Matthew Yglesias (June 13, 2008) - Who Powers The Electric Car? (Domestic Policy)

Another point is that this will reduce congestion on the existing highways, right? This should be a point in its favor even for those people who prefer to live in the suburbs or outer-suburbs.

Posted by Jim W | June 13, 2008 2:54 PM

The kerfuffle with the DC Metro over the last several days does not bode well for getting people out of their cars.

Posted by peej | June 13, 2008 2:56 PM

Hey, here's a topic request related to this: what was the level of economic activity and trade at the peak of the (largely) carbon-neutral economy? Sailing ships and mule-powered canal-barges are pretty much completely carbon neutral -- how much trade was possible working with that infrastructure, before coal/steam power (ships and railroads) took over?

Posted by Pesto | June 13, 2008 2:58 PM

Plug-in electric cars will be powered by nukes. There's no other source.

Posted by Bloix | June 13, 2008 2:58 PM

It's important to point out, before people ask, that yes, electricity drawn off of a standard local grid is both more efficiently generated and less carbon-producing than the energy generated by an internal combustion engine. I know what Matt is pointing out-- we'd have to generate more electricity, and that is likely to generate more carbon. But sometimes you hear people say "well if you're producing carbons to make the electricity, there's no benefit." And that's not true.

Posted by Freddie | June 13, 2008 3:02 PM

The idea with plugins is that even if you power them by burning fossil fuels, you can burn those more efficiently and more cleanly at a central power plant (more scrubbers, better quality control, etc.) than if you burn them in each individual car.

You can also swap in a better generation method at a later date by replacing one power plant instead of many cars.

Posted by phil | June 13, 2008 3:05 PM

There's no other source.

there's that big blindy thing up in the sky.

Posted by cleek | June 13, 2008 3:12 PM

I certainly agree with everyone who thinks our policy should be trying to create better plug-in vehicles.

But you also want people to switch from driving to using mass transit. Better plug-in vehicles will reduce the incentive to make that switch. Ironic, isn't it?

Still, an electric car needs electricity to power it. And electricity needs to be made somehow. It strikes me as unlikely that we're going to simultaneously be able to shift all our electrical production to clean sources while also massively increasing our overall use of electricity to power a nationwide fleet of single-occupancy cars.

We're not going to be able to shift all our electrical production to clean sources. But burning oil in giant engines in municipal power plants to produce electricity to power millions of hybrid or electric cars is probably a cleaner and more efficient way of using it than burning it in millions of little gasoline engines.

We have proven, longstanding technology that drastically reduces carbon emissions. To wit -- walking, biking, bus, trolley, light rail, metro, commuter rail, high-speed intercity rail.

Transit buses and light rail are less energy-efficient than even current-technology cars, and probably emit more carbon also. Commuter rail and heavy rail are only modestly more energy efficient than current-technology cars. And new-technology cars (hybrid/PHEV/electric) will be far more energy-efficient than current-technology ones.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 3:13 PM

There is no reason to reduce consumption if we have cleaner sources of electricity. We already know how to do it -- nuclear, solar, wind -- and better technologies will eventually be forthcoming -- fusion, solar in orbit. It's just a matter of making the change-over cost effective, and current policies just don't encourage the transition.

Posted by Sean Carroll | June 13, 2008 3:17 PM

"high-speed intercity rail."

What is the source for your claim that this "drastically" reduces carbon emissions?

Posted by James B. Shearer | June 13, 2008 3:19 PM

Funny, just this morning someone asked me how much electricity we would use if we switched to all electric cars. My response was very back-of-the-envelope, so I'd love to hear if anyone can improve this. Here's what I wrote:

Chevy is saying that the Volt, in electricity mode, will cost 2 cents per mile. The average retail price of electricity right now is about 10 cents per KWH. At this rate, it means that 1 KWH will move your car five miles. (I also found that the difference between normal full-charge and normal "empty" is 8 KWHs, and if the Volt can go 40 miles on that, it's 1KwH per five miles) A rough estimate of total vehicle miles is about 2.5 trillion miles per year (I found that in 1994 it was about 1.6 trillion). So, to drive the vehicle fleet that far, you'd need 500 billion KWH, or 500 million megawatt-hours. With 8,760 hours in a year (and generating plants running 24-7, which isn't realistic) you would need generating capacity of about 57,000 Megawatts. Current capacity is about 1.1 million Megawatts, which means we'd need to increase our generating capacity by 5%. Adjust for the fact that plants/wind/sun don't run 24-7, I'll just make up a round number and say we need to increase capacity by 100,000 Megawatts, or 100 Gigawatts.

How does this growth in capacity compare to the projected growth without electric cars? Just based on historic growth rates, the EIA predicts we need about 250 Gigawatts of additional generation by 2030. So if we have a constant growth rate in electric vehicle usage, reaching 100% in 2030, we'll need to be adding an additional 40% or so in generating capacity beyond what we already need to add.

Posted by Michael Mitton | June 13, 2008 3:20 PM

Mixner,

Are you saying that buses and rail are less energy-efficient per rider? That is hard to believe.

I bicycle to work everyday, so I'm "doing my part". Also, I support mass transit in the abstract. I have to admit, though, that I dislike using it for relatively short trips. When I used to live in Boston, I almost never used the T. I would walk or bicycle to where I wanted to go.

I don't think I'm alone. I think most people prefer the feeling of being in control of their own vehicle, rather than being shipped around like a sack of potatoes. My only exception to this rule is long distance travel on trains or airplanes.

Posted by Jim W | June 13, 2008 3:21 PM

Mixner,

I have to agree with you. Let us say that to build out all the mass transit infrastructure that Matt wants would cost 750 billion over 10 years. Let us say that the cost of building 250 new nuke plants (economies of scale and all that) was 500 billion over 10 years.

I think if given the choice of spending 500 billion on nukes and more on plug in hybrids vs. spending 750 billion and everyone having to take the bus (or train) - America is going to go the nuke route.

Posted by Jmo | June 13, 2008 3:23 PM

Right,

Plug in hybrids are but one part of a multifaceted approach. Less use of cars is desireable in that it increases physical activity with reduces obesity. It also releases less pollution and saves the consumers money. I have long thought a plug in hybrid diesel is the way to go. But how will that plug in power be powered? I also think that the increased use of solar cells on rooftop spaces is the way to go. That space is doing nothing right now anyways. It could be given a useful activity; generating power. I tend to think that all the excess juice generated during the day could be efficiently stored in underground hydrogen fuel cells to be used at night or in cloudy times. Also, there have been many interesting breakthoughs in wind technology.

All the technology is here right now, and implementation will cost us in the short term. However, over the long term this will be an enormous cost saver as well as environmentally beneficial.

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 3:26 PM

Holy shit, OT

Tim Russert dead of heart attack.

Posted by drjimcooper | June 13, 2008 3:36 PM

I have to agree with you. Let us say that to build out all the mass transit infrastructure that Matt wants would cost 750 billion over 10 years.

Your numbers there, though nice are still pessimistic. It would be more fair to spread the initial cost of the Nuclear Plant over 30 years, as they will most likely run 50 years (possibly a lot longer.) The only main expense being the building (much like solar/wind) so taking a longer term look shows really how efficent it is, and how easy it would be to use Nuclear to power an Electric Car market.

Posted by Evinfuilt | June 13, 2008 3:38 PM

The terrible thing about electricity is that it can't be stored. Well it can be stored locally, like in a car battery, but not centrally, as a practical matter so it rarely is.

The electrical grid has to have enough generating capacity to meet the peak need at any moment. Thus much power is wasted. They system absolutely has to be generating excess power at all times. Power not used is power wasted.

A fairly huge number of plug in cars would not actually require any more capacity nor even any or much more output at any moment.

Now synchronizing car charging with systematic peak needs might be impossible or not very practical or cheap but when thinking of plug in cars one must factor in the systematic advantage of having local storage of electricty.

Most cars would certainly charge at night when peak needs are much lower.

Plug in makes all sorts of sense. It makes even more sense if it were done at higher voltages. Of course most homes don't have higher than 110V service, for now.

Anyway plug in makes a lot more sense than simple common sense suggests.

Posted by rapier | June 13, 2008 3:41 PM

Are you saying that buses and rail are less energy-efficient per rider? That is hard to believe.

Not per rider, per passenger mile. And I said "transit buses" and "light rail." Intercity buses are significantly more energy-efficient than current cars, and heavy/commuter rail is moderately more energy efficient than current cars. But that is likely to change as new, more energy-efficient cars (hybrid/PHEV/electric) displace existing cars. And most transit is buses, not rail.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 3:41 PM

So fissle material is free?

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 3:42 PM

The terrible thing about electricity is that it can't be stored. Well it can be stored locally, like in a car battery, but not centrally, as a practical matter so it rarely is.

The electrical grid has to have enough generating capacity to meet the peak need at any moment. Thus much power is wasted. They system absolutely has to be generating excess power at all times. Power not used is power wasted.

A fairly huge number of plug in cars would not actually require any more capacity nor even any or much more output at any moment.

Now synchronizing car charging with systematic peak needs might be impossible or not very practical or cheap but when thinking of plug in cars one must factor in the systematic advantage of having local storage of electricty.

Most cars would certainly charge at night when peak needs are much lower.

Plug in makes all sorts of sense. It makes even more sense if it were done at higher voltages. Of course most homes don't have higher than 110V service, for now.

Anyway plug in makes a lot more sense than simple common sense suggests.

Posted by rapier | June 13, 2008 3:43 PM

Of course we also know that both plug-in vehicles and cleaner electricity sources work, and just cost more money than petroleum-only cars used to cost (back before the recent runup in petroleum prices). So I am not sure I understand the distinction Matt is trying to draw, and I would suggest the likely result of sustained higher petroleum prices will be some switching from petroleum-only cars to both public transit AND plug-in vehicles, even if the latter never come down in cost (although of course both will come down in cost in the real world, as technologies improve and scale increases).

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 3:48 PM

Funny, just this morning someone asked me how much electricity we would use if we switched to all electric cars. My response was very back-of-the-envelope, so I'd love to hear if anyone can improve this. Here's what I wrote:

Chevy is saying that the Volt, in electricity mode, will cost 2 cents per mile. The average retail price of electricity right now is about 10 cents per KWH. At this rate, it means that 1 KWH will move your car five miles. (I also found that the difference between normal full-charge and normal "empty" is 8 KWHs, and if the Volt can go 40 miles on that, it's 1KwH per five miles) A rough estimate of total vehicle miles is about 2.5 trillion miles per year (I found that in 1994 it was about 1.6 trillion). So, to drive the vehicle fleet that far, you'd need 500 billion KWH, or 500 million megawatt-hours. With 8,760 hours in a year (and generating plants running 24-7, which isn't realistic) you would need generating capacity of about 57,000 Megawatts. Current capacity is about 1.1 million Megawatts, which means we'd need to increase our generating capacity by 5%. Adjust for the fact that plants/wind/sun don't run 24-7, I'll just make up a round number and say we need to increase capacity by 100,000 Megawatts, or 100 Gigawatts.

How does this growth in capacity compare to the projected growth without electric cars? Just based on historic growth rates, the EIA predicts we need about 250 Gigawatts of additional generation by 2030. So if we have a constant growth rate in electric vehicle usage, reaching 100% in 2030, we'll need to be adding an additional 40% or so in generating capacity beyond what we already need to add.

Posted by Michael Mitton | June 13, 2008 3:48 PM

P.S., hybrid buses are already being phased into many cities' fleets, and are a big energy and money saver. So who says hybrid technologies will only benefit cars?

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 3:48 PM

The important thing is not to let the question of powering electric (or near electric) vehicles slow down our transition to them. Of course doing less, and being more efficient should be a major thrust, as there is a huge amount of savings to be had that way. Plugins should not be thought of as an additional energy demand, but rather as an important optimization of current energy using applications.

Posted by bigTom | June 13, 2008 3:51 PM

These guys (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan) want to spend $400 billion on photovoltaic and solar thermal by 2050. They would need an area the size of Vermont to supply about 40 percent of the total US energy needs, plus a massive network of high voltage DC power lines. Sounds like a lot, but it's only about 2.5 percent of the area of the southwest that's suitable for solar purposes -- also, it's less land than is required for equivalent coal plants, if you include the coal mines as well).

The spend works out to about $10 billion / year, but that's within the same order of magnitude as what we spend filling the strategic petroleum reserve right now (or when we were doing it).

I understand Matt's point but I also fail to understand why we aren't doing this already. I see LOTS of economic stimulus in an initiative like this, and at the end, we're massively better off than we are now. We spend $200 billion / year in Iraq. We spend $1 trillion / year on oil. I want to hear more stuff like this.

Posted by mark | June 13, 2008 3:52 PM

Efficiency is good.

Conservation is better.

If we can't do enough of either to matter, build more nuclear plants.

