Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

It would be a good start if we replaced ICEs wherever possible, i.e. in cities. The majority of the people lives in cities, almost all car trips are well below fifty miles. If EVs work 100% of the time for 20% of the population that would already be a huge win for the environment and their sales could fund the R&D necessary to make them viable for the rest.

> and TOP-DOWN planned development pattern for a whole generation,

I'd almost think it is bottom-up not top-down. Top down would imply some central planning, allowance for more space, livable communities, more trees, more parks and trails, mixed zoning etc. I grew up in a Soviet Union and towns and cities were designed top-down. Nice wide streets, electric trolley buses in the city that ran regularly. For all the ills and terrible things it was actually not as a bad as far as the general layout was concerned.

In US it is bottom-up because every developer buys land then tries to maximize their profit by shoving as many houses and cul-de-sacs as they can. Or as many office buildings etc. Every town wants to maximize its property taxes so they have their own interests at work. People who bought the property also now have different incentives so you have zoning and NIMBY. Ideally all these self-interests would somehow magically align to produce something great. But it often doesn't.

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?

When China is the dominant economic superpower I doubt they will care much about abandoning the rural United States.

> The US has a population density of 33 people per square kilometer;

Yes, and they are evenly spread out across the country, right?

What you conveniently leave out, and which turns all these kinds of arguments based on a "total area / total population" numbers into absurd exercises in futility in showing anything useful, is that you have some few mega regions:

http://osnetdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2050_Map_Me...

Even a country like Germany has extremely uneven population, never mind countries like China or Russia. There is nothing special in the situation the US finds itself in at all - especially not since the enormous population shifts of the 20th century from rural areas to cities.

When I lived in the US (for a decade), the area I lived in was the SF Bay Area, several places. This is far more densely populated than area in Germany where I grew up (former East Germany). And yet, I could not do anything or get anywhere without a car. It has next to nothing to do with population density - in the US you are forced to drive for distances where you would walk, use a bike or public transit in areas with less pop. density in other countries.

Even during my brief first visit to the US end of the last millennium, which was a three month tour of the continental US (NY to Alaska, to Arizona, CA to FL) the "must... use... car!!!" bug got to me too. Towards the end I caught myself getting into the car and driving <200 feet to drop some waste into a wastebasket (from the car window of course) on a shopping mall parking lot... it seemed the natural thing to do, I had to deliberately catch myself and consciously think about what the hell I was doing to recognize the absurdity. After only two months in the country.

Obviously the US has some structural issues, otherwise it wouldn't have these persistent failures. All I'm doing is pushing back against the simplistic "but the US is so big compared to all those tiny countries".

If you want to talk about density or uniform distribution... Why is Australian public transit so much better than American public transit?

America's governmental structure isn't unique either. There are other countries with the same kind of federalism.

And similar rebuttals can be made for virtually all other explanations.

I guess what I'm really getting at is that in the real world there are no easy solutions or explanations to problems despite the penchant in places like HN and Reddit to try to reduce explanations to a single paragraph. America's problems are likely due to a complex interaction between federalism, its geographic size, its traditional wariness of cities, its first mover advantage turning into obsolete infrastructure, and many other factors besides. But it is hard to know that the relative importance of any of those things actually is.

If you say Belgium can make its own policy, you are almost certainly making an off the cuff comment. There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of Europe-wide rules and regulations on transit that limit what Belgium can do. Belgium has to work across borders just like Massachusetts does. From Directive 95/19 on safety certification to Directive 2005/47 on the working conditions of workers on services that happen to cross a border. Since 2007 every European railway undertaking is able to off er rail freight services on every line in every EU country.

It is a mistake to paint a picture where Belgium has unlimited unilateral decision making powers.

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.

> Belgium can define it's own national policy, while MA must compromise with the rest of the country

Belgium must compromise with the rest of the EU on many topics.

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 areas compared to most countries.

Yes, and it all looks the same. We call it "Generica" :)

In principle, the US government represents the will of the people. Government officials may be corrupt and in the pockets of corporate interests, but clinging to power is an even bigger motivator. If enough voters demand something, they are usually forced into delivering it, at least partly.

The major problem in my view is the systematic and continuous disinformation campaigns regarding climate change and environmental problems in general (financed of course by oil and chemical companies). By keeping voters misinformed and confused, corporate powers ensure they are able to continue their operations without public oversight.

>the norwegian government is owned by people

Nope. Still a monarchy.

Don't they have some requirement by law to always look to the next 50 years or something rather than the usual politician outlook of "however long I am in office for, to benefit me the most."

I would imagine over the next 50 years oil and gas is going to be a worst investment than renewable simply because by then it will have largely run out?

Then again when companies such as BP are increasing their investments into renewable energy sources it makes sense to see Norway doing the same.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Incremental changes in the right direction help, whatever everyone else is doing.

