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Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

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Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#231

Post by nvarsj »

w0utert wrote: post #219
nvarsj wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, this probably allowed the US to become the superpower it is. I feel the US is the closest example in the modern world to capitalism unchecked - with both the pros and cons that entails.

>> I feel the US is the closest example in the modern world to capitalism unchecked - with both the pros and cons that entails. Please enlighten me which parts of the 'pros of capitalism' I'm missing out on as a non-US citizen, because I definitely don't see many, if any at all.

"Pros" are subjective, of course. But if you ask an American to describe why US is great, it would be things like:

* Largest economy on the planet

* Biggest and most well known tech companies (or companies in general)

* Majority of the top research universities

* Quality of medical system (if you can pay!)

* And so on

For us in tech, living in the US is no comparison - it's the best place to be an engineer by a long shot, due to much higher wages and opportunities. Not to say you can't find good stuff elsewhere, it's just harder, and you'll get rewarded much less in general.

Increased regulation, labour protections, consumer protections, and so on stifles the economy, at least in the short term. I'm not saying that's bad - there's more to life than money, which I think is an idea that Europe embraces more so than the US.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#232

Post by Shoue »

lenepp wrote: post #62

One interesting feature of articles like this that I don't really get is that they often leave out a huge huge quality of life benefit that electric vehicles bring: reduced urban machine noise.

As a pedestrian in Old Street, London, where there are tons of hybrids, I'm a bit worried about the absence of vehicle noise. Aural feedback is great to navigate traffic safely, and the few times I've almost been hit by a car in the area, it's always been a hybrid car.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#233

Post by organsnyder »

Shoue wrote: post #232
lenepp wrote: post #62

One interesting feature of articles like this that I don't really get is that they often leave out a huge huge quality of life benefit that electric vehicles bring: reduced urban machine noise.

As a pedestrian in Old Street, London, where there are tons of hybrids, I'm a bit worried about the absence of vehicle noise. Aural feedback is great to navigate traffic safely, and the few times I've almost been hit by a car in the area, it's always been a hybrid car.

My plugin-hybrid has a speaker that generates noise for exactly this reason. It's annoying to me (it spoils a nearly-silent ride), but I understand the safety reason for it.

I think that over time, this will be less of an issue, for a couple of reasons: First of all, people will be more accustomed to near-silent vehicles, and their situational awareness will adapt. Also, technology—both in the vehicle (to detect pedestrians), and for those with vision problems that otherwise need to rely on hearing—will prevent collisions.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#234

Post by wool_gather »

sveme wrote: post #152
abakker wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2015, Belgium had a Population density of 363people/Km^2. Massachusetts in 2015 had 336 people/KM^2. So, pretty close. The difference is that Belgium has a much more uniform population distribution vs Massachusetts. Secondarily, Belgium can define it's own national policy, while MA must compromise with the rest of the country, including CA, WY, MT, and NY, all of which have very different economic and practical co…

Boston and Munich are about the same size; yet the public transportation system in Munich is significantly better (speed, coverage, comfort of stations and trains, accessibility) than that in Boston. That does not have to be. Instead they spent a couple of billions on the big dig.

In fairness, while the Big Dig was a total crapfest while in progress, the end result made a tremendous positive difference to the walk- and bike-ability of that area. It's still not perfect (four+ lanes of angry commuters), but it's not like they could just get rid of I-93.

Totally agreed on the dollars for transit part, though. Still way too much emphasis on making cars' lives easier in Boston at the expense of everyone else.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#235

Post by tonyarkles »

xyproto wrote: post #227
deadwing0 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a bank. They keep it so cold inside in the summer that employees are forced to have space heaters in their offices to keep from shivering all day. All in hopes that a customer who comes in from the outside heat will feel comfortable for the less than 5 minutes that they are inside. The amount of waste is unreal and disgusting. I was laughed at the other day by a coworker because I commented on how much ener…

As long as the energy wasted is clean energy, I guess it should be fine? The sun is shining on Earth at all times and most of the energy is wasted.

I read an article a few months back (no reference handy, unfortunately) that was talking about attitudes towards energy utilization in Quebec, Canada, where the vast majority of the electricity is generated from hydro. The basic conclusion was that when everyone knows that the energy they're using is "clean", they don't actually worry too much about it.