Mildly OT

I've followed petroleum production statistics for awhile with an eye to checking up on Peak Oil. What I've found is that production has kind of plateaued. And there's a wobble. Now a bit down. Now a bit up. But never by much. The amazing price per barrel of the last year has coaxed a bit more oil to the market in the last few months, but there's still the question if reserves are just being depleted faster and if sales are still outstripping discovery. I've just finished Deffeyes book (Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage) and the range of possible Duck Now moments he posits stretches from 2003 to 2009. At one point in 2005 production did start to fall, but has rebounded a bit in the face of the speculative bubble.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 13, 2008 3:52 PM

Most cars would certainly charge at night when peak needs are much lower.

Yes. In fact, by taking advantage of currently unused nighttime capacity in the electrical system the large-scale use of PHEVs might have the effect of reducing the unit cost of electricity, by raising the return on capital for electrical system infrastructure.

Eventually, as PHEV/electric cars become more common, we'll have to increase capacity. But that can be done gradually as demand rises. It's not like we're going to turn over the nation's entire auto fleet with PHEV/electric vehicles in just a few years.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 3:52 PM

I still think we need nuclear reactors. You put anti-aircraft guns next to the reactors and have tight security.

Other states can have reactors as well. It would add to stability. Our foreign policy should prefer "rogue" states like Iran paying for energy that comes from a nuclear reactor located in a neighboring, more-benign state, but plan B (if that's no feasible) should be to let every state have their own reactors. If Iran tries to start a weapon program, we should just send in commandos to destroy that operation, or bomb it from planes.

We shouldn't cut our own nose off and deny ourselves reactors just to pretend like the French weren't smart or to make George Bush's policy towards Iran look like it wasn't about snatching their oil for his friends, family, boarding-school chums, and golf buddies (i.e., the oil-industry).

Let go of the objections to nuclear.

Posted by Swan | June 13, 2008 4:00 PM

The electrical grid has to have enough generating capacity to meet the peak need at any moment.

And the electrical grid is, like every other bit of national infrastructure, in really bad shape.

Jmo - The cost of building power plants is only part of the equation. There is also the time it takes to build and bring plants on-line. Nuclear plants are much in demand, with only so many people qualified to build them. And every community in the nation would need new relay stations. And new lines. Please note how much easier it is to do this sort of thing in Europe, Japan, etc... as opposed to here. Its also more expensive because of all the low density suburbs.

Another issue is asphalt prices. Simply keeping the entire road system paved in getting pricey too. Cars, even electric ones, still need good roads to run on. Asphalt is a petroleum product, so its peaking as well.

And finally, replacing the car fleet, even over a period of 10-15 years, with plug in hybrids is problematic. A lot of folks that depend on cars to get around don't buy new cars. They buy used ones out of necessity. Many poor people in rural communities are driving cars that are 10-15 years old. How long is it going to take to get plug in hybrid tech up into the hills of West Virginia, or Oklahoma?

These are some of the questions embedded in the issue of proven/ unproven technologies.

Posted by RoboticGhost | June 13, 2008 4:00 PM

"But the killer ap is still reduced consumption. We have proven, longstanding technology that drastically reduces carbon emissions. To wit -- walking, biking, bus, trolley, light rail, metro, commuter rail, high-speed intercity rail. Unlike plug-in vehicles, there's nothing speculative about this technology -- we know that it works, it just costs money. And there's considerable reason to believe that investments in non-highway transportation infrastructure combined with a regulatory structure designed to encourage high-density development near key nodes would enhance economic growth rather than detract from it.
"

That is a multigenerational endeavor, unless you are planning to carpet bomb the suburbs. It is worth pursuing (the investment, not the bombing), but it is small potatoes. The benefits are small and are reaped only after many years. In the short run, it actually uses more energy. Building uses energy and increases energy-wasting congestion. Break even could take decades.

It is also only a solution for a small part of the problem. The industrialized west can not just look after their own here. We need to solve the world's problems. China and India, when confronted with a choice between growth or preventing a submerged Florida and Holland will choose growth.

Eliminating CO2 as a byproduct of all transportation all over the world will probably not be enough. Since we are going to need to solve energy production problems anyway, it is wise to see how they might apply to our transportation situation.
______
The only difficulty in developing a good electric car is the existance of cheap gas and established companies dependent on internal combustion engines. Those are both on the way out.
__________
One other thing, "Killer ap" is really out of place here, considering it has never been used effectively before.

Posted by Njorl | June 13, 2008 4:02 PM

To summarize a conversation we had elsewhere, Mixner is confused because he thinks "transit bus" is a kind of vehicle. He doesn't understand that the vehicles themselves are far more efficient than cars, provided they are used in efficient ways.

Anyway, not only are there hybrid buses, but all-electric technology is particularly great for local buses. The petroleum-powered engine and fuel in a hybrid is just extra weight to carry around when the vehicle is in all-electric mode, but necessary if you end up needing to go outside your battery's relative short range (at least given current battery technology). And with cars, a lot of people want enough flexibility in range to make lugging that redundant engine around necessary. But with local buses, you can just schedule their use within the limits of the batteries you are using, and then dump the extra weight.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 4:05 PM

DTM,

and I would suggest the likely result of sustained higher petroleum prices will be some switching from petroleum-only cars to both public transit AND plug-in vehicles, even if the latter never come down in cost (although of course both will come down in cost in the real world, as technologies improve and scale increases).

Sustained higher petroleum prices would make public transit more expensive as well as passenger cars. Transit authorities are already cutting back services and raising ticket prices because of the price of oil. Over the short term, switching to mass transit may be the most attractive option for some people, but over the longer-term if people can cut their car's fuel costs by 50% or more by switching to a new-technology vehicle (or simply a smaller vehicle of current technology), they're probably going to do that rather than switch to transit, especially in the face of cutbacks in service and higher ticket prices.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 4:06 PM

And every community in the nation would need new relay stations. And new lines. Please note how much easier it is to do this sort of thing in Europe, Japan, etc... as opposed to here. Its also more expensive because of all the low density suburbs.

We have two options:

A. Move everyone out of the suburbs into new high density developments linked by mass transit.

B. Build a new low carbon power infrastructure (wind, thermal, nuke etc.)

It would seem much easier and cheaper to do "B" rather than "A"

Actually, long term the best bet is to do some combination of the two. More density and more mass transit and a new low carbon infrastructure. The key is do we do 80% "A" or 80% "B" my money is on Americans going with 60-80% "B".

Posted by jmo | June 13, 2008 4:10 PM

Here's why Matt's omission of nuclear in favor of "reduced consumption" in his second paragraph sounds bad:

It sounds like the plutocrats' plan: "Just let everyone who cannot afford to drive when it becomes too expensive not drive, and figure their own problems out. After all, we can't let Republicans look bad for saying Iran can't have a nuclear reactor, and we'd look barbarous in front of the rest of the world if what we were denying them was what we tacitly admit is the only power alternative for now. We rich will be able to stay detached away from the rest of humanity, anyway, so who cares if 98% of (often newly-impoverished) people in America are left in a nightmare of new pedestrianism and mass-transit that can't possibly be prepared and constructed in time?"

On-the-fly short-time solutions to only part of the problem by mass-transit companies is not the answer. The problem is there are simply too many people. We need something like an even replacement for the automobiles we currently have out there, until we can complete a very long and involved transition (to the new pedestrianism and mass-transit) away from the current amount of automobiles. Otherwise, people will simply starve and there will be chaos and panic. It is simply not worth destroying America so a few rich Republican assholes can be spoiled brats about the whole thing.

Posted by Swan | June 13, 2008 4:10 PM

Mixner,

Again, public transit doesn't have to run on petroleum, and in many applications is actually a better candidate for all-electric than cars (e.g., I noted above that local buses are excellent candidates for all-electric, and of course trains can use overhead electric and dispense with the batteries, and you can even have dual-mode buses which use overhead wires where feasible, switching to batteries where not). So at best a switch to favoring electric power for transit is a wash for cars versus public transit, and more likely it will be a bit to public transit's advantage.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 4:17 PM

Since there seems to be some interest on this blog, I'll share this:

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Hong-Kong-Micro-Wind-Turbine-Arrays.htm

Wind power, as with other clean forms of energy, is going through major innovations. The problem, as always, is storage. I'd still like to see a feasibility study of using underground hydrogen fuel cells.

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 4:17 PM

You're not going to be able to employ people to hand-relay food they are transporting by foot and by bicycle from all those huge Monsanto farms to everyone who needs it, even if a lot of people move a lot closer to all those farms.

We need plenty of automobiles, and we'll be extremely fucked if we don't have (I imagine) something like 80% or 90% of the amount of vehicles we already have on the road. The extent of transition it would take to go from our current society (and amount of cars) to a non-nuclear society with something like about half as many cars, all powered by electricity from coal generators, would be huge-- huge.

Posted by Swan | June 13, 2008 4:18 PM

DTM,

To summarize a conversation we had elsewhere, Mixner is confused because he thinks "transit bus" is a kind of vehicle.

No, DTM is confused because he doesn't understand that "transit buses" are of necessity operated in a fundamentally different and less efficient way than other types of bus such as intercity buses.

Anyway, not only are there hybrid buses, but all-electric technology is particularly great for local buses.

Hybrid transit buses are more energy-efficient than diesel transit buses, but they still suffer from the efficiency-reducing characteristics of low load factors and frequent stopping and starting.

PHEV technology is also better suited to passenger cars than buses, because cars are likely to be able to operate on the stored battery charge for a larger share of their running time than buses.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 4:21 PM

Without nuclear, we are looking at a Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome future in our own country. It will be the Rodeny King riots on a revolting, enormous scale.

Any right-wingers who are pushing around Internet commentators or scripting the trolls to omit discussion of this point or object to it should get with the program.

Posted by Swan | June 13, 2008 4:22 PM

Solar electricity is going to be huge - solar cells are silicon semiconductor technology, and as you sit and read this on your flat-screen display with your GHz computer you should know that that technology improves very rapidly indeed. Right now it's economical for some niches: another factor of 3x in price and it's going to explode.

Plug-in hybrids are ok, but I still think it's a bit crazy to be moving a 3000lb car just to get a 200lb driver to and from work. Bicycles and scooters and telecommuting really make more sense. And bicycles are fabulously efficient and cheap these days: I'm tinkering with the idea that if you put a $100 1hp 4-stroke engine on an efficient bicycle, with a $100 microcontroller-driven
automatic transmission, then you get a really zippy vehicle (as fast as Lance Armstrong :-) which does
250mpg+, and sidesteps the whole issue of battery weight and cost.

There are various products vaguely in that field, but they're mostly expensive and/or inefficient.
A little bit of medium-tech mechanical engineering and some targeted subsidies could make a big difference in this kind of thing.

Posted by Richard Cownie | June 13, 2008 4:23 PM

The reality is, consumption will not drop. People are not going to move back to cities en masse, and the suburbs aren't going to dry up and blow away. The built environment of suburbs and work locations simply isn't conducive to mass transit, nor is it going to be any time soon.

You can face that reality, and ponder what power sources might be cleaner, or you can be Don Quixote, and go on a hopeless quest for reduced power usage.

Here's how things will play out in the short term, as we are currently not drilling for oil in places we know it exists (here in the US, off the coasts and in Alaska), we are not building refineries, and we are not building nuclear power plants.

Sometime in the next few years (by 2012 in the greater DC area, according to the WaPo), we'll start seeing rolling blackouts/brownouts. That will be really popular during July. Guess what will happen then? The lid will blow, and drilling and plant construction will be accelerated - the environmentalists and the "slow consumption" people will get shoved rudely aside.

You want to have any impact on things? Accept reality and start promoting scalable clean energy (like nuclear) now. You want to be utterly ignored? Be like Matt, stick your head in the sand, and pretend that people will suddenly (against the entire tide of history) get more ascetic.

Posted by James Robertson | June 13, 2008 4:26 PM

" Transit authorities are already cutting back services and raising ticket prices because of the price of oil. "

That doesn't make sense. If transit authorities can provide transportation more cost effectively than the competition for a larger segment of the population than previously, then they should raise prices and increase service.

Posted by Njorl | June 13, 2008 4:29 PM

DTM,

Again, public transit doesn't have to run on petroleum,

Again, neither do cars.

and in many applications is actually a better candidate for all-electric than cars (e.g., I noted above that local buses are excellent candidates for all-electric, and of course trains can use overhead electric and dispense with the batteries, and you can even have dual-mode buses which use overhead wires where feasible, switching to batteries where not).

Buses and trains may be "excellent candidates" for all-electric operation, but that obviously doesn't mean they are better candidates than cars. Nor do cars have to be all-electric to be more efficient than all-electric transit. As I said, even our existing fleet of passenger cars, which is overwhelmingly dominated by conventional gasoline-powered vehicles, is more energy-efficient per passenger-mile than light rail, which is mostly or entirely electric.