Just because others aren't doing anything, doesn't mean you shouldn't. Every bit helps, and unless there is a major shift in public opinion, or the government steps in, businesses will not change their behavior, i.e. doing what improves their bottom line.

> Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car

I'm really curious about this as well. I drive an old Honda Accord that gets ~22-26mpg. In Texas I can choose to only purchase renewable energy, but how much environmental impact will be had from my purchase from an electric car compared to keeping this nearly two-decade-old car running? What is the point where this car is better left as recycled metal vs. keeping it running?

That's why we have these things called laws and democracy and international agreements. Relying on individual action rarely brought massive change.

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 can push a healthy chunk of people from pompous group 3 into reluctant group 2. As the next generation sees less of the problematic behaviour growing up, group 3 shrinks smaller and smaller over time.

That's how progressives ended slavery, got women to vote, made gay marriage mainstream, banned public smoking, and how we are now reining in the war on drugs; it's not clear why it shouldn't work to address energy decadence and meat overconsumption.

Partly agree. It is fine when it puts low demands on you. It is much harder to get people to do the right thing when it is a significant burden.

It is also a question of habit and social norms. A lot of what we claim is internal moral values, is really just social conformism. We don't throw garbage around and shop lift in large part because we don't want to be worse people than everybody else we know.

We see this in countries with a lot of cheating on taxes. It is hard to break out of, because nobody wants to pay taxes while knowing that none of their friends pay. Nobody wants to be the lone sucker doing the good deed. On the flip side you don't want to cheat on taxes if you know everybody else is really particular about paying it.

So I think the establishment of social norms is very important. And to do that one might need to create incentives and rules to kickstart people. As the norms develop you could cut back on the incentives and rules.

I've seen this in my native Norway. Fathers and mothers could split the maternity leave. Although almost no father took advantage of this. It simply wasn't an established social pattern. Your boss would look funny at you if you did it. Then the government mandated that some weeks should be taken by the father otherwise those weeks were lost and could not be used by the mother.

Within few years the social norms around father staying home looking after kids, changed radically in Norway. Hence government policies DO matter for how personal values and behavior develops.

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!

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.

(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.

Constructing clean energy is not without greenhouse gas emissions, and the wastage of clean energy means that soemone else is required to use dirty energy. Now once we get to a world of 100% clean energy this won't be true, but AFAIK only a few countries have achieved this so far, and it only occurs when weather conditions are just right.

This affects hotels/conference rooms in Singapore a lot. It's a bit absurd - I needed shorts+tshirt to survive the trip to the hotel and then a sweater to survive the conference inside. I'm not sure how can people deal with it every day.

A chiller generates a lot of heat which is discharged outside (for example on the building roof). I would ask the engineer why they don't use this heat to reheat the dehumidified air.

> whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do?

Taken to its logical conclusion, one could follow anyone around and claim they aren't doing the most right thing. The "right thing to do" is a scale, not binary, and it often conflicts. E.g. right thing to do for self health, vs environment, vs for my customers, vs for my employees, vs for my family (and time with them), vs happiness (for self and others), etc. GP is right, you have to align "right thing to do" with "prudent thing to do" and it becomes viable. Otherwise, to many it comes off as preaching as though they are bad people when they only optimize for other right things.

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.

If I read you right, beyond the environmental reasons and beyond the financial results, you sound happier than expected at acting on your values.

I think people don't realize the happiness and emotional reward that comes with acting on your values in the face of resistance.

That's why my podcast http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast focuses on leadership first. The joy, fun, meaning, value, purpose, and community parts of acting on your values are what make it fun. I'm in it because my food is more delicious, though it's cheaper too.

Crossing the finish line of a marathon is similar. It costs me money and causes me pain, but it's one of the best things I've ever done. People can live life for comfort and convenience, but for me the best things come from activity.

Five year payoff for solar is good - below (above?) average.

Since I have some Amazon stock, I recommend Amazon.

You already do get a lower level of feedback from the noise of the electic motor. It doesn't make much noise but it does change in pitch as you go faster. Plus you have the speedometer and the colour of the dashboard changes colour I think as you speed up.

A thing that is pointed out is the life of a vehicle, especially a bus might be 15-30 years. During that time the grid will become a lot cleaner. Where with a diesel bus emissions wise you're all in.

There is also the long tailpipe, diesel buses produce toxic emissions where people are, coal fired power plants produce emissions elsewhere. (not necessarily, but likely)

I don't disagree the source of electricity does matter. But who is to say where the electron coming out of the plug came from? Perhaps it came from one of their existing nuclear plants[1] ?

For me, when you get to the point where you can construct two valid statements that both are supported by available information, yet one disproves a statement and the other proves it, you have reached the point of 'nits'.

