Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The energy charts at the bottom show reasonably clearly that there are no great solutions. Nothing gets to 2:1 anymore 20:1. There are some really bad ones though.
And note that a lot of this ignores recovering capital cost. Which you actually need to do somehow or the other in these discussions.
As a for instance there is absolutely nothing competitive with solar thermal as an energy source...except for the cost of building the damn things and that they are even less useful for dark hour use.
Looks like you're right. One of the things I noticed though is that if you compare btu/vehicle mile and btu/passenger mile for buses, you'll find that buses average out at 8.5 passengers/vehicle. A bus should be able to carry much more passengers, even if they're all seated (maybe around 40). Seems like from an energy point of view, if you could get a lot more people to take the bus, so they're closer to capacity, without significantly increasing service they would be much more efficient. Here are the current numbers (btu/passenger mile).
Buses: 4118
Car: 3447
NYC Metro: 1826
Seems like if you could have around 40 people per bus, which means some standees during peak and maybe a couple empty seats off-peak, you could get down to about 1000 btu/passenger mile. It seems like all of these pale in comparison to biking and walking though... to the point where I'm wondering if I miscalculated?
Walking: 0.3-0.4
Biking: 0.15-0.2
This means a horse or ox would be way more energy efficient than a truck for moving cargo, and the cost of food (especially animal food) per calorie is not that much higher than oil. Does than mean we're mostly using trucks, or tractors, or even trains because they're faster?
Looks like you're right. One of the things I noticed though is that if you compare btu/vehicle mile and btu/passenger mile for buses, you'll find that buses average out at 8.5 passengers/vehicle. A bus should be able to carry much more passengers, even if they're all seated (maybe around 40). Seems like from an energy point of view, if you could get a lot more people to take the bus, so they're closer to capacity, without significantly increasing service they would be much more efficient. Here are the current numbers (btu/passenger mile).
Buses: 4118
Car: 3447
NYC Metro: 1826
Seems like if you could have around 40 people per bus, which means some standees during peak and maybe a couple empty seats off-peak, you could get down to about 1000 btu/passenger mile. It seems like all of these pale in comparison to biking and walking though... to the point where I'm wondering if I miscalculated?
Walking: 0.3-0.4
Biking: 0.15-0.2
This means a horse or ox would be way more energy efficient than a truck for moving cargo, and the cost of food (especially animal food) per calorie is not that much higher than oil. Does than mean we're mostly using trucks, or tractors, or even trains because they're faster?
And sorry for going off topic here.
Yes. A gallon of diesel has 130,000 BTUs, which is what you'd expect as tractor trailors get around 9-10 mpg on average. Figure a 25 ton load going 1000 miles. A truck can do that in two days and cost less than $500 in fuel. I really have no idea how much weight an ox cart can pull, not that much. They don't go that fast, either. Call it 2.5 tons and 100 miles a day just to be generous. It'll take an ox cart 100 days to move the same load. $500 and 2 days or 100 days with ox cart. Figure a drivers got to make at least $10/hour, 11 hours a day (regulated). $220 for the truck, $11,100 for the ox cart. All of a sudden $500 doesn't seem so expensive, does it? And that's assuming there is a return load.
Back when I had a power meter, I used ~100 watt/hour to sustain a 16 mph pace, which is pretty comfortable, what most generally fit people on a road bike will ride, which is about 85 kcal. The body is about 20% efficient at converting nom nom into pedaling, so 425 kcal/hour. 1700 BTU/hour, or 106 BTU/mile. Sadly, delicious nom noms require about 10-15 calories for each calorie produced. Vegetarian helps, as it requires a lot less energy than our carnivore-heavy diets. So now you're really looking at 1000-15000 BTU/mile. That's better than a car, but not amazingly so. Like transit, you're relying on the fact that it is kind of suck so people will use less of it. If people were all relying on bikes, the average commute would not be 16 miles one-way. Also, you might replace some endless treadmill running, which is the world's stupidest activity. You're burning electricity to burn calories to do zero work.... That and 2/3rd of the country is overweight or obese, so we're obviously chowing on extra calories anyway.
Transportation is not approximately 24% of GDP. The approximately 28% of energy use you used to defend your claim that it's not 24% of GDP is nonsensical.
The nonsense is the assumption that transportation costs are limited to fuel.
There are three major costs : the vehicles, the fuel, and the roads.
For the most part, all those roads are 100% subsidized by the taxpayer, by local, state and federal taxes, whether or not the taxpayer directly uses them.
How much is spent each year in building, maintaining and repairing, is far greater than the Federal Highway Trust fund disburses to the states... about $37 B in 2011.
President Barack Obama's announcement of a six-year, $476 billion surface transportation reauthorization bill, comes out at $80 B more additional spending.
