Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#271

Post by ccalvert » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

xfitm3 wrote: post #251

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…

As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly s…

I wanted to change my habits because I thought it was the right thing to do. So we put solar on the roof and bought a cheap used electric car (a Leaf). My goal was to do the right thing, but the result has been unforeseen benefits.

The solar power more or less makes us net neutral, even when factoring in the electricity for the car.

In short:

- The solar power will pay for itself in less than five years.

- We don't have an electric bill to speak of. (There is an eight dollar a month charge for just being hooked up to the grid.)

- We pay very little to run the Leaf. (We pay nothing when we charge at home, but sometimes we charge on the road.)

I'm surprised by this outcome. I started out trying to do the right thing but ended up doing something that benefited me financially.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#272

Post by TulliusCicero » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

abakker wrote: post #67

danans wrote: post #21

It's a strange shift in affairs that China appears to have the greatest incentives (urban pollution, petroleum imports) today to advance clean transportation and energy while the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. Western European countries, for whom fossil fuels don't seem to be an identity politics issue like in the US, are also making more progress in electrifying their transportation an…

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 US is this way because we've zoned and developed it this way, not because of the geography. If zoning changed to allow higher building density in cities, especially major cities, you'd see much less sprawl, and better support of walking, biking, and transit.

In the US, we are forced to drive because we force ourselves to drive.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#273

Post by freddie_mercury » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #200

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…

One issue here, though, is that US urbanisation is _weird_. A lot of that 'urbanisation' is vast suburbs of detached houses; it's not very dense at all.

It is exactly the same in other countries.

Unless you have some data to prove otherwise?

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#274

Post by freddie_mercury » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:56 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.

I agree that the political structure is likely a problem but that's not the argument I was responding to.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#275

Post by gph » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

rootlocus wrote: post #268

xfitm3 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly s…

> There simply has to be a stronger (perhaps economic) incentive that will change the behavior of people like me. People like you might want economic incentives, but what they actually need is a better education.

Seems he's quite aware and knowledgeable about his impact, he's just the kind of person who is apathetic to the tragedy of the commons, aka why humanity can't have nice things.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#276

Post by zaroth » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #84

zaroth wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have missed this point in TFA; “China is ahead on electrifying its fleet because it has the world’s worst pollution problem. With a growing urban population and galloping energy demand, the nation’s legendary smogs were responsible for 1.6 million extra deaths in 2015, according to non-profit Berkeley Earth.” It’s great to celebrate progress, but don’t fall for the spin. A study published in Nature [1] found…

> The same level of investment into electric buses in the US would be a tradgedy in the sense of actual lives lost due to gross misallocation of public funds. I get it that you don't like public investment in electric buses, but there is no evidence to suggest that such investment would cause any "actual lives lost", vs the other much bigger public budget items in the US. If anything, more people in buses would likel…

I have no issue at all with the appropriate level of investment in electric buses.

Investment in public transit in general is besides the point. It’s economic fact that paying more for an electric bus and building the infrastructure to support them is more justifiable and will provide better ROI in China where the pollution is 5x more deadly.

If your metric is spending dollars efficiently to save lives, there’s better ROI in the US by spending the money elsewhere.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#277

Post by jernfrost » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

xfitm3 wrote: post #251

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…

As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly s…

Agree, that is why one should advocate taxation and subsidies which promote green lifestyles rather than moralizing and pestering people. Just make it economic to be environmentally friendly.

Now I don't drive but I use public transport. However I'd be okay with biking if we had a much better bike lane system in Oslo, Norway where I live. When I lived in the Netherlands I biked everywhere. It was often faster to do than public transport. It felt safe and it gave me about 1 hours of exercise each day.

You feel better from getting exercise, you save money and time. So once cities and authorities actually plan for green living it isn't very hard to do so.

Yet in my native Norway, the green shift has been much more about making life miserable for those who drive, while making few benefits for those who use public transport or drive.

A particular bad development, is ever more centralization by the government in the same of efficiency and saving money. It means pharmacies, doctors offices, police stations, hospitals are made fewer and placed further and further apart. This means public services you used to be able to walk to or bike to, now requires a car.

All this happens while government keeps harping on people needing to use their car less.

There is a lot of things I think our government is really good at in Norway, but transport is an area we utterly suck at. I am very envious of the Dutch.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#278

Post by cfadvan » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

xfitm3 wrote: post #251

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…

As someone who generates a lot of waste - environmental responsibility just doesn't factor into my consumption decisions. I work from home so I have the A/C set to be fairly cold. I enjoy a specific brand of bottled water. A major online retailer sells this water cheaper than my local store. I drive a car that gets about 15mpg because I enjoy driving it. I generate approx 13 gallons of trash per day. This is mostly s…

You are essentially explaining why people and companies need to be held accountable for externalities. If you were taxed on the order of your waste, you’d rapidly change your behavior because you’d actually be paying for it.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#279

Post by zaroth » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #69

zaroth wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have missed this point in TFA; “China is ahead on electrifying its fleet because it has the world’s worst pollution problem. With a growing urban population and galloping energy demand, the nation’s legendary smogs were responsible for 1.6 million extra deaths in 2015, according to non-profit Berkeley Earth.” It’s great to celebrate progress, but don’t fall for the spin. A study published in Nature [1] found…

IMO conflating air polution and greenhouse gases does not make a lot of sense. CO2 has the highest impact greenhouse gas, yet it has no adverse health effects in the concentrations humans are exposed to it. In terms of CO2 emissions per capita, China is AFAIK still below EU average and 3x below the US who is by far the worst offender among highly populated developed nations. Air pollution is a problem, yes, but a dif…

I’m not sure where climate change enters the picture in this story. I don’t think China is investing in electric buses to reduce CO2 to head off climate change, but rather to control actual smog/air pollution.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#280

Post by freddie_mercury » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

contras1970 wrote: post #138

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is Australian public transit so much better than American public transit? I would guess it's because Australia is, like, 99% uninhabited and uninhabitable or borderline uninhabitable[1], which probably means they can focus resources almost exclusively on the few densely populated areas. Additionally Australia's urban population seems to be significantly higher than America's (~89% vs ~80% according to 5 seconds…

so USA has poorer public transport than Europe because the latter has much more uniform population distribution; USA also has poorer public transport than Australia because the latter has much more skewed population distribution. american exceptionalism at its finest. :)

It's the Goldilocks syndrome. Population density has to be juuuust right to result in American transit. It couldn't possibly be due to any other factors.........