So at best a switch to favoring electric power for transit is a wash for cars versus public transit, and more likely it will be a bit to public transit's advantage.

Nonsense. If that were true, light rail would be massively more efficient than cars. Instead, light rail is less efficient than cars. And as our car fleet transitions to new technologies, their efficiency advantage will grow further.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 4:32 PM

There are two wins for electric cars or hybrids:

1) Regenerative braking, which saves a huge amount of energy

2) Large-scale energy production (power plants) are much more efficient and cleaner than ICEs.

While there are a huge number of different pollutants and different factors at play, it would be far to say that an electric car is about 3X more efficient per passenger mile than a ICE car.

(Besides, I've test-driven a Tesla and, while they're very expensive today, it is more fun than driving a Ferrari.)

Posted by Dan | June 13, 2008 4:34 PM

I went round and around with Mixner on this yesterday, so I'll recap. He bases his entire argument around three false assumptions.

1) "Transit buses and light rail are less energy-efficient than even current-technology cars, and probably emit more carbon also."

Judging by the chart he produced yesterday, this is true if and only if you measure "cars" and "light trucks" separately (leaving SUVs and vans out of the equation) and you do NOT separate car travel into inter city and intracity categories... Then you measure "light rail" separately from the more efficient "heavy rail" and "commuter rail" and separate city buses from rapid transit buses and intercity buses, therefore making the worst possible case for bus and rail... Then you use numbers that are several years old and don't include the recent spike in mass transit use that has increased the number of passenger-miles traveled per bus or train.

Finally, after you've fudged the data enough to serve them as brownies, you "prove" that cars are slightly more efficient than buses or light rail. Congratulations! You've successfully lied with numbers.

2) He falsely assumes that current buses and trains are at full carrying capacity, therefore adding new passengers necessarily requires transit systems to add more vehicles and negate any gains in energy efficiency per passenger mile. This is simply untrue in most cities. Then he falsely assumes that our roads are NOT at full capacity, and assumes increasing the number of cars on the road will not cause more congestion or delays that waste massive amounts of fuel while cars idle in traffic. This, of course, is laughable.

3) He assumes (probably correctly) that improvements in auto technology and a reduced number of big gas-guzzlers will make autos more energy-efficient in coming years. Then he falsely assumes that no equivalent technological breakthroughs, or improvements in scheduling, could possibly apply to mass transit.

BONUS DISHONESTY - He also seems to imply that this is a zero-sum game and anyone who favors improving our mass transit options wants to force everyone to ride the bus and get cars off the road. He's accused me of "arguing against myself" for saying I favor both improved efficiency for cars AND better mass transit options. This is simply worthy of contempt.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 13, 2008 4:40 PM

jmo- I think you're right. I also I think the hardest hit in all of this will be small towns. And the inevitable death of a lot of them could very well drive up density in the 'burbs.

Anecdote: I work for a non-profit with several regional offices around PA and Southern WV. Our main (Pittsburgh) office is in the city and has good telecom infrastructure. Thanks to the proximity of CMU, Pitt, etc... Pittsburgh often gets in on new stuff fairly early. High Speed Internet, for instance. My offices in the field? Not so much. In some areas we cover, the only Internet service available is satellite. Its simply not cost effective to run wires to these places, even though a bunch of people live there.

For corollary, a lot of these places are going to fail quickly and soon. It happens all the time when mines and factories close. The town my mom grew up in is for all intents and purposes dead already. Everybody moved to a metro area. 5,000 people there 15 years ago. maybe a few hundred left. As gas prices continue to skyrocket, and shipped goods get pricier and pricier, people in rural areas with little money will have no choice but to leave. There's no way to save these places with plug in hybrids or anything else.

My skylarked theory: they'll end up in what today are perfectly nice suburbs with imperfect transit access. Distance is already impacting housing prices. We could start seeing "country ghettos" popping up in places worked over by energy costs and the sub prime mess. Eventually they'll be enough people who need access to transit to justify service and that will, in turn, bulk up service in the rest of the suburbs as many of these neighborhoods are on the periphery today. By 2050 there will be 400 million of us running around.

Suburbanites, maybe you don't have to come to the city. The city might be coming to you.

Posted by RoboticGhost | June 13, 2008 4:44 PM

Swan, there are two major problems with nuclear that make it pretty certain that nuclear will not be a major part of future electricity generation: 1) nuclear is too expensive (at 12 to 17 cents per kilowatt-hour), and 2) no one in America wants a new nuclear power plant built anywhere near where the live. In spite of the cries of the nuclear industry for less regulation and more subsidies, I do not think you will see another nuclear power plant built in this country in the next fifty years, if ever.

The most viable and inexpensive solution for zero C02 emission electricity generation is thermal solar.

Posted by Rob Mac | June 13, 2008 4:45 PM

Question: Does anyone have any references that show internal combustion engines to be less efficient than coal fired power plants? I haven't seen any sources that do a comparison of emissions and output of different power plant types, and I did a bit of googling.

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 4:49 PM

Mixner,

There is nothing "fundamental" or "necessary" about local transit authorities using vehicles too big for the routes they are serving.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 4:54 PM

"no one in America wants a new nuclear power plant built anywhere near where the live. In spite of the cries of the nuclear industry for less regulation and more subsidies, I do not think you will see another nuclear power plant built in this country in the next fifty years, if ever."

Ask that question again when it becomes clear that the only power source that could be built quickly enough and large enough to keep the A/C on is nuclear. All of those objections will blow away, and fast. People like cars; they like A/C even more.

Posted by James Robertson | June 13, 2008 4:56 PM

While agreeing that the steps you recommend are the most important there's one small sidebar I'd like to mention: Why haven't the companies installing solar panels gotten together with those companies selling plug-in modifications for hybrid cars to create a package deal wherein you power your car with your house. The one estimate that I got for solar panels was less than half the capacity that our roof area could provide because that was all the electricity we could use to offset our electric consumption. If we were running our car as well it would make quite a savings.

Posted by djhenry | June 13, 2008 4:57 PM

freddiemac - Good question. On a bus w/ my iPhone, ironically. Can't do it myself right now. But here is a good place to start looking for that data.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3587

This post, and indeed that blog, is a must read.

While I can't speak to the specifics, I'd say internal combustion would get the nod. Gasoline is amazing stuff. Almost magical, really. A gallon has a potential output of 115,000 BTU! Its such a shame we squandered it.

Posted by RoboticGhost | June 13, 2008 4:58 PM

That may be true, James Robertson, but people could also look into improving and modernizing their home insulation, which is the single quickest, safest, most cost-effective way to shift the ratio of energy supply and demand. But unlike nuclear power, energy conservation doesn't give right-wingers hardons, nor does it have a multimillion dollar industry propaganda campaign on its side, so never mind.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 13, 2008 5:04 PM

DTM,

There is nothing "fundamental" or "necessary" about local transit authorities using vehicles too big for the routes they are serving.

Another utterly irrelevant statement. The fundamental differences between intercity buses and transit buses that cause the latter to be much less efficient are: (1) Frequency of service. Transit buses typically run much more frequently than intercity buses and hence have lower load factors. Lower load factors reduce energy effciency. (2) Number of stops and starts. Transit buses stop at bus stops typically located every half-mile or so. Frequent stopping and starting reduces energy efficiency. (3) Traffic flow interruptions. Transit buses typically run on city or suburban streets where they are subject to stops and delays due to traffic lights, yield signs, congestion, road work, etc. This reduces their energy efficiency. Intercity buses typically run for most of their route on freeways and interstates where they are much less subject to traffic flow interruptions.

These differences really aren't very hard to understand. I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 5:09 PM

Insulation? that was a big win back in 1975, less so now. The house I grew up in had many breezes from without before the late 70's - the house I bought in 1998 is pretty tightly sealed with double layers of insulation (including the basement). Homes are built with better insulation now, and all the big wins from that kind of thing have happened.

You can toss around insults all you want, but people living in areas that get hot in the summer are not going to do without A/C. Period, end of story. Wind won't do it, and I have serious doubts that solar will (given the storage problem). In terms of extant technology, that leaves coal (abundant), oil (available if we felt like drilling for it), and nuclear.

Pick one, because you won't see reduced consumption.

Posted by James Robertson | June 13, 2008 5:13 PM

James Robertson,

I don't know why you think wind won't do it. Certainly not in all areas, but in it seems practical in many areas, especially given recent technological innovations. Do you have any evidence that wind isn't viable?

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 5:18 PM

Mixner,

Your own data demonstrated lower load factors were the determinative problem (e.g., if (2) and (3) were the real problems, then vanpools and school buses would be similarly inefficient, but they were not). And low load factors can be solved by using smaller vehicles on the relevant routes, which your own data also demonstrated (again see "vanpools" on your chart).

In sum, that the solution to insufficient loads is smaller vehicles really isn't very hard to understand. I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 5:19 PM

Wind does not provide constant power. Electricity needs to be constant, and wind isn't. You can use wind as a secondary source, provided that you have another source that can provide full capacity when needed. So when you build wind, you need another source that can pick up. Since we have no viable way to store electricity, wind doesn't cut it.

Posted by James Robertson | June 13, 2008 5:21 PM

(2) Number of stops and starts.

Mixner, most of the hybrid system designs recover a lot of energy from braking. And bus systems can be strategically be arranged to maximize route and stop efficiencies. I saw a computer model a while back. Really neat stuff. You won't be surprised that I'm in DTM's camp here, but bus systems themselves are evolving to, like DTM has pointed out several times, make adjustments to increased fuel costs which is something they never had to do before.

(3)Traffic flow interruptions

and where precisely do automobiles drive, that they would be free from such? I just got off the bus. It was crowded. Much more so than it was last year. Yet my ride took less time (yes I am a big dork that times his transit trips). Fewer cars on the road mean, ipso facto, fewer traffic flow interruptions. Anecdotal evidence, but I see this already.

Posted by RoboticGhost | June 13, 2008 5:22 PM

Fer cryin' out loud- a good stationary plant will beat a good mobile plant on thermal efficiency every time. A gallon of gas is a little easier to turn into forward motion than a gallon of coal, but it is simply easier to engineer thermal efficiency into a stationary plant. Not to mention the fact that the car is always carrying a lot of unused gallons up and down hills.

Posted by serial catowner | June 13, 2008 5:22 PM

freddiemac: Tesla has a fine graphic of "wheel-to-wheel energy efficiency" here:
http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php

Posted by mark | June 13, 2008 5:25 PM

serial catowner,

comparing coal power to gasoline power isn't apples to apples. Several questions arise:
1. How much pollution per gallon is released for each.
2. How much per kwh?
3. How much energy is lost due to environmental constrains like coal scrubbers or catalytic converters?

Since coal is almost pure carbon, when it is burned it will release quite a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. Coal also contains other impurities that are released when it is burned (radioactive isotopes). Some of that can be mitigated at the plant, but it will reduce efficiency.

Thus, which form is the more "environmentally friendly" option seems rather opaque.

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 5:28 PM

James Robertson, I'm not sure when a nuclear power plant was ever built quickly. The process of building nuclear is notoriously slow and expensive. The last nuclear plant to go online in the US was Watts Bar in Tennessee. That was in 1996 and construction of the plant took over 20 years! Those poor people waiting on the new nuclear plant before they can turn on their ACs are going to be sweating for a long time!

And you are flat wrong about the storage problem with solar. Currently technology involves storing excess heat built up during the day in the form of molten salt which slowly gives up its heat and generates electricity through the night when demand is lower. Thermal solar is the future of electricity. Nuclear is the past. The distant past at this point.

Posted by Rob Mac | June 13, 2008 5:33 PM

mark,

I'm not quite certain what the link is in reference to.

I wonder if their numbers would change if the Tesla was powered by coal power (most of America's grid is coal) instead of natural gas.

Posted by freddiemac | June 13, 2008 5:33 PM

Follette,

Judging by the chart he produced yesterday, this is true if and only if you measure "cars" and "light trucks" separately (leaving SUVs and vans out of the equation) and you do NOT separate car travel into inter city and intracity categories...

Yes, I said "cars." Not "cars and light trucks." The vast majority of car trips are "intracity," not intercity, so that is unlikely to have a large effect. And since even existing cars are more efficient than transit buses and light rail, the efficiency advantage of cars will likely grow in the future.

Then you measure "light rail" separately from the more efficient "heavy rail" and "commuter rail" and separate city buses from rapid transit buses and intercity buses,

Yes, that's why I said "light rail," not "all rail" and "transit buses," not "all buses." Since the discussion here is about cars vs. transit, not cars vs. intercity buses, the latter aren't terribly relevant to the discussion.
Most transit is transit buses. "Heavy rail" is subways and elevated rapid transit, which are not remotely feasible outside a few large densely-populated cities. Commuter rail is only a small share of transit.