Estimates are around 3 - 4% of the GDP for new infrastructure.
I couldn't find figures for maintenance other than reports that $2 trillion more is needed to repair the aging infrastructure - which when compared to what is disbursed by the FEDS, implies a far larger expense. Let's say that 2 T is divided over 10 years, and bump it down to $0.2 T per year.
As to durability of paved roads versus steel rails? No contest. Rails have a working lifespan far greater than paved roads under similar load limits.
Fuel - - -
Petroleum consumption is down from 20 million barrels / day to around 18 million barrels / day (due to the recession)
Let's make it a round $100/barrel. That comes to $657B roughly.
GDP = 15T
4% of the GDP for fuel.
...
But let's work it from the other direction, too -
Edmund's estimate of $6000 per year (Ford Focus) times 253 million vehicles in the USA.
(.812 x 312 million - from Wiki)
$1.5 T (which includes the petroleum costs, etc)
1.5 T / 15 T = 10% GDP but that's just for the vehicle and its direct expenses on the owner
However, AAA has a higher estimate : $8,946 per year, for owning a car, which when multiplied by 253 million vehicles, comes out to :
$2.2 T
2.2 T/ 15 T = 15%
Road building, add 4%
Infrastructure repair, add another 4%
We're up to 23% of the GDP
UH OH...
I am short ONE PERCENT.
[head smack]
I probably added in things like the additional costs for traffic jams, health costs, air pollution, suburban sprawl, strip malls, and other indirect costs like drunk drivers. (It's no surprise that countries with trams have a lower incidence of injuries attributed to intoxicated people coming home from drinking.)
There are other costly charges, due to the ever increasing surface area required by automobiles, but they are hard to quantify, and I will let them slide. (I mean, how much was it "worth" to Boston to bury 1.6 miles of superhighway in the "Big Dig"? $21.93 Billion (after interest))
As to the economizing aspects of electric traction rail, let's see:
20:1 advantage in rolling resistance (95% savings in energy used to move it) 9:1 advantage in surface area (1 track equivalent to 9 lanes of superhighway in carrying capacity, and requires far less safety clearance)
Less pollution and detritus (steel wheels on steel rails do not shed rubber fragments, nor do electric locomotives spew fumes)
Scalable (Can increase capacity by reducing headway or adding cars to the train)
Higher speed potential
You can pour "hate" on rails, but there's no other viable solution that can cut down on energy use, provide scalable transportation, support population consolidation, and reduce the surface area needed for transportation, which as long as the population keeps doubling every 50 years, is an important factor.
For the most part, all those roads are 100% subsidized by the taxpayer, by local, state and federal taxes, whether or not the taxpayer directly uses them.
Wrongish. It's like saying transit is 100% subsidized by the taxpayer, since the taxpayer also pays the fare just as they pay gas taxes. 60% of the federal component of the highways is funded by gas taxes, this despite siphoning off of 25% of gas tax money for transit spending, deficit reduction. How local governments handle their end of it is harder. I live in a high gas tax state. Our 18 cent gas tax covers 25% of road costs, meaning we'd need to increase the gas tax by 54 cents to fully fund roads. Of course, it's a tax so it's still covered by the taxpayer... just like transit fees are covered by taxpayers (baring those who don't pay taxes).
Quote:
How much is spent each year in building, maintaining and repairing, is far greater than the Federal Highway Trust fund disburses to the states... about $37 B in 2011.
Which sounds like a lot. Until you figure MTA spends $12.5 billion a year. The MTA provides transportation for only a fraction of the 22.1 million people, which is only 7% of the US population. Many others drive on roads. If the rest of the country funded transit to the extend NY did, it would cost $187 billion. And remember, 60% of the federal component of highways is covered by the gas tax, plus another 25% siphoned off for other purposes (transit being the largest). If you're not driving, you're only paying $22.2 billion. Plus freeloading off another $9.3 billion in siphoned-off stuff that you aren't paying for, most of that going to transit. Transit does play big role in that.
Quote:
President Barack Obama's announcement of a six-year, $476 billion surface transportation reauthorization bill, comes out at $80 B more additional spending.
Stimulus package. Stimulus package that favors public transit several times more than roads.
Quote:
Edmund's estimate of $6000 per year (Ford Focus) times 253 million vehicles in the USA.
(.812 x 312 million - from Wiki)
$1.5 T (which includes the petroleum costs, etc)
1.5 T / 15 T = 10% GDP but that's just for the vehicle and its direct expenses on the owner
However, AAA has a higher estimate : $8,946 per year, for owning a car, which when multiplied by 253 million vehicles, comes out to :
$2.2 T
2.2 T/ 15 T = 15%
Wrong. The average car is not bought brand-new and held for five years. It's in fact 10.8 years and not 2.5.
