Why does critical infrastructure need to be among the first to “go green?”
We can't afford to make things "go green" serially, we need to move on all fronts at once.
Why?
NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
151–160 of 579 posts
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#152Battery operated garbage trucks don't sound like a great idea, at least for all day use. With the push for EV I am not sure why we aren't seeing a push for the installation of streetcar power lines, these already exist and are used for busses. If we have a garbage truck that has the battery capacity for say 30 minutes, then it could be on the power line for the majority of the time. This would limit battery waste as…
I remember looking into this a little bit and the conclusion seemed to be that for most garbage truck uses the range was not the limiting factor. Pickup time was more important, and batteries are attractive given that most garbage pickup is stop-pickup-start-drive a short distance then stop again. In Seattle I believe I saw the longest route was less than 70 miles but I can't find a source. There was a purchase of ba…
> Caternary lines have always seemed like a good solution but there must be a good reason they aren't more popular
What reason?
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here in Massachusetts we just removed our streetcar power lines (MBTA 71 and 73 trolleybus) because the wires needed to be removed during construction. This might be a logistical issue for NYC. https://www.mbta.com/news/2022-01-27/beginning-march-2022-mb...
Yeah having street car power lines can be a nightmare in densely crowded cities with a lot of pedestrian traffic and tightly packed buildings. It would be a nightmare to implement in a place like New York City, and I'm not surprised that cities that have them are slowly removing them. Don't get me wrong, I think they are a great solution electrically and for efficiency / sustainability, but require an enormous geogra…
> street car power lines can be a nightmare in densely crowded cities with a lot of pedestrian traffic and tightly packed buildings. It would be a nightmare to implement in a place like New York City
They've been used in dense cities for generations. How hard can it be?
> require an enormous geographic footprint
What footprint is needed for additional overhead wires?
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At this moment in time, Plug-in hybrids are the superior technology for nearly every application. I don't understand why they get so overlooked by consumers and manufacturers alike. Plugin hybrids cars are expensive, not at the least because they require both a traditional ICE drivetrain and a large battery and electric motor, and specialized power split transmissions to make those work together. Therefore, most pl…
> specialized power split transmissions The thought occurs to me to make the rear wheels powered by the ICE and the front wheels electric. Then no wacky transmissions. I don't know anything about a "power split" transmission, but isn't that the sort of thing a differential gear set does very well at?
It's VERY hard to keep a vehicle run straight with non-mechanically-tied wheels, you'll almost never get a "perfect enough" balance ending up in an engine pushing/pulling against the other.
That's why for instance we do not have much multi-motors EVs without a mechanical coupling...
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#155I was thinking about vehicles that can't switch to electric power. The tech's not there yet, and may never be.
Cargo ships. Jumbo jets. Military aircraft. Specialized industrial vehicles, such as those used for mines.
Unless these use cases are made obsolete (possible, such as military) society will depend on fossil fuels for many decades to come.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#156Why are they using garbage trucks to plow snow? Looks, I get that I'm biased being in Canada, but do they understand that you can buy dedicated vehicles for plowing snow ? They're called... snowplows. They're pretty fantastic. You need garbage trucks every day, all year. Electrify those. You need snowplows on a handful of days per year- and that number is falling thanks to climate change. So buy purpose-built snowplo…
Agree, but I would argue that 'climate change' is not making it fall necessary across the board for all use cases; what I notice here in Colorado is that we might get fewer snow days, but when we do get snow now, wow, it's crazy how much dumps.
Another way of looking at this is, I used to get by with a ~$250 dollar electric snowblower; that thing died just last week when I asked too much of it trying to rid 10+ inches of very heavy, wet snow off our long driveway.
I'll be replacing it with nice Toro gas powered snow blower (~$1000-1500) because I expect the same / worse going forward. Fewer snow days, but when it does snow, it's a lot more than we used to get.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#157This is a non-issue. Like any other technology, EVs will (do) get traction where they provide a significant advantage, and then as the tech matures they will eat away at the rest of the problem space.
One of the few business books worth reading, the Innovator's Dilemma, is all about this, and is supposedly beloved in the tech business. It's where "disruption" entered marketing discussion.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can sacrifice street parking spots systematically throughout the city for garbage dumpsters, as many others have suggested, but it's politically untenable to do so because americans love their cars, even in NYC. Another politically untenable solution is to do what Taiwan does and force people to put out their garbage in very tight time windows and otherwise store it privately in their houses and businesses, but…
It's not the parking spots - residents have zero interest in walking to the end of their block with garbage. If they tried it people would just leave their garbage on the street. Have you been in NY? There's garbage everywhere.
Personally I have no idea what you're talking about...have visited the city many many times for work from bronx to manhattan, and come from a much "dirtier" city.
If you think there's garbage everywhere in NYC, I advise you to never visit most European capitals, and especially not the asian subcontinent. Which is not to shame these places, but more so to say that NYC is doing OK.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do they even have their own fleet of garbage trucks, though? I'm pretty sure the garbage trucks where I live are all privately owned.
Because NYC is entirely different than where you live, most likely. City gov subsidizes trash pick up instead of allowing private companies to bid, because any private company would lose money. And if no city subsidized trash pick up, New York will be New Delhi.
I don't understand how NYC couldn't make money for a private trash company. The trash company I use makes money, and our population density isn't anywhere near what it is in NYC. I have to imagine the largest cost is fuel, and it stands to reason that it takes much more fuel to get all of the trash where I live.
I don't understand what you're saying, I guess. I don't understand how a city being large can just automatically lead to a loss for trash companies.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> only a handful of days of snow in the year I know modern economy has gone full-JIT but I naively wish we could just stop in this case and.. wait. Then this question of truck fleet would be moot.
First: I don't go out in snow beyond a couple of blocks, things can wait. But that's me. Second: Just because the snow stops falling doesn't mean the problem goes away. The snow can take a couple of weeks to melt (essentially until the next rain, or a hot enough day), so stopping and waiting for nature to resolve the situation on its own would shut down the city for a month or so every year.
And during that time, it can turn to ice.