That idea really excites me! If our energy sources are both clean and abundant, that opens up a lot of doors to technology that previously had uncomfortable tradeoffs. For example, high-energy-consumption recycling instead of mining new raw materials; right now it can be a bit of a wash (sure, we're mining less, but we're burning coal to power the process), but post-scarce-clean-energy it becomes way less of concern. Likewise with a lot of automation tasks. Very exciting!

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#236

Post by organsnyder »

alimw wrote: post #164
DoctorOetker wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you contain CO2? its a gas so very voluminous, do you propose liquefying it and keep it refrigerated?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

Not yet proven at commercial scale, and likely to be expensive:

"Although the processes involved in CCS have been demonstrated in other industrial applications, no commercial scale projects which integrate these processes exist; the costs therefore are somewhat uncertain. Some recent credible estimates indicate that the cost of capturing and storing carbon dioxide is US$60 per ton,[173] corresponding to an increase in electricity prices of about US 6c per kWh (based on typical coal-fired power plant emissions of 0.97 kg (2.13 lb) CO2 per kWh). This would double the typical US industrial electricity price (now at around 6c per kWh) and increase the typical retail residential electricity price by about 50% (assuming 100% of power is from coal, which may not necessarily be the case, as this varies from state to state)."

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#237

Post by marcandre »

xyproto wrote: post #227
deadwing0 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a bank. They keep it so cold inside in the summer that employees are forced to have space heaters in their offices to keep from shivering all day. All in hopes that a customer who comes in from the outside heat will feel comfortable for the less than 5 minutes that they are inside. The amount of waste is unreal and disgusting. I was laughed at the other day by a coworker because I commented on how much ener…

As long as the energy wasted is clean energy, I guess it should be fine? The sun is shining on Earth at all times and most of the energy is wasted.

It would be fine if all energy used everywhere on the planet was green. Until then, wasting clean energy still creates more demand for that clean energy, which affects its price and thus its competitiveness vs other energy sources. Even in Quebec, for example, energy not used is sold outside the province.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#238

Post by organsnyder »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #104
greglindahl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car batteries in the floors of cars don't seem to have made them any taller.

Buses have different constraints, so I'm assuming they have more battery for more range between recharges.

Depends on the use-case. For fixed-line buses in urban areas, their range requirements could be quite low, especially if high-speed charging is available at the terminal.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#239

Post by skosch »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #194
bertil wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 has numerous industrial applications, so you typically don’t store it but bottle it and send it elsewhere. Beer manufacturing (to add bubbles) is an anecdotic use; green house or urban farm agriculture is a growing need.

the need for CO2 is extremely low, why is carbonating drinks even referenced whenever carbon capture is mentioned? the amount of CO2 absorbed in the drink will be released upon opening the drink, or else burping or farting. the amount of CO2 the plants in a green house absorbs is offset by atmospheric CO2 not absorbed by the plant... yes CO2 has niche uses, but whenever I see people mention CO2 utilization in the con…

Thank you for calling the CCS crowd out on their magical thinking.

The amount of CO2 we can pump underground to form carbonates with basalt rock is a drop in the bucket. Unless we find a catalyst that allows us to economically turn tons of CO2 into an inert (and maybe useful) solid or liquid, this is all going nowhere.

No reason to despair, or to stop working on solutions. But today's CCS tech, and the many variations on it, will not solve our problems.

At the moment, our best bet is improved natural sequestration. There is massive potential in better agricultural methods (cf. silvopasture, perennial crops, Upland rice, microbial farming), better land management, re-establishing grasslands in Siberia (cf. Pleistocene Park), farming in the ocean (cf. marine permaculture, upwelling restoration), etc.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#240

Post by tonyarkles »

dao- wrote: post #97
nradov wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should just abandon our rural areas? That seems backwards.

It's already happening for loads of other, often good reasons. It's called urbanization. You can try to resist the future but you cannot stop it. You might just as well embrace it. How exactly does that seem backwards?

The situation is already problematic for agriculture. Further decreasing population density in rural settings just makes that worse (e.g. instead of going to the grocery store 10 miles away that happily supports a population of 5,000 people, you instead get to drive 2 hours to Costco in the nearest city to get enough groceries to make the trip worthwhile)
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