Quote:
The average car is not a brand-new Focus and/or
Road building, add 4%
Infrastructure repair, add another 4%
We're up to 23% of the GDP
Wrong.
Just on infrastructure, you are off at least 5%. You're double counting fuel, that's another 4%, you're assuming cars are 2.5 years old when they are 10.8 and driven 15,000 a year when it's in fact just about 11,000 (remarkably similar per vehicle only dropping off to 10,000 by 6-car households) but we'll ignore it as napkin math as trucks cost a lot more than average cars and very expensive transit, air travel need to be included. You're off by 10%. http://cta.ornl.gov/data/chapter8.shtml (table 8.8) lists vehicle miles traveled for 1 through 6 car households.
Quote:
As to the economizing aspects of electric traction rail, let's see:
20:1 advantage in rolling resistance (95% savings in energy used to move it) 9:1 advantage in surface area (1 track equivalent to 9 lanes of superhighway in carrying capacity, and requires far less safety clearance)
Less pollution and detritus (steel wheels on steel rails do not shed rubber fragments, nor do electric locomotives spew fumes)
Scalable (Can increase capacity by reducing headway or adding cars to the train)
Higher speed potential
Diesel uses 100% less electric power. It's an irrelevant statistic, just like rolling resistance. Nobody cares about rolling resistances, they care about the whole picture. I realize it makes it look good in the mass-graves math that you like. Rail traffic is 3x more energy efficient than trucks.
Quote:
You can pour "hate" on rails, but there's no other viable solution that can cut down on energy use, provide scalable transportation, support population consolidation, and reduce the surface area needed for transportation, which as long as the population keeps doubling every 50 years, is an important factor.
Uh, there are tons of viable solutions. Using rail, which is less energy efficient per passenger mile than a Prius, is NOT a viable solution. The average rail @ 2800 BTU/passenger mile vs the average car @3500 BTU/passenger mile... great a 20% reduction in energy. Energy is dirt cheap. You're talking .6% of a gallon of gas per mile in energy savings. That's about 2.5 cents a mile. The average commute is about 32 miles round-trip... 79 cents in savings. You could run out and buy a Tesla and solo drive that and be more energy efficient than transit. That's, on an absurdly simplistic mass-graves math approach, a much more viable solution.
Despite all that, I agree that rail does play an important role especially going forward. In freight especially, but also or passenger service. The NYC subway may only be 20% more efficient than the average car, but it takes less space, an important consideration for dense cities if not for lower density areas where flexibility and lower upfront costs far outweigh the 20% energy savings. The real benefit has to come from consuming less. Less transportation, less 60" LCD TVs, less 2500 square foot average houses, not using rail which is 20% more efficient than an average car and less efficient than efficient cars (Insight/Prius).
Yup...and I expect the googlemobile may easily buy mre than 20%...perhaps a lot more. So maybe LA was right in the long term.
Note that the googlemobile will also impact freight a good bit. The cost of truck hauling is quite labor rich. In fact I would not be surprised if that is not the first place where we see that automation.
Despite all that, I agree that rail does play an important role especially going forward. In freight especially, but also or passenger service. The NYC subway may only be 20% more efficient than the average car, but it takes less space, an important consideration for dense cities if not for lower density areas where flexibility and lower upfront costs far outweigh the 20% energy savings. The real benefit has to come from consuming less. Less transportation, less 60" LCD TVs, less 2500 square foot average houses, not using rail which is 20% more efficient than an average car and less efficient than efficient cars (Insight/Prius).
Good posts, so from an environmental point of view, you want people to travel less distance. Part of that would be by having more mixed use, but a very big part would be density, and at a certain density, there's no room for cars and that's where transit comes in. It would also be advantageous from an energy POV to fill vehicles in general, both the quasi-empty buses and also cars through carpooling.
Good posts, so from an environmental point of view, you want people to travel less distance. Part of that would be by having more mixed use, but a very big part would be density, and at a certain density, there's no room for cars and that's where transit comes in. It would also be advantageous from an energy POV to fill vehicles in general, both the quasi-empty buses and also cars through carpooling.
Or perhaps make vehicles that are efficient at the level of one or two occupants. Flexible systems with low occupancy and high utilization would likely do more than anything else. And they fit well with the LA architecture rather than that of NYC.
NYC may have a high enough density that nothing else works well but subways. But I can also see an automated cab system with small vehicles working very well in those canyons. Particularly if run as a utility rather than as private use vehicles.
Like maybe a bike? Recreational biking is huge in the US. Bike commuting is huge in the rest of the world.
Just like walking. Imagine the size of the lightbulb that will go off when the mainstream public realizes that recreation turned into commuting gives you the same enjoyment AND gets you to/from work.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