He falsely assumes that current buses and trains are at full carrying capacity, therefore adding new passengers necessarily requires transit systems to add more vehicles and negate any gains in energy efficiency per passenger mile.

I didn't assume any such thing. You falsely asserted that "increasing mass transit ridership has the effect of making our mass transit systems more efficient." I pointed out that this is not necessarily true and that increased ridership could result in either higher or lower efficiency depending on many factors.

Then he falsely assumes that our roads are NOT at full capacity,

More nonsense. Not only did I not make that assumption, but your claim that it is false is wrong, anyway.

He assumes (probably correctly) that improvements in auto technology and a reduced number of big gas-guzzlers will make autos more energy-efficient in coming years. Then he falsely assumes that no equivalent technological breakthroughs, or improvements in scheduling, could possibly apply to mass transit.

Wrong yet again. Hybrid and PHEV technology can be applied to transit buses, but it has almost no application to trains. Hybrid/PHEV/electric transit buses are likely to be less energy efficient than hybrid/PHEV/electric cars for the same reasons that current transit buses are less efficient than current cars (low load factors and frequent stops and starts). Most transit trains already run on electrical power from the grid. No new technologies that would produce dramatic increases in the efficiency of electric trains are on the horizon.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 5:40 PM

We need more Light Electric Vehicles (LEVs) in the mix more than we need electric cars. Why do we need a 2000-3000 lb vehicle to move a 150 lb person?

There is a place for cars and trucks in the transportation mix, but the transportation mix needs to be changed.

We need to reconfigure our infrastructure to make it more bicycle friendly and pedestrian friendly. Even more we need to change people's attitudes.

Posted by Sherry | June 13, 2008 5:46 PM

this is true if and only if you measure "cars" and "light trucks" separately (leaving SUVs and vans out of the equation) and you do NOT separate car travel into inter city and intracity categories

Then you measure "light rail" separately from the more efficient "heavy rail" and "commuter rail" and separate city buses from rapid transit buses and intercity buses, therefore making the worst possible case for bus and rail... Then you use numbers that are several years old and don't include the recent spike in mass transit use that has increased the number of passenger-miles traveled per bus or train.

LP-
I came into that conversation later (more with DTM), but found Mixner's arguments to be pretty darn compelling.

So, forgive me if I am re-asking some stuff that got covered. That thread got huge.

1. Why is it unfair to separate cars from light trucks? If we are looking to create gains in emissions, it makes perfect sense to try and get people out of their SUVs, right? So, if the bus and car alternatives are reasonably comparable, why should we care if we move them into cars or buses?

2. I know inter- and intracity buses were separated out because they are fundamentally different types of transportation. It would be fair to do the same to cars -- that is, compare intracity car use to intracity bus use. By lumping in highway car use (and ruining the apples-to-apples comparison), you are indeed advantaging cars in the comparison. But do we have any idea by how much, and how to gauge with the intracity car efficiency is?

3. Did you put up better numbers on rising bus transit passenger use? This would definitely make a better case for more mass (particularly bus) transit.

I'm of the conviction that there is a serious hesitancy to switch from car life to bus life, and that most people won't do it until there is a massive economic advantage to doing so.

Obviously, this is an assumption that can be proven wrong, but you need to actually show us the money, as it were. If people really are moving, en masse, to a bus system that is more efficient, it would warm my heart. Show your work?

Posted by Brad L | June 13, 2008 5:48 PM

(Too many comments to dig through, so here's my response w/o respect to what's been said) I'm very much within the Volt's target market, as 90+% of my trips are within its electric range. That it can also support the occasional road trip completely cements the deal for me.

Overnight recharges can be timed to occur within low-demand periods, and I can easily offset my new electricity demand by replacing my big CRT teevee with an LCD flat panel set, a rationalization that my bride will never see coming.

Build it Bob Lutz, I'm ready!

Posted by trollhattan | June 13, 2008 6:03 PM

DTM,

Your own data demonstrated lower load factors were the determinative problem (e.g., if (2) and (3) were the real problems, then vanpools and school buses would be similarly inefficient, but they were not).

You're still confused. Unlike transit buses, vanpools and school buses do not typically stop every half-mile or so along a 20- or 30-mile route traversed throughout the day. Vanpools and school buses are both oriented towards commuter-type trips for groups travelling to a common destination. Most transit buses are not. If you think you have evidence that vanpools and school buses stop and start as often as transit buses, produce it.

And low load factors can be solved by using smaller vehicles on the relevant routes, which your own data also demonstrated (again see "vanpools" on your chart).

Smaller vehicles are less efficient than larger ones, so using smaller vehicles would reduce efficiency in that way. If current buses are running at or close to capacity during peak periods, each one would need to be replaced with two or more smaller buses at those times to meet demand. Depending on the current load factor and the ratio of vehicle sizes, this could produce either higher or lower load factors. More peak-time vehicles would also tend to increase congestion. And it would be likely to increase capital costs too (two 50-seat buses are likely to cost more than one 100-seat bus). Many other factors would also influence the effect on efficiency of substituting smaller vehicles for larger ones.

Here's a suggestion: If you seriously think you have come up with an effective solution to the problem of low load factors that transit authorities could implement to significantly improve the load factors of their transit bus fleets, why don't you call your local authority and explain your ideas to them.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 6:07 PM

existing cars are more efficient than transit buses and light rail

You do realize, of course, that "cars" when referenced in almost all transit studies, including the one you cited the other day, includes motorscooters and motorcycles, right?

Also, once light rail is up and running, both infrastructure and train cars are more durable and less expensive and energy intensive to maintain than a fleet of buses, a gazillion cars, and the roads they travel.

A rail car can last up to 60 years; a bus can last 15; a car usually lasts less. Construction counts in the total energy expenditure, as does maintenance. Not just the vehicles themselves.

As for no new technologies on the horizon? Really?

Posted by RoboticGhost | June 13, 2008 6:07 PM

ICE efficiency in cars is somewhere around 30% at best.
The best fuel or coal based power plant flirt with 50%.

IIRC, jus an Order of Magnitude. NUmbers with references are welcome.

For those questions, I like to read
greencarcongress .com

Warning: more for car-techies than treehuggers.

By the way, Mixner, hybrid and electric transit bus are disadvantaged because of the statrts and stops? really? Check at the voice regenerative braking...

Posted by just saying | June 13, 2008 6:12 PM

people living in areas that get hot in the summer are not going to do without A/C. Period, end of story.

Perhaps you'll get people looking at houses got built before A/C.

And it's fascinating how the silly glibertarian boy has such different standards to justify 'the stuff he likes' (wanking endlessly about our glorious electric-car future) and the 'the stuff he doesn't like' (sitting next to strangers on the bus).

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 13, 2008 6:27 PM

robotic,

You do realize, of course, that "cars" when referenced in almost all transit studies, including the one you cited the other day, includes motorscooters and motorcycles, right?

And you know this, how? In any case, the data in question clearly distinguishes motorcycles as a separate category. The category "autos" does not include motorcycles.

Also, once light rail is up and running, both infrastructure and train cars are more durable and less expensive and energy intensive to maintain than a fleet of buses, a gazillion cars, and the roads they travel.

The data shows that light rail is less energy efficient than cars, albeit only slightly. Light rail is certainly much less energy efficient per passenger mile than new-technology cars. For instance, the Toyota Prius.

A rail car can last up to 60 years; a bus can last 15; a car usually lasts less. Construction counts in the total energy expenditure, as does maintenance. Not just the vehicles themselves.

Yes indeed. And the construction and maintenance of rail systems uses huge amounts of energy. The longevity of rail systems is an argument against them, not for them. Since a significant new rail system typically takes a decade to plan and construct, and must operate for decades more to produce benefits commensurate with its huge startup costs, in order to make sense it must be able to compete effectively against not just today's cars, but the vastly superior cars we will be driving 20 or 30 years from now. This is not very plausible.

As for no new technologies on the horizon? Really?

I have no idea how you think that link conflicts with the statement of mine you're responding to.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 6:36 PM

"And you are flat wrong about the storage problem with solar. Currently technology involves storing excess heat built up during the day in the form of molten salt which slowly gives up its heat and generates electricity through the night when demand is lower. Thermal solar is the future of electricity. Nuclear is the past. The distant past at this point."

Yeah, they take 20 years when the current regulatory scheme is in place. Now, how fast were ships built for naval use in 1944 compared to now?

When there's a real crisis, all the extraneous rules will get tossed.

As to your fantasy power scheme above, sure. Go ahead an invest in that; the rest of us will be over here, being sane. Looking here, it looks like that approach is useful in niche operations.

Posted by James Robertson | June 13, 2008 6:43 PM

Mixner, most of the hybrid system designs recover a lot of energy from braking.

Yes, and that means the efficiency advantage of intercity hybrid buses over transit hybrid buses is likely lower than the intercity efficiency advantage in a comparison of diesel buses.

With respect to cars vs. transit buses, hybrid technology is likely to produce comparable improvements in efficiency in both vehicle types, so it's a wash. Under either apples-to-apples comparison (current cars vs. current transit buses; hybrid cars vs. hybrid transit buses) cars are more efficient.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 7:18 PM

Freddiemac - It's important to point out, before people ask, that yes, electricity drawn off of a standard local grid is both more efficiently generated and less carbon-producing than the energy generated by an internal combustion engine.

Incorrect. Basic laws of thermodynamics and conversion efficiencies rule.
Coal to electricity at 36% efficiency of conversion. Rest is waste heat that must be rejected in thermal cycle. Then electricty to battery, less 15% due to hysterisis, eddy current effect, I2R losses. 5% loss in charging battery - (heat). Electric motor then takes electricity and converts it to mechanical motion energy at 90% efficiency.

vs.

Internal combustion engine coverts gas to useful mechanical energy at 40% efficiency. Rest is lost as heat of entropy..

The scheme only makes sense when you are talking cheap nuclear, CO2-free energy...or you factor out environmental issues and use cheap, pulluting coal.

*******************

Mixner - But burning oil in giant engines in municipal power plants to produce electricity to power millions of hybrid or electric cars is probably a cleaner and more efficient way of using it than burning it in millions of little gasoline engines.

Not true because of the conversions and efficiencies. And we rarely use oil anymore for wasting it making electricity since Nixon and successors put an end to wasting it that way posy-1973. Except when economics has you with island, remote towns or villages not served off the grid or with nat gas pipelines. Then you get small scale diesel generator powered electricity.

****************
rapier - The electrical grid has to have enough generating capacity to meet the peak need at any moment. Thus much power is wasted. They system absolutely has to be generating excess power at all times. Power not used is power wasted.

Not true. We have baseload generating units, which run best and most safely at a constant power production or slightly banked at night to avoid thermal stress fatigue cycling large metal components(superheated mega-size coal plants, pressurized water reactor nuke power) and then you have load following units (straight boiler coal, hydro, natural gas-fired steam, boiling water nuke reactors), then you have peaking units - gas turbines, stored water hydro.

Solar and wind are too small, unreliable, and erratic to talk about as of being of any significance in the national grid - except that as their use grows modestly from under 0.5% to maybe 3% of electric gen in the next 25 years, they will affect the load following part of generation on certain days.

The system absolutely does not generate and throw out excess power every day. Much of industry is geared to deals where high-use power is done off-peak, irrigation, municipal water work done at night, hundreds of pumped storage hydro facilities that get surplus baseload power.

**************************
Lafollette Prog - That may be true, James Robertson, but people could also look into improving and modernizing their home insulation, which is the single quickest, safest, most cost-effective way to shift the ratio of energy supply and demand.

Incorrect. The quickest, safest, most cost-effective way would be to close the Borders. Population growth wiped out all past conservation gains. Now with illegals and spawn of illegals, instead of near-zero pop growth, we are slated for 366 million people by 2030 and 434 million by 2050 with energy demand, even with 15% conservation, slated to grow 31% in America and 43% globally.
So you best pray that we not only get nukes, but breeder reactors and full spent fuel processing. We are going to need it.

*********************
) nuclear is too expensive (at 12 to 17 cents per kilowatt-hour), and 2) no one in America wants a new nuclear power plant built anywhere near where the live. In spite of the cries of the nuclear industry for less regulation and more subsidies, I do not think you will see another nuclear power plant built in this country in the next fifty years, if ever.
The most viable and inexpensive solution for zero C02 emission electricity generation is thermal solar.
Posted by Rob Mac

You do not understand technology, you do not understand how people will shove the environmental elites aside the minute the cities begin burning again in 100DEG summer blackouts, and you do not have a grasp on economics. (Old nukes make electricity at under 2 cents a KW-Hr, new nukes are competitive with coal if EITHER construction litigation delays are controlled as France does or a carbon cap&trade/tax is imposed. Your idea that thermal solar is the most viable and inexpensive is belied by the Germans, who admit it is their most expensive and unreliable power source - once you account for the cost of backup power when it is dark or overcast, high O&M costs maintaining and cleaning collectors)

Posted by chris ford | June 13, 2008 7:31 PM

The quickest, safest, most cost-effective way would be to close the Borders.

