8 ms·

Seems like misguided