents. - Capturing carbon is less efficient that preventing it beg…

Sure, I don’t think this changes the numbers fundamentally though.

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#47

Post by jupp0r »

shafyy wrote: post #40
jupp0r wrote: post #28

This has cost the German government 2.5 billion Euros [1]. That’s $1388 per metric ton of CO2. Current direct air capture technology is estimated to cost between $132 and $342 per metric ton [2]. If the goal was to reduce carbon emissions, this was a giant waste of money, even compared to the most expensive forms of carbon reduction. [1] https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.9-euro-ticket-kost... [2] https://www.…

Direct air capture hasn't been proven to work at scale. And the key thing we need to do is to reduce emissions, which is done exactly by incentives like this. Was the €9 ticket perfect? No, but it was a good first shot, now we have data and can improve. Furthermore, as others have stated, this was not even the primary goal of this program.

Your argument is that we should focus on expensive initiatives that don’t reduce carbon emissions as much as alternatives because you like them personally?

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#48

Post by Semaphor »

izacus wrote: post #32
robertlagrant wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK road tax is based on your car's CO2 emissions. The problem is when the VW scandal broke, lots of people had bought diesels to lower their CO2 and suddenly diesels were evil and needed disincentivising. So the problem is anything like that isn't cleverly designed enough to be trustworthy, or even if it is, political whim could still overturn it.

I seriously doubt diesels were ever bought to "lower their CO2 emissions". At no point in time there was ever doubt that diesels were the more polluting option. People bought diesels due to their lower consumption per 100km and lower diesel prices in comparison to 95.

> At no point in time there was ever doubt that diesels were the more polluting option.

Now I never closely looked into this as I never planned on owning a car, but until then just from what I picked up reading newspapers and things (in Germany), I actually assumed they were the more environmentally friendly option.

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#49

Post by martin_a »

fridental wrote: post #33

The 9€ ticket "success story" looks like a large hoax mainly created by green-friendly media. 1) The CO2 savings are nothing more than a wild guess rather than a scientifically sound estimation. The real numbers might be as low as 600000 tonns. And even these numbers are unsure because they include all those car drivers who have used this ticket only once during the 3-month test period, out of curiosity, and therefor…

1) The 9 € ticket wasn't about CO2 reduction, it was about providing cheap(er) public transportation for the masses.

2) Even 10 billion is not really much money for a state like Germany. If the 9 € ticket, or a successor, would be rolled out permanently you'd expect savings in different areas which could make up for the additional cost of a subsidized ticket. Make the ticket 30 €/month and you'll only have a third of the costs left.

3) Sounds fine to me: People who would normally not be able to pay for a train ticket were able to do so, enjoy what they could reach by train and have a nice summer. I don't think there's anything bad in this, especially for people with a lower income.

What this "experiment" clearly showed is:

- Make public transportation easy and cheap to use and people will use it

- German public transportation massively lacks capacity

You might call it a "hoax" but it showed that we're just as bad in public transportation as we are in broadband internet access. Politics didn't do anything to improve this situation in the last 20 years because gas was cheap and everything else was fine, too.

Re: Germany's €9 transit ticket cuts 1.8 million tonnes of CO2

#50

Post by googlryas »

codyb wrote: post #35
aqme28 wrote: post #2

It's interesting watching the difference in how transit is treated by officials between NYC (where I lived last year) and Berlin (where I live this year). In NYC, we're ramping up enforcement and cracking down on fare jumping. In Berlin, it's the opposite-- less fare-enforcement and more subsidies for people to take the train. I really have a hard time seeing how NYC's strategy could be more effective. It's not even…

As much as maybe fare evasion is a secondary concern, I think the main reason they're cracking down on the subways in NYC is because people weren't feeling safe on the trains anymore. As much as I love a free and open and fair society, you can see why people not my size might be uncomfortable next to people growling, sleeping with trash bags filled with their belongings, drinking out of brown paper bags, rolling and…

I see people jump the turnstiles all the time, and they're usually not the type that growl at you. Usually (at least in my area) it is young, teenage or early 20-something brown/black males who blend back into the crowd immediately.

I agree the types of people you described are a problem, but they aren't the farejumpers.

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