I fail to see how closing a bookstore will help much.

Your idea that thermal solar is the most viable and inexpensive is belied by the Germans

Germany doesn't have any deserts. We have deserts aplenty.

Speaking for the environmentalist elites, if I may be so bold, there is considerable debate regarding the place and future of nuclear power. I go back and forth a lot. I believe Rob mac was merely pointing out that nuclear power plants take an awfully long time to build and generate a lot of controversy. That is true.

Posted by RoboticGhost | June 13, 2008 7:58 PM

DTM,

Anyway, not only are there hybrid buses, but all-electric technology is particularly great for local buses. The petroleum-powered engine and fuel in a hybrid is just extra weight to carry around when the vehicle is in all-electric mode, but necessary if you end up needing to go outside your battery's relative short range (at least given current battery technology). And with cars, a lot of people want enough flexibility in range to make lugging that redundant engine around necessary. But with local buses, you can just schedule their use within the limits of the batteries you are using, and then dump the extra weight.

You never seem to consider even the obvious downsides of your various ill-considered proposals. If you schedule your all-electric bus's use within the limits of its batteries, you're going to have to take it out of service every 30 or 40 miles (or whatever the battery range is) for several hours to recharge the batteries. That means either less frequent service (perhaps even a complete loss of service for several hours), or more buses to cover the ones that are out of service getting their batteries recharged. More buses means higher capital costs. Probably higher maintenance costs too. And storage costs. Those additional costs may well exceed the marginal cost incurred as a result of the "extra weight to carry around" when using a hybrid bus instead of an all-electric one.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 8:20 PM

Mixner,

Oh are we playing the evidence game again? Then please provide evidence showing the efficiency losses due to starts/stops and traffic, as opposed to lower loads.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 8:25 PM

"There are two wins for electric cars or hybrids:

1) Regenerative braking, which saves a huge amount of energy

2) Large-scale energy production (power plants) are much more efficient and cleaner than ICEs."

There's way more to it than that. Electric motors,
unlike ICE engines, provide their highest torque at
lowest RPM: so you can get zippy performance
with lower peak horsepower. And ICE engines are
finicky all round, taking time and energy to warm
up, giving higher emissions and lower efficiency when operating cold or at low power or at peak
power.

And then of course also ICE engines shake and make
a lot of noise, and spit out dangerous hot gases
at 800C or so, so you need hefty structure and
careful soundproofing to keep that noise and
vibration and gas away from the driver. Throw out the ICE and you also chuck out the whole exhaust system: if you're running on batteries rather than fuel cells you don't even need air for the engine, so you can design for better aerodynamics.

It's all intertwined in pretty complex ways.

The Prius addresses some of these issues: using the Atkinson cycle (low compression ratio, higher expansion ratio gives better efficiency at the
cost of lower peak power), keeping engine coolant
in a Thermos flask for fast warmup etc.

But in the long run a fully-electric car can go
further, e.g. eliminating the inefficient
mechanical transmission by having an electric
motor in each wheel.

The real difficulty so far is not building an
efficient electric vehicle: it's building a
vehicle that meets or exceeds the highly-evolved
ICE passenger car in every way - speed, acceleration, range, passenger comfort, cargo space, price. But maybe with gas over $4/gallon and rising, consumers are going to start accepting a few necessary compromises.

Posted by Richard Cownie | June 13, 2008 8:36 PM

DTM,

Then please provide evidence showing the efficiency losses due to starts/stops and traffic, as opposed to lower loads.

As others have pointed out, since recovering energy otherwise lost during breaking is one of the well-known (though apparently, not by you) ways in which hybrid technology improves fuel-efficiency, it is undeniable that starting and stopping contributes to the lower efficiency of transit buses. The Los Angeles Metro Local bus system, for example, has 18,500 stops on 189 bus routes. But you apparently believe that, somehow, as if by magic, all this starting and stopping is not imposing a fuel cost.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 8:42 PM

Mixner,

I didn't say there is no fuel cost to a stop. Now please put an actual magnitude on it. For example, go back to your chart and specify exactly how much of the efficiency difference between intercity and transit buses is caused by these two factors, as opposed to lower loads.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 9:02 PM

Mixner,

I didn't say there is no fuel cost to a stop. Now please put an actual magnitude on it. For example, go back to your chart and specify exactly how much of the efficiency difference between intercity and transit buses is caused by these two factors, as opposed to lower loads.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 9:02 PM

DTM,

I didn't say there is no fuel cost to a stop.

That's exactly what you said. You said the difference in efficiency between intercity buses and transit buses has nothing to do with all the extra stopping and starting that transit buses do, and is a matter of load factors alone. You really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 9:12 PM

Nuclear power has been inflated right out of contention. The projected cost of the plants has doubled since 02, and they were no cheap then. The cost of fuel is part of this equation. One little known fly in the nuke ointment is that uranium is scarce and thus expensive.

Cement, steel, stainless steel on other alloys and copper are soaring. One year ago the immanent formal announcement of construction projects was all but certain. Then, nothing....... Why? Because costs are going out of sight. To make any sense for builders they need subsidy. They need big big subsidy, which actually was always the nuke power story. The entire enterprise from conception to design to fuel was subsidized by Uncle Sam. Of course they called it free enterprise. That's why you hear McCain talking nuke power up big, with an implied but mostly unstated promise of big subsidy.

It's highly probable that soon the cost per kw/hr will soon be higher for nuke than even solar, and in 8 or 10 years when the first new plant went online it's even more likely. The gigantic fixed cost and the long lead time make nukes an economic gamble. One that make no business sense. That doesn't mean that on some strategic basis nukes should not be built but don't believe for a moment they will be built because of some sound economic reason.

Then there is the subsidy for fuel disposal. You know the utilities are not going to pay for the disposal at the Yucca site if it ever gets used, or any other site. It's all on the taxpayer dime and I'd be shocked if a trillion already hasn't been spent over the last 50 year just planning for permanent disposal, with not a single ounce yet put away.

Posted by rapier | June 13, 2008 9:19 PM

Mixner,

Now you are just lying. I said load factors were the "determinative problem," not that your other factors had no marginal effect at all.

And incidentally, your own link agrees with me:

"Intercity buses and other buses (including charters, tour buses, and school buses) are the most energy efficient form of passenger transportation on a per-passenger-mile basis due to their relatively high load factors (high percentage of seats filled on a given trip)."

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 9:28 PM

DTM,

I said load factors were the "determinative problem," not that your other factors had no marginal effect at all.

What is "determinative problem" supposed to mean? Determinative of what?

From the National Research Council:

For urban trips consisting of stop-and-go driving, a significant percentage [of fuel energy] (about 15 to 20 percent) is also lost in standby operations during coasting, braking, and idling in traffic. For urban driving, only 10 to 15 percent of the fuel energy is ultimately transmitted as power to the wheels. Because standby losses are lower during highway driving and because the engine is operating more efficiently, a higher percentage of fuel energy—about 20 percent—makes its way to the wheels.

In other words, even if load factors were identical, the stop-and-go nature of urban driving consumes so much more fuel compared to highway driving that transit buses would still be far less efficient than intercity buses. Your claim to the contrary is unequivocally false.

By the way, I'm still waiting for you to explain clearly how on earth you think using "smaller vehicles" is the "solution" to the problem of low load factors on transit buses.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 9:59 PM

In an urban area in which buses are going to be employed, your car is going to have to start and stop a lot more than the nation's average automobile driving the average mile. That's something very obvious that's being lost here in "per passenger mile" discussions--the miles in question are extremely different both in quality and quantity.

Urban trips have more stops and starts, trips between suburbs are longer. That's going to be true no matter what mode of transport you take--car, bus, or train. The relevant issue is not how but where.

And here is where the value of mass transit lies. It enables greater density. You don't have to lay down as many roads or leave as many parking spaces.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 13, 2008 10:09 PM

consump,

Your first and second paragraphs are very unclear. Passenger-mile is the standard measure used in comparisons of energy efficiency and pollution between different transportation modes. What superior alternate measure do you propose should be used in such comparisons, and why?

Your third paragraph just begs the question of why greater density (or fewer roads or fewer parking spaces) should be considered superior to lesser density. Clearly, different people have different preferences, but the overwhelmingly dominant trend of the last 50 years has been towards lower density and more roads.

Posted by Mixner | June 13, 2008 10:24 PM

Mixner,

The data you just provided suggests full urban driving may drop fuel efficiency to between 1/2 and 3/4 of full highway driving (of course transit buses are not full urban driving, and intercity buses are not full highway driving). But in the chart you originally provided, the fuel efficiency of transit buses was not 1/2 to 3/4 ... it was 1/5. So, your proposed explanation doesn't work.

And to turn it around, suppose transit buses were indeed around half as fuel efficient as intercity buses (the worst case scenario given the analysis you quoted). Even then, they would be around twice as fuel efficient as autos. And that itself is an extremely charitable comparison for autoes, since that includes all auto miles, not just urban miles (your quote analysis applies equally well to autos used in urban environments).

And that is what I mean by "determinative problem". What is determining the placement of transit buses above autos in your chart is their relatively low loads, just as the authors of your chart explained. Take out that factor (meaning size buses appropriately to their routes), and transit buses will be considerably more fuel efficient than autos.

As for why proper sizing will remedy this problem--are you really questioning that? Smaller vehicles use less energy per vehicle mile. So a smaller vehicle carrying the same number of passengers will use less energy per passenger mile as well. For example, the data I have seen suggests a typical 40-foot diesel commuter bus that can carry 53 seated passengers (plus 32 more standing) runs at around 4 vehicle miles per gallon. The 12-passenger turbodiesel Dodge Sprinter minibus has an EPA rating of 26 MPG for city driving. So if you can use the Sprinter instead of the 40-foot bus for the same (low) number of passengers, you are going to improve your fuel efficiency by around 6 times.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 11:25 PM

By the way, a little back-of-the-envelope calculation:

The aforementioned Dodge Sprinter seems to cost about $35,000. The latest average diesel price I found was about $4.70 per gallon. So, to pay for buying a Sprinter rather than just using one of your spare 40-foot commuter buses, you would have to save about 7500 gallons of diesel.

If my math is right, the Sprinter saves about 1/5 a gallon of diesel per mile over the 40-foot commuter bus. So, you will save 7500 gallons in under 40000 miles of use. Which I am pretty sure is WAY less than the expected lifespan of the Sprinter.

So, I don't see how equipment costs at current fuel prices are likely to be a significant barrier. Of course, back before the runup, diesel was a lot less expensive. For example, if diesel was more like $1.50/gallon (as I believe it more or less was from the mid-80s to the early-00s, in today's dollars) you'd have to roughly triple that 40000 miles of use to pay for the Sprinter. So, maybe it once made sense to just run the 40-foot bus at low loads--although I actually suspect that in many cases, it was simply easier to get funding for more fuel as opposed to new vehicles, even if in the long run that meant higher total costs to the system.

Posted by DTM | June 13, 2008 11:59 PM

Unclear to you, perhaps. But I'll try to help you in your confusion.

The problem is that you aren't just comparing modes of transportation, because those modes are used in different places. Buses are used in places where cars have to stop-and-go. Not all miles are created equally. The post you made immediately preceding mine makes it clear that we are in agreement over this. Note that you wrote "the stop and go nature of urban driving", NOT "the stop and go nature of buses". As you said above, intercity buses and rail do just fine efficiency-wise. Thus, we are apparently in agreement that what explains all the numbers you're talking about is where those miles are travelled, not how. Not which vehicle, but which mile. Urban miles are less efficient than highway miles. Everyone who buys a car knows this.

I don't have to provide an alternative to a measure that is utterly useless for the conclusion you want to reach. Any traffic consultant who cited the national average per passenger mile numbers as an argument against a particular transit system would rightfully be fired on the spot--you would need to study the route in question to determine what sort of automobile usage you would be displacing.

Greater density means shorter trips. Increasing efficiency per passenger mile is good, decreasing the number of miles is better.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 14, 2008 12:16 AM

Then there is the subsidy for fuel disposal. You know the utilities are not going to pay for the disposal at the Yucca site if it ever gets used, or any other site. It's all on the taxpayer dime and I'd be shocked if a trillion already hasn't been spent over the last 50 year just planning for permanent disposal, with not a single ounce yet put away.
posted by rapier

More ignorance. By Fed law - part of the rate base for every nuke plant is the surcharge paid out to DOE by ratepayers for disposal of spent fuel. And Also part of the rate base is the fund for decommissioning facility and returning land to unrestricted public or private use(no radioactivity, no pollutants).

The entire enterprise from conception to design to fuel was subsidized by Uncle Sam.