In this case :

"They are not zero emission because electricity can come from a coal fired plant."

"The are zero emission because electricity can come from a nuclear power plant."

Pedants could go a different way, they could say "the bus is zero emission but the infrastructure isn't."

We saw a lot of that with solar panels where people would argue that the energy to smelt the aluminum to make the frames and furnaces to grow the silicon ingots far exceeded any amount of energy that the solar cells themselves would provide.

But one has to wonder, what is the point of arguing at that level when, as the article states, the pollution where the buses are deployed is significantly less?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

I flew across China last month ... Lots of open cast coal mines, each with a power station next to it .... But they're planning ahead, those power stations are surrounded by thousands of windmills, more than I could count leveraging the power distribution network

It’s a toxic argument, because in practice it’s used to absolve diesel or gas cars entirely. It‘s also a way of missing the forest for the trees. Gas cars can never be clean, electric cars are in fact cleaner from the get go and have the potential to be (nearly) entirely clean. Building a world where that is possible requires a large investment in infrastructure and that will only happen if there is a large scale switchover to electric cars.

You are certainly not wrong when you say that also electric cars pollute, but you should be aware of how and when and why this kind of argument is usually deployed.

Yes you are nitpicking. It's like if someone says "paper bags reduce wastes by 50%" and you retort "welllll you still need need factories to make those paper bags." It's literally the definition of nitpicking

In this case, you're doing so in an attempt to undermine the activity raised in the parent. Not sure what your intention is, but definitely not supported by logic

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.

It really depends on your values. If you honestly think the nuclear waste we produce now will make a significant difference in people's lives 10000 years, then sure it's a problem. In my opinion your epistemology is suspect, but within that value framework, it makes sense.

Regardless of the questionable assertion that people won't have figured out a way to safely contain nuclear waste 100 or 200 years from now - I'm more concerned about civilization still being a thing in 100 years from now to be worried about the effects of our waste on the cockroaches that remain when we are gone.

I think if you take an honest look at likely scenarios, Coal is not green in comparison to nuclear regardless of the relative weight you place on the value of human health and lives now vs. 100 years from now.

Nuclear is safer for the far future and is safer for people now.

Is that the norm? I guess the floor could be raised with a higher roof to compensate. I’ve noticed that new energy buses are taller (NG and electric) to make room for fuel/battery, but I’m not exactly sure where that is going.

Bottom seems like the natural place. Can I ask you how you solve the problem mentioned in the article of excess axel weight?

> Mr. Stoddart continued: “Provisions for rooftop battery packs are common across all North American and international bus manufacturers. In fact, heavy-duty transit buses built by other manufacturers with batteries located only under the floor (between the axles) have recently been tested at the FTA Altoona track and have exceeded front axle weight ratings, resulting in a significant limitation to the number of passengers that can be carried on board.”

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

It's massively oversimplifying the trade-off to reduce it to a single metric, and it proposes a false choice.

Why not also consider reducing congestion, reducing local-air-pollution related respiratory conditions, etc?

And compared to the known types of huge government expenditures that might be doing actual harm to some subset of citizens (i.e. lives lost in wars of questionable value) why point the finger at electric buses?

> As a simple example look at the difference in the character horse between the two character systems.

If you are a foreign learner just looking at typeset ways of representing this character, then the difference may seem great between traditional and simplified. But in fact, the rapid way of writing 'horse' before the script reform, is where the simplified form was eventually taken from.

> The strokes are still suggested if not perfectly expressed.

No, rapid writing often drastically limits the number of strokes. I’m sorry, but I must question your experience with Chinese, because all this is covered in any reasonable introduction to the script reform.

Even Wikipedia's article [1] is pretty clear on this: "Character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, more complicated forms ... Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms."

This is why Taiwanese and Hong Kong readers, though they may find mainland China’s system culturally alien, do not generally consider it a barrier to understanding.

> Although there since it's not enforced, you end up with a plurality of languages, like India.

You are very mixed up here. One moment you are talking about orthography, the next about multilingualism. They are distinct things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters

Haven't been here long enough (~12 months) to anecdata that, but it's generally recognized that government policies are increasing air quality rapidly in many major cities. Example policies: routinely spraying water on the roads in dusty areas and near construction sites, banning motorbikes from city centers, banning the import of second hand vehicles, encouraging electric vehicles, moving polluting industries away from population centers, increasing industrial regulation, reducing opportunities and increasing penalties for corruption. I have a German friend who builds air quality monitoring systems for export here and he said that restaurant kitchen air vents are actually one of the worst urban air polluters now. Another is construction. He said India's cities, especially Delhi, are literally off the charts (sensors incapable of registering pollution levels that high) and that, compared to India, China has things well under control.