Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#241

Post by wool_gather » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 12:52 PM UTC

jchanimal wrote: post #115

freddie_mercury wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden's population density is less than the US but they have better transit. The US's urbanization rate is 82% which is higher than Canada, Norway, Spain, France, Greece, Taiwan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Ireland, and 150 other countries. The US doesn't have much of its population distributed outside of urban areas compared to most countries. The US actually has few people outside of urban area…

Except that rural votes are magnified by the Senate distortion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... is one step towards sanity.

Wow, talk about hacking democracy (in the good sense). Interesting idea. Some surprising places on the "considering" map: Kansas, Arizona, and especially Alaska would seem to be discarding some political power if they adopt this scheme. I wonder what the impetus is?

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#242

Post by deepGem » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 12:54 PM UTC

deadwing0 wrote: post #220

spodek wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. It has at the individual level too for most individuals. Try to get someone to consider flying less. Look at the size of vehicles on the road. How much meat we eat. Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter. All personal choices anyone can make, no legislation necessary. We can blame fossi…

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…

This is a problem even in tropical countries such as India and Singapore. The contrast between outside and inside temperatures is insane. We get headaches and God knows what the long term detrimental health effects are. It's worse in Singapore as the subway is also super cold.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#243

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 12:55 PM UTC

skosch wrote: post #228

spodek wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there must be some incentive My experience and observation say otherwise. I have no incentive not to litter when I know no one will fine me. Still I get up and walk trash to garbage cans. Even with all the litter around, most people still walk trash to garbage cans instead of littering. Most people don't shoplift even when they know they wouldn't get caught. Most people stop at red lights in the middle of the night…

Over many years, laws shape culture though. With all problematic behaviours, citizens fall into three groups: 1) those who refrain out of a healthy sense of personal responsibility; 3) those who persist out of a pathological understanding of personal freedom, and then 2) those who refrain only because they fear personal consequences (ostracism, fines, jail time). My suspicion is that a well-written, well-hated law ca…

That's also how "progressives" sent thousands to the guillotine in 18th century France and starved millions in 20th century China. They wrote laws. People who couldn't get behind those laws (or who were just associated with the wrong people) got screwed.

"Get on board or we'll screw you over", which is exactly the dynamic a "well-hated" law creates, is not how a healthy society is run.

NY-SAFE is an example of a "well hated law". How is it working outside the areas that wanted it in the first place? Culture isn't shifting very much as far as I can tell.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#244

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #82

abakker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it really proves anything and it might be OT from your point, but, the confounding variable is that in the US - especially outside of the major urban areas - everything is just very far away in terms of miles. Lacking a car, you can expect life to be very difficult. there are still plenty of places in the US where the range of a tesla might be a borderline problem week-to-week. (though probably not as…

The OP was talking about China. China is bigger than the continental US. I think the persistent myth about the US's size being some unique problem doesn't explain much. What's more, if you think of the EU as a comparison for the US, with the individual counties as analogues for US states, it seems to explain even less. Belgium and Massachusetts are the same size but over has much better transit options than the other…

Granted I've never lived in Belgium but MA has a corrupt gravy train of a government. We're literally too efficient with our money to afford nice things. I find it hard to believe that dollar for dollar Belgian taxes do not come back around to benefit the Belgian taxpayers more than MA taxes come back around to benefit the MA taxpayers.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#245

Post by wool_gather » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:01 PM UTC

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?

Just don't forget that even those urbanites still need resources that come from rural areas, like food. Yes, the service/information economy is clearly the future. But being able to domestically supply essentials to the service/information sectors is overall a good thing from several perspectives, including environmental health.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#246

Post by ajuc » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:03 PM UTC

This doesn't include trolleybuses, which are more common in Europe (not by orders of magnitude, but still).

Also some modern trolleybuses have batteries in them so they can service routes where power lines are only on parts of the route.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#247

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:03 PM UTC

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.

>That does not have to be. Instead they spent a couple of billions on the big dig.

So basically if MA wasn't up to it's neck in corruption it would be able to get more done with its dollars.

I assure you. Everyone in MA who pays attention knows this just like everyone knows water is wet. The problem is that nobody in MA pays attention.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#248

Post by noxToken » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:08 PM UTC

deadwing0 wrote: post #220

spodek wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. It has at the individual level too for most individuals. Try to get someone to consider flying less. Look at the size of vehicles on the road. How much meat we eat. Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter. All personal choices anyone can make, no legislation necessary. We can blame fossi…

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…

I work for a financial group, and no customer will ever have a reason to come into this specific building whatsoever. Current outside temp this morning is about 65F with a high of 68F. The temperature set for inside is 60F. What sadistic person thinks that 60F is comfortable? That temperature never moves.

I wear thin sweaters to work during the summer. Last summer, I went inside a gas station after work to grab a snack. The outside temp was anywhere from 90F to 110F. The woman behind the counter asked if I had a medical condition, because, "Who wears a sweater during the summer?" I laughed and explained how my office building is an ice box.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#249

Post by hartz » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:08 PM UTC

dvtv75 wrote: post #41

Endama wrote: post #9

I think few people know that a bunch of public transit was actually electric in the early/mid 20th century. Car companies, most notably GM, conspired to convert public transport to gas to make public transit less comfortable compared to private car ownership[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

I remember riding on Dunedin's (New Zealand) Trolley Bus service when I was very small, which were standard bus bodies that were hooked to overhead power lines. I remember the driver hooking the bus back to the power lines. Must have been about '78 or '79.

You still see these "trackless trolleys" in Boston too where some of the old streetcar and trolley lines used to be. (Unfortunately, most of those streetcars were replaced with diesel busses instead)

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#250

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

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.

(a) it isn't clean energy, generally;

(b) setting up the infrastructure to produce clean energy is not purely clean itself.

Until you can account for every last gram of toxic solvent, mine tailings, electricity consumed during manufacture, and CO2 produced during transport from e.g. solar panels, it's not entirely clean. It's just better than the alternative. Not using the energy is always cleaner.