Again, not true. What helped was that much of the work and research on parts of the Nuke industry had already been done by the military for national security needs - fuel enrichment, submarine PWR reactors and controls, US giving out post-sputnik nuclear engineering dregree grants. But other industries start from military apps. Aviation, electronics, digital satellite, computers, radar&other microwave apps like cell phones...
Right now, the biggest help the government is, is for a reasonable fee, they take over from private insurers if a nuclear accident ever happens that exceeds 200 billion (Price-Anderson).

One little known fly in the nuke ointment is that uranium is scarce and thus expensive.

Fortunately, you are wrong on that as well. Uranium and thorium are relatively common crustal metals, but not as easily and cheaply mined as at 10-14 high concentrated deposits. Without breeders or Fusion breeders (high energy neutron from fusion causes plutonium from direct capture plus fast fission of U-238 and 2.6 neutrons per fission) we have a 400 year supply. If oil doubles in price (said when oil was 60 bucks a barrel) we have other major deposits becoming commercially valuable. Making for a 750 year supply. With breeders, we go to a 30,000 year supply (with recycling of spent fuel, adding all the thorium deposits)
As is, we don't even try to recycle the 97% that is unburned in a spent fuel assembly.

********************

rapier - Cement, steel, stainless steel on other alloys and copper are soaring. One year ago the immanent formal announcement of construction projects was all but certain. Then, nothing....... Why

Because the great cost of a nuke plant is the long delay of capital being tied up for over a decade and high labor costs from start and stop work during permitting phases. Not materials. And utilities are waiting to see if Congress is willing to allow Americans to be as efficient as the French, Japanese, S Koreans and allow fast track siting and construction. Which is being blocked by environmentalists and anti-nukes. Hence the delay was vendors, utilities, anti-energy people, environmentalists all wait to see if Congress will schange the status quo. There are two applications pending, 18-25 drafted for new nukes. China wishes to get a nuke plant about once a month for 3 years starting in late 2009, then go to bimonthly until they have enough and build just to replace old coal plants where 1000 MW plants are now going up about once a week.

Posted by chris ford | June 14, 2008 12:21 AM

DTM,

The data you just provided suggests full urban driving may drop fuel efficiency to between 1/2 and 3/4 of full highway driving (of course transit buses are not full urban driving, and intercity buses are not full highway driving). But in the chart you originally provided, the fuel efficiency of transit buses was not 1/2 to 3/4 ... it was 1/5. So, your proposed explanation doesn't work.

What are you talking about? I said the stop-and-go nature of transit buses is part of the cause of the lower energy efficiency of transit buses, not the sole cause. I also cited lower load factors as another part of the cause. You denied that stop-and-go driving is a significant contributor to the lower energy efficiency of transit buses at all. As the NRC study makes clear, you are absolutely wrong about that.

And to turn it around, suppose transit buses were indeed around half as fuel efficient as intercity buses (the worst case scenario given the analysis you quoted). Even then, they would be around twice as fuel efficient as autos.

You're still utterly confused. The energy efficiency chart compares efficiencies per passenger mile, remember? Not vehicle mile. Part of the lower passenger-mile efficiency of transit buses is caused by stop-and-go driving, and part is caused by lower load factors. Comprendez?

And that is what I mean by "determinative problem". What is determining the placement of transit buses above autos in your chart is their relatively low loads, just as the authors of your chart explained. Take out that factor (meaning size buses appropriately to their routes), and transit buses will be considerably more fuel efficient than autos.

Now you're trying to move the goal posts. The false claim you made was about the causes of the difference in energy efficiency between transit buses and other kinds of bus. Specifically, intercity buses. Not between transit buses and autos. But transit buses are less energy efficient than both intercity buses and autos. And stop-and-go driving most likely contributes to the lower efficiency of transit buses compared to autos as well as intercity buses.

As for why proper sizing will remedy this problem--are you really questioning that? Smaller vehicles use less energy per vehicle mile. So a smaller vehicle carrying the same number of passengers will use less energy per passenger mile as well.

I guess my last post on this just went right over your head. Smaller vehicles tend to be less energy-efficient per seat-mile than larger vehicles, so your efficiency gain from a higher load factor may be wiped out by your loss in seat-mile efficiency. With smaller buses, you may also need to run more buses to satisfy a given demand, meaning more congestion, more buses to buy and maintain, and more bus drivers to pay. If demand increases, you may also need to run more buses and pay more drivers, or replace your buses with bigger ones, which is a capital cost. It might have been cheaper overall to buy bigger buses in the first place in anticipation of demand growth. If demand falls, your load factor may also fall unless you downsize your buses (another capital cost). If the variation in demand throughout the day changes, your average load factor for the day may also fall. Apparently, none of this has occurred to you.

For example, the data I have seen suggests a typical 40-foot diesel commuter bus that can carry 53 seated passengers (plus 32 more standing) runs at around 4 vehicle miles per gallon. The 12-passenger turbodiesel Dodge Sprinter minibus has an EPA rating of 26 MPG for city driving. So if you can use the Sprinter instead of the 40-foot bus for the same (low) number of passengers, you are going to improve your fuel efficiency by around 6 times.

Your made-up scenario is absurd. No bus authority would use an 85-person bus on a route with a peak demand of 12 passengers or less (peak load factor of 14% or less). If they're running an 85-person bus, the peak demand will be much higher than 12. Which means you'd have to run multiple Sprinter buses to satisfy the same peak-time demand as the bigger bus. Which means you'll have to buy more buses, pay more bus drivers, do more maintenance, cause more congestion, etc. In case you haven't noticed, many buses are almost full at rush hour, much less full at other times of the day, and almost empty at night and on weekends. The optimal bus size for a given route will depend on the magnitude of this variation, anticipated future demand, labor costs, and a bunch of other things.

What's most silly about all this is your apparently serious belief that you have come up with a magic bullet for effectively increasing transit bus load factors ("Just use smaller buses!") that has eluded professional transit planners whose full-time job it is to figure out the optimal solution to exactly this kind of problem. If it were as easy as you seem to think to increase load factors, don't you think they would have done it?

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 12:41 AM

consump,

The problem is that you aren't just comparing modes of transportation, because those modes are used in different places. Buses are used in places where cars have to stop-and-go. Not all miles are created equally. The post you made immediately preceding mine makes it clear that we are in agreement over this. Note that you wrote "the stop and go nature of urban driving", NOT "the stop and go nature of buses". As you said above, intercity buses and rail do just fine efficiency-wise. Thus, we are apparently in agreement that what explains all the numbers you're talking about is where those miles are travelled, not how. Not which vehicle, but which mile. Urban miles are less efficient than highway miles. Everyone who buys a car knows this.

Sorry, I'm still mystified as to your point here. Perhaps it's this:

Greater density means shorter trips. Increasing efficiency per passenger mile is good, decreasing the number of miles is better.

Why is decreasing the number of miles better? If we built all our communities at Manhattan-like densities, we'd certainly decrease the number of miles we need to travel. Does that mean we should build everything at Manhattan densities? Of course not. Why is decreasing the number of miles "better" than keeping the same number of miles and reducing the cost through increased efficiency?

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 1:11 AM

Mixner,

First, it isn't my problem you apparently don't understand the word "determinative".

Second, I never proposed using smaller vehicles where ridership is higher than the capacity of those vehicles. I said transit authorities should tailor vehicle size to ridership, and so larger vehicles would continue to make sense on routes with sufficient ridership. That includes routes where peak ridership varies significantly from non-peak ridership: you can use the bigger vehicles during peak hours to run that route, and smaller vehicles during non-peak hours.

Third, you claim: "No bus authority would use an 85-person bus on a route with a peak demand of 12 passengers or less (peak load factor of 14% or less). If they're running an 85-person bus, the peak demand will be much higher than 12." Again, if peak demand is high enough, I am fine with running bigger vehicles during peak. But the statistics I have seen suggest that currently, transit authorities are often using 40-foot buses for offpeak routes with ridership averaging around 8, which drives their overall average ridership to around 10, even though their peak ridership is around 25.

Fourth, I understand that there is an additional equipment cost to buying smaller vehicles to run on lower-volume routes, including off-peak routes, rather than just using the big commuter buses for those routes as well. But as I just noted, at current fuel prices it appears pretty obvious that those extra equipment costs will quickly be made up in saved fuel costs.

Finally, I think there are adequate explanations for why public transit authorities hadn't been doing more of this in the recent past. As I noted, at the much lower fuel prices of the recent past, it would take much longer to balance out the extra equipment costs. Also, from what I know of how funding often works for these agencies, it is indeed quite plausible they could more easily get funding for more fuel than for more buses.

But I suspect that is changing as we speak. Indeed, in my city they have been accumulating more small buses, and using them on more routes. And I doubt they are alone.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 1:21 AM

Mixner,

By the way, I think it is highly amusing you are complaining to me about equipment costs. I am talking about public transit authorities buying a few more small buses. You are talking about switching over the entire fleet of some 250 million passenger vehicles in the United States to new (and more expensive) vehicles.

So, I think it is safe to say that you are ignoring a lot more equipment costs when hypothesizing about possible efficiency gains than I am.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 1:34 AM

Getting back to a loose end...

Follette writes,

He's [Mixner] accused me of "arguing against myself" for saying I favor both improved efficiency for cars AND better mass transit options. This is simply worthy of contempt.

I'm sorry you think my comment is worthy of contempt, but your position really doesn't make much sense. You want us to spend large sums of money on transit in the hope or expectation that people will use it, and at the same time you want to make driving more attractive by improving the efficiency of cars. It's like saying, "Here's a shiny new mass transit system. I hope you use it instead of driving. Oh, and by the way, here's a voucher for a 50% discount every time you buy gas for your car." You can't see how you're discouraging the very change in behavior you say you want?

The only way you're going to create a large shift from driving to using transit is by substantially raising the cost of driving relative to the cost of using transit. Otherwise, people will have no real incentive to leave their cars at home and take the bus or train instead. And obviously, making cars much more fuel-efficient does not increase the cost of driving relative to transit. It will tend to have the opposite effect: inducing people to switch from transit to driving.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 1:38 AM

If nuclear is so expensive, then why does France use it for 80% of their power? Snobbish elitism?

The commenters who say it is expensive are just doing dirty-work for the Republicans-- lying.

Posted by Swan | June 14, 2008 1:45 AM

DTM,

I never proposed using smaller vehicles where ridership is higher than the capacity of those vehicles. I said transit authorities should tailor vehicle size to ridership, and so larger vehicles would continue to make sense on routes with sufficient ridership. That includes routes where peak ridership varies significantly from non-peak ridership: you can use the bigger vehicles during peak hours to run that route, and smaller vehicles during non-peak hours.

You didn't include any limitations or restrictions in your proposal. You just proposed "smaller vehicles" as a general "solution" to the problem of low load factors on transit buses, and you tried to support it with a contrived scenario that is so implausible and naive that it's worthless.

But the statistics I have seen suggest that currently, transit authorities are often using 40-foot buses for offpeak routes with ridership averaging around 8, which drives their overall average ridership to around 10, even though their peak ridership is around 25.

I'm not sure what "offpeak route" is supposed to mean. You seem to be referring to an offpeak period, but your description is so confused it's hard to be sure. If you're suggesting that the use of 85-person buses (your stated capacity of these "40-foot" buses) on routes that yield an average peak-time occupancy of only 25 (peak load factor of 29%), an average offpeak occupancy of only 8 (9% load factor) and an average all-period occupancy of only 10 (12% load factor) occurs "often," I find that highly implausible. Can you substantiate this assertion?

Of course, in a nation of thousands of transit bus routes, a wasteful practise may occur "often" and still have only a minor impact on overall efficiency. To support your claim that the energy efficiency of transit buses could be substantially improved--enough to make them competitive with cars--through "proper sizing" without incurring prohibitive increases in capital costs, operating costs, cuts in service, increased congestion or other costs that would exceed the benefit of the higher efficiency, you're going to have to do rather more than simply make up a set of numbers and claim they occur "often."

But then, as I said, the idea that you have identified a simple and effective mechanism to significantly increase the efficiency of the nation's transit bus system, a mechanism that has somehow eluded the notice of hundreds of professional transit planners, is preposterous anyway.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 2:32 AM

Not sure if someone already pointed this out, but the electrical car can not and should not replace current cars. Current cars are dodos and will disappear and everyone will long-term have to get used to the idea that they can't continue to lug a ton of metal and six square metres of public space around with them.
Future cars will be there to take care of those individual transporation needs that public transport is ill suited to covering. For that, 300kg, 100 km range and a top speed of 40 miles is enough. Those cars in turn will consume about as much energy as an additional fridge, meaning that better insulation and reduced air conditioning can easily make up for the addditional energy consumption.

Posted by markus | June 14, 2008 4:12 AM

If your electric utility burns natural gas, fuel oil, or coal to produce the electricity, do you really save on amount of CO2 per mile driven? Anybody know the answer?

Posted by bob h | June 14, 2008 6:21 AM

> With 8,760 hours in a year (and
> generating plants running 24-7, which isn't
> realistic)

Except that cars would primarily be recharged at night, when there is a surplus of efficient baseload generation already in place.

However, the key point is this: electricity can be made 237 different ways. There is no way to make more oil. As convenient as liquid hydrocarbon fuel is if we intend to maintain a personal-transportation-based society we will have to use electric sooner or later - so why not start now?

Cranky

Powerplants do run 24x7, but I suspect you meant 24x7x365. I think the longest interval between nuclear plant refuelings is 400-some days, but coal plants do need maintenance at least once/year.

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 14, 2008 6:59 AM

> The only way you're going to create a large
> shift from driving to using transit is by
> substantially raising the cost of driving relative
> to the cost of using transit.

That is the extreme conservative Econ 101 view of the world, yes. Perhaps you could provide some proof? You might want to take into account Chicago's experience with the Orange Line, put into service during a decade with the lowest gas prices we will ever see again in human history - how is its ridership factor doing?

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 14, 2008 7:03 AM

Mixner,

First, again the fact you have basic reading comprehension skills isn't my problem.

Anyway, here is one of the places summarizing the data I have seen:

http://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca05.pdf

It is phrased as definitions for different modes of transport, but if you look at the methodology it is based on estimated averages for actual usage. For diesel buses, their estimated averages are:

"A 40 foot bus (total capacity 53 seated and 32 standing passenger) with 25 average passengers during peak periods, 8 average passengers during Urban Off-Peak, and 5 average passengers during rural travel, an overall average occupancy of 10 passengers, averaging 4.0 mpg."

Finally, you now aren't saying anything I find remotely interesting (you are just making up strawmen and also apply your usual double-standards), so I will sum up and let you have the last word if you so choose:

(1) There is nothing "fundamental" or "necessary" about using oversized buses for routes with low ridership. Rather, that is a choice public transit authorities have made.

(2) It may be that when fuel prices were much lower, this choice made sense. I am skeptical, but in any event with fuel prices having more than tripled, it is likely that unless those prices come back down, adding smaller buses to public transit fleets to serve many of these low-volume routes will be a good idea.

(3) Of course there will be an associated cost to adding these new small buses to public transit fleets. But there will also be a cost to, say, switching out all the passenger vehicles currently in use for more fuel-efficient vehicles using the latest technology. And in fact, it is obvious that it will cost a lot less to buy new small buses than to buy enough new passenger vehicles to provide the same number of passenger miles.

(4) So, your chart actually revealed an inefficiency in the average transit bus policy of the recent past, but that inefficiency in turn becomes the basis for one of the reasons why transit bus systems will be able to respond to higher fuel prices with larger fuel efficiency gains at a lower switching cost than can passenger vehicle users.

Posted by DTM | June 14, 2008 8:50 AM

Sorry, I'm still mystified as to your point here.

Yeah, LaFollette Progressive tried to explain it to you to, and it looked like they had already done so in previous threads. I guess you just aren't going to get this. You never managed to answer this point.

Urban traffic is stop-and-go whether it's on a bus or on a car. Comparing urban buses to average car traffic--which includes highway trips--is an utterly worthless comparison. City trips aren't magically transformed into rural highways by eliminating buses.

Perhaps it's this: Greater density means shorter trips.

No, that's a second point: that even though city per mile efficiency is lower than rural highway per mile efficiency, it more than makes up for it by having way fewer miles.

Why is decreasing the number of miles better?

Well, it's not a trade off. You can do both. But it's a bigger factor. If I'm only riding two miles to work and your riding 20, you would have to get per mile efficiency 10 times what I'm getting to make up for that. And assuming we upgrade all forms of transport (though the upgrades themselves cost energy, and upgrading one train or buses uses way less energy than the equivalent number of car upgrades), you won't get that. The most efficient mile is the one you don't travel.

And I'm just going to pretend you didn't even try the "everyone at Manhattan density" straw man. Try not to enter full-on nonsense mode.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 14, 2008 8:59 AM

DTM,

It is phrased as definitions for different modes of transport, but if you look at the methodology it is based on estimated averages for actual usage. For diesel buses, their estimated averages are:

The link you provide contains no real-world data whatsoever. It simply defines a "diesel bus" with various characteristics and asserts that this is an "estimate." It doesn't provide any actual real-world information about capacities, occupancies or load factors. Show me actual data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, metropolitan area transit authorities, or other reputable sources about the actual real-world characteristics of the nation's transit bus system.

After you've done that, explain how you have determined that "proper sizing" can significantly increase the average load factor of the system without incurring additional costs in capital expenses, operating expenses, reduction of services, greater road congestion, or other costs that exceed the efficiency benefit of the higher load factor. I'm not interested in any more of your guesses, "suspicions" or made-up numbers. Give me a clear argument using real-world data.

You can't, of course, can you? Because your claim is just wishful thinking on your part.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 4:25 PM

cranky,

That is the extreme conservative Econ 101 view of the world, yes. Perhaps you could provide some proof?

There is no proof of what will happen in the future. Sure, it's possible that the century-long trend of declining mass transit market share and rising automobile market share will reverse itself, even in the face of massive improvements in auto fuel-efficiency, but unless you can come up with a serious basis for predicting that reversal, it's just wildly implausible.

You might want to take into account Chicago's experience with the Orange Line, put into service during a decade with the lowest gas prices we will ever see again in human history - how is its ridership factor doing?

You tell me. You're the one who's apparently expecting a renaissance for mass transit. What about the Orange Line in Chicago? Of course, the experience of a single line on a single system in a single city doesn't tell us anything meaningful about overall national trends. In fact, given population growth, I expect the total number of transit riders will increase, at least in the near-term future, and mass transit may even gain market share in a few parts of the country. But at the national level, all the evidence points to continued decline. Already, transit has only a tiny market share of total passenger miles (about 1%), and that tiny share seems destined to become even tinier.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 4:42 PM

consump,

Urban traffic is stop-and-go whether it's on a bus or on a car. Comparing urban buses to average car traffic--which includes highway trips--is an utterly worthless comparison. City trips aren't magically transformed into rural highways by eliminating buses.

You're another one who seems completely confused. The comparison was between transit buses and intercity buses, not transit buses and cars.

But in fact, transit buses almost certainly do more stopping and starting than cars running in cities and suburbs, as well as more stopping and starting than intercity buses. Transit buses are subject to almost all the same traffic flow interruptions as cars (intersections, congestion, accidents, road work, pedestrian crossings, etc.) plus buses do a huge amount of additional stopping and starting at scheduled bus stops. The Los Angeles Metro Local bus system, for example, operates 189 routes, and each route has an average of almost 100 bus stops. That is obviously a huge amount of extra stopping and starting in comparison to a car travelling the same distance.

And in addition to doing much more stopping and starting, transit buses are much less efficient than cars because of their low average load factors (high number of empty seats).

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 4:56 PM

consump,

Well, it's not a trade off. You can do both. But it's a bigger factor. If I'm only riding two miles to work and your riding 20, you would have to get per mile efficiency 10 times what I'm getting to make up for that.

But you're just making up numbers here. I can make up numbers, too. If you're riding 10 and I'm riding 20, I only have to get double the per mile efficiency. If you're riding 5 and I'm riding 7, I only have to get 40% higher per mile efficiency.

And why is energy or fuel use (I assume that's the type of efficiency you're referring to here) the only consideration relevant to density, anyway? If people are willing to make a longer commute and pay more in transportation costs in return for having a bigger house and enjoying other things they value that low density makes possible, who are you to tell them that their preference is "worse" than yours? If you prefer higher densities with shorter commutes, fine. But other people have different preferences. You need to learn to accept that, instead of insisting that your preference is "better" than theirs.

Posted by Mixner | June 14, 2008 5:15 PM

If people are willing to make a longer commute and pay more in transportation costs in return for having a bigger house and enjoying other things they value that low density makes possible, who are you to tell them that their preference is "worse" than yours?

Convenient Relativism, we hardly knew ye.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 14, 2008 5:31 PM

> f people are willing to make a longer commute
> and pay more in transportation costs in return for
> having a bigger house and enjoying other things
> they value that low density makes possible, who
> are you

Because historically, and certainly right at this moment, "paying more" does NOT include paying the full share of externalities which are not and never have been fully absorbed in the price of crude oil. This is true for numerous cost factors, but the most obvious is the cost of the United States maintaining a huge military presence in the Middle East. And by "cost" I mean not only the cost in lives and dollars but the cost to our sacred honor when we behave in ways fundamentally opposed to the ideals of our Nation.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 15, 2008 12:39 PM

Be fair: there's no reason to think that we need to have a huge military presence in the Middle East in order to buy their oil. The locals pretty much have to sell it if they want to buy the goodies that they cannot make themselves, which is nearly everything. And of course most of that spending is on the occupation of Iraq, which exported more oil before we invaded than after.

That presence isn't a hidden part of the price of oil: it's an insanity tax.

Posted by gcochran | June 15, 2008 12:53 PM

Because historically, and certainly right at this moment, "paying more" does NOT include paying the full share of externalities which are not and never have been fully absorbed in the price of crude oil.

Then that's an argument against using oil at all, for anything--cars, trains, buses, planes, boats, tractors, whatever. If it's a reason for favoring a 10-mile commute over a 20-mile commute, it's also a reason for favoring a 1-mile commute over a 10-mile commute, which again implies Manhattan-like densities. We could radically reduce our consumption of oil by reducing our living standards to those of, say, the average Chinese person. Is that what you're advocating?

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 1:02 PM

You're another one who seems completely confused.

Right, everyone's confused but Mixner...

The comparison was between transit buses and intercity buses, not transit buses and cars.

Um, Mixner wrote: Transit buses and light rail are less energy-efficient than even current-technology cars, and probably emit more carbon also.

Sounds like a comparison between transit buses and cars to me! You've reached an incredible, sky-high level of back-bending misreading of YOUR OWN PREVIOUS POSTS unprecedented in any form of communication I have ever participated in before.

You're awesome.

But in fact, transit buses almost certainly do more stopping and starting than cars running in cities and suburbs, as well as more stopping and starting than intercity buses.

No, you're still confused. The point is that your comparison between transit buses and cars-in-general (and yes, that is what you are comparing) is crap because city cars do way worse than average cars. You have no data on city cars--especially city cars used where buses are used most frequently. So your entire data set is absolutely worthless.

But you're just making up numbers here. I can make up numbers, too. If you're riding 10 and I'm riding 20, I only have to get double the per mile efficiency. If you're riding 5 and I'm riding 7, I only have to get 40% higher per mile efficiency.

But that's the point. I can invent scenarios where I decrease the number of miles I travel by nearly 100% without inventing new technology. You have to violate the second law of thermodynamics to do the same for efficiency-per-mile. So there's clearly a lot more room for improvement in changing living patterns.

And in response to Cranky's point about externalities, Mixner wrote: Then that's an argument against using oil at all, for anything--cars, trains, buses, planes, boats, tractors, whatever.

An argument for an Pigou taxes on goods with externalities is equivalent to banning the goods in question? If you hadn't already outdone yourself so badly this would be so stupid it would impress me.

This thread follows a trend quite a few Mixner threads follow, in which his initial argument is seemingly reasonable, but his responses to counter arguments are completely absurd. Sort of like how some software specs will say that in certain boundary conditions a system will enter an "implementation defined" garbage state under certain boundary conditions. Mixner can't conceive that he might just be wrong, that his data just doesn't imply the conclusions he wants it to, and we're presented with bizarre fragments of madness--the output of thought buffers he forgot to zero out before using.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 15, 2008 2:17 PM

consump,

I'll resist the urge, for now at least, to respond to your pitiful attempts at scoring debating points, and limit myself to the substantive issues you refer to:

The point is that your comparison between transit buses and cars-in-general (and yes, that is what you are comparing) is crap because city cars do way worse than average cars. You have no data on city cars--especially city cars used where buses are used most frequently. So your entire data set is absolutely worthless.

Transit buses are not limited to "cities" as such but operate throughout metropolitan areas, with a mix of urban and suburban roads, highways and driving conditions. The vast majority of car travel also occurs within metropolitan areas. So your "city cars" vs. "average cars" is a false dichotomy. The driving environment of the "average car" is almost exactly the same as the driving environment of the "average transit bus." The relevant difference is that transit buses make scheduled stops at bus stops typically spaced every quarter-mile or half-mile along their route, and cars make no such stops. All of this additional stopping and starting by transit buses contributes significantly to their lower energy efficiency.

But that's the point. I can invent scenarios where I decrease the number of miles I travel by nearly 100% without inventing new technology. You have to violate the second law of thermodynamics to do the same for efficiency-per-mile. So there's clearly a lot more room for improvement in changing living patterns.

The fact that you can "invent scenarios" is completely irrelevant to the question of what is achievable or desirable in the real world. In order to "decrease the number of miles [you] travel by nearly 100%" you would have to live in a superdense environment, as I pointed out earlier. Since you concede that you are not proposing that we transform our national infrastructure to super-Manhattan-like densities, the fact that you can "invent scenarios" in which you live that way is completely beside the point.

An argument for an Pigou taxes on goods with externalities is equivalent to banning the goods in question?

No, the argument that we should reduce our consumption of oil because it carries unfunded externality costs can be applied to any level of consumption. The claim that, say, a 20-mile commute in a sprawling suburb is unjustified because it carries an externality cost, but a 5-mile commute in a "walkable community" is okay is just nonsensical. The solution to externalities is to factor them into the price of oil in some way, not draw arbitrary lines about acceptable commuting distances or housing sizes.

This thread follows a trend quite a few Mixner threads follow

Your posts here follow a pattern I have seen before, in which you become increasingly confused about what it is exactly you're trying to say, what argument or proposition you are contesting, and what your own arguments and positions are. You seem to be able to confuse yourself very easily (okay, I couldn't resist that one).

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 3:19 PM

Well, at least now you're no longer claiming that you aren't comparing general car use to transit buses. I'm glad you've abandoned that insanity. But if you want to make any claim even in passing that I am "confused" about any subject, you need to explain that particular discrepancy head on. That wasn't me scoring a "debating point"--that was you being really silly.

Transit buses are not limited to "cities" as such but operate throughout metropolitan areas, with a mix of urban and suburban roads, highways and driving conditions. The vast majority of car travel also occurs within metropolitan areas. So your "city cars" vs. "average cars" is a false dichotomy. The driving environment of the "average car" is almost exactly the same as the driving environment of the "average transit bus."

I'm just going to quote this because it's so unbelievable that no response is necessary. Cite data to back this up or I will laugh. And it will have to be very detailed data--"metropolitan area" is a very broad term that includes the very extents of suburbs where buses run rarely.

The fact that you can "invent scenarios" is completely irrelevant to the question of what is achievable or desirable in the real world.

Except that the scenarios I invent are achieved every day--people living closer to where they work. People achieve that every day, without moving to Manhattan, without inventing new technology.

Since you concede that you are not proposing that we transform our national infrastructure to super-Manhattan-like densities

Actually, I'm defending the status quo of buses and rail, it's you who is arguing to dismantle the Manhattan transportation system. Which would definitely increase the number of miles people travel by several times as people are forced to leave.

No, the argument that we should reduce our consumption of oil because it carries unfunded externality costs can be applied to any level of consumption.

Once the externalties are applied, it makes no sense to apply them a second time. They aren't something you apply to a "level of consumption", but to each unit of consumption. Try taking micro econ.

Your posts here follow a pattern I have seen before, in which you become increasingly confused about what it is exactly you're trying to say, what argument or proposition you are contesting, and what your own arguments and positions are.

You've explained no instance every, not in this thread or any other, where that was the case. I've explained in detail several times what it was the case with respect to you.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 15, 2008 4:11 PM

consump,

Well, at least now you're no longer claiming that you aren't comparing general car use to transit buses.

You are still confused. I never claimed I wasn't comparing general car use to transit buses. "General car use" consists mostly of travel within a metropolitan area, as I said. Transit buses also operate within metropolitan areas, not just in "cities" as you falsely assumed.

But if you want to make any claim even in passing that I am "confused" about any subject, you need to explain that particular discrepancy head on.

See above for a clear example.

Except that the scenarios I invent are achieved every day--people living closer to where they work. People achieve that every day, without moving to Manhattan, without inventing new technology.

You seem to have completely lost sight of what you were trying to argue. Your proposition was that "decreasing miles" is "better" than increasing fuel efficiency, remember? Yes, you can "invent scenarios." Yes, some number of people are probably living in any (realistic) scenario you might invent. So what? Show me how these facts support your assertion that "decreasing miles" is "better" than increasing fuel efficiency. Can you articulate any kind of thought-through, complete, reasoned argument as to why "decreasing miles" is "better," or are you just going to keep uttering half-baked thoughts about how you can "invent scenarios" and such and hoping your audience will somehow infer a clear and coherent argument from all the fragments of thought?

Actually, I'm defending the status quo of buses and rail,

You are? The status quo is that mass transit has a tiny market share of total passenger miles (about 1%), and falling. It's been falling pretty steadily for about a century. Cars, in contrast, have about a 96% market share, and rising. If you're defending this, great. Our only difference appears to be that I hope and expect mass transit to decline further more quickly than you do.

Once the externalties are applied, it makes no sense to apply them a second time. They aren't something you apply to a "level of consumption", but to each unit of consumption. Try taking micro econ.

Er, true. And the relevance of this out-of-left-field statement to what I just said is.....what, exactly?

On second thought, never mind. You're just not worth bothering with further. You sort of have moments of clarity and coherence, buried in among all the nonsequiturs and strawmans and other nonsense, but overall your posts here are just too confused and stupid to warrant further attention.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 4:52 PM

> No, the argument that we should reduce our
> consumption of oil because it carries unfunded
> externality costs can be applied to any level of
> consumption.

Until you reach the level of petroleum consumption in the US that can be supplied by Canada and Venezuela (oops - little problem there - maybe Obama can fix it) with the balance of liquid fuel being grass- or algae- derived biodiesel. Then the troops come home from Saudi, Iraq, etc.

Cranky

And yes, it seems pretty clear to me that the British kept troops in the Middle East after 1910, and the US from 1943, specifically due to the vast quantities of oil found there.

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 15, 2008 7:20 PM

cranky,

Until you reach the level of petroleum consumption in the US that can be supplied by Canada and Venezuela

Huh? Why? Once again, you're just drawing an arbitrary line without any justification.

If oil has significant externality costs that distort the market, the most efficient solution would probably be a tax on oil equal to the amount of those costs. Then the market could decide how to react. My guess would be that such a tax would have a negligible effect on large-scale housing and commuting length choices. Moving to a new house and/or changing your job are major life disruptions. Vehicle fuel costs are simply not a large enough component of the average family's total spending to stimulate such a big change. It's much easier to trade your car in for a more fuel-efficient model than to move house or get a new job. The main effect of the tax would probably be to accelerate the development and sale of more energy-efficient products, including cars.

Of course, given your newly-found concern for market efficiency, you should also come out against transit subsidies, which also distort commuting and housing choices.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 7:59 PM

Mixner now: I never claimed I wasn't comparing general car use to transit buses.

Mixner before: The comparison was between transit buses and intercity buses, not transit buses and cars.

Ha!

Consumatopia before: Once the externalties are applied, it makes no sense to apply them a second time. They aren't something you apply to a "level of consumption", but to each unit of consumption.

Mixner now: Er, true. And the relevance of this out-of-left-field statement to what I just said is.....what, exactly?

Mixner (one post) earlier: the argument that we should reduce our consumption of oil because it carries unfunded externality costs can be applied to any level of consumption.

Externalities aren't applied to a "level of consumption", as you now admit. They do, however, suggest that avoiding some kinds of consumption is desirable, subject to a tradeoff with convenience and preference. Nobody is confiscating McMansions and forcing people on a Trail of Tears march to Manhattan. But greater density and shorter trips is a huge advantage that mass transit enables, especially given the fact that housing prices in many major cities indicated people desperately want to live in high density environments. I suspect you actually know how externalities work, you're just making up nonsense arguments now because you're too pissed off or something. I do agree with you that there's no point continuing this.

The status quo is that mass transit has a tiny market share of total passenger miles (about 1%), and falling.

Nope, rising. At least with $4 gas. Note that only 20% of households have easy access to public transport. Which points to the falsehood of the idea that transit buses have the same patterns as cars--that 80% of people have to be riding in something. And the percentage of workers commuting with public transit in major cities--especially the "undriveable" cities like NY, Boston, SF, is much higher. Dispersing those cities by adding roads and parking for all those folks to take cars would be an ecological, traffic, and energy shortage nightmare.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 15, 2008 9:18 PM

consump,

I know I said I was done with you, but this one is too good to pass up, because it is such a clear illustration that not only don't you have a clue what you're talking about, but you also constantly misread and misrepresent the statements you're responding to. To wit:

Nope, rising.

Your link reports an increase in ridership. Ridership is not the same thing as market share. You probably don't understand the difference, but like I said, never mind....

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 9:32 PM

You probably don't understand the difference, but like I said, never mind....

No, I do, that's one of my main points. The share of mass transit as miles is a bad metric of mass transit's importance, because mass transit enables greater density which decreases the number of miles. If you eliminated the mass transit, you would have to disperse the city, which would mean many times more miles traveled for those who left the city.

This is definitely a good example of someone's failure of understanding...

Posted by Consumatopia | June 15, 2008 10:04 PM

For what it is worth, Consumatopia is obviously right on this point. When it comes to transportation, needs are derived from particular purposes (e.g., you need to get from where you live to where you work, and vice-versa), and so something like passenger miles isn't really a direct measure of how many transportation needs are being served by a particular mode of transport. Of course in the short run, your transportation needs will come with certain mileages attached. But in the long run, people can make choices that will affect those mileages, and the availability and characteristics of various modes of transport will be one of the factors affecting such choices in both direct and indirect ways.

Posted by DTM | June 15, 2008 10:13 PM

DTM,

You're another one who often doesn't seem to have any clear sense of what he's trying to say. Or maybe you do, but you just can't express it. What is "how many transportation needs" supposed to mean? You obviously have in mind some numerical quantity, but what is it? Number of trips? Number of passengers? Number of vehicles? Seat-miles? Vehicle-miles? What superior alternative measure of transportation needs do you propose in place of passenger-miles?

Of course, other transportation-related statistics are important in the relevant context. Seat-miles are used in measures of vehicle efficiency, for example. But the standard measure of the aggregate transportation need or demand of a population is passenger-miles--how many people need to travel, and how far they need to go.

Posted by Mixner | June 15, 2008 11:30 PM

Mixner,

Nothing has changed since I explained why I won't discuss these matters with you.

Posted by DTM | June 15, 2008 11:40 PM

Incidentally, I found some more recent data on fuel efficiency:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html

This is the latest data I have found, and indeed is in the 2008 National Transportation Statistics, although it is only through 2005. Anyway, that chart indicates that transit buses are now ahead of passenger cars (and way ahead of other two-axle, four wheel vehicles--your SUVs and such) in terms of BTU per passenger mile.

The reason? From 2000 the BTU per passenger mile for cars went down from 3589 to 3458, a reduction of about 3.7%. But transit buses went down from 4147 to 3393, a reduction of about 18.2%.

Incidentally, from January '00 to January '05, diesel prices went from about $1.72/gallon to $2.20 (in today's dollars). Since then it is up to $4.78 as of June '08. See here (and click on the spreadsheet for monthly data):

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/fsheets/real_prices.html

So I'll be very interested to see what has been happening since 2005.

Posted by DTM | June 16, 2008 12:38 AM

DTM,

This is the latest data I have found, and indeed is in the 2008 National Transportation Statistics, although it is only through 2005. Anyway, that chart indicates that transit buses are now ahead of passenger cars (and way ahead of other two-axle, four wheel vehicles--your SUVs and such) in terms of BTU per passenger mile.

Nonsense. As you mentioned, the data only goes to 2005. We're now half-way through 2008. New vehicle sales over the past year or more have overwhelmingly favored smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, and that trend is likely to continue if gas prices remain high. Hybrid vehicle sales are also increasing rapidly. These trends increase the average fuel-efficiency of the nation's private auto fleet over time. Also, single-year comparisons aren't very meaningful. There's significant year-to-year fluctuation, and even for 2005 the difference is statistically insignificant. The longer-term data shows a clear fuel-efficiency advantage for passenger cars over transit motor buses.

Furthermore, other reports, using more recent government data, also indicate a clear advantage for passenger cars over transit buses. See, for example, Table 1 in this report. The data comes from government sources for 2006 through 2008. The table indicates that passenger cars are substantially more fuel-efficient than motor buses (about 20% more efficient), and more efficient even than trolley buses. This is consistent with the information in the Surface Transportation report I cited earlier.

In any case, in all your quibbling about transit buses, you've lost sight of the broader point. Even if it were true that transit buses are more efficient than cars, under any reasonable assumptions the efficiency difference simply could not be large enough to make a significant difference in our overall energy use. Mass transit in total is only about 1% of total passenger miles. Transit buses provide about half of all transit passenger miles. So even if the market share of transit buses doubled with respect to passenger cars (not remotely plausible, but let's assume it anyway), and even if transit buses somehow became twice as fuel-efficient as cars (also not remotely plausible), it would reduce our total transportation energy consumption by only a negligible 0.25%.

Posted by Mixner | June 16, 2008 1:09 PM

Who Powers The Electric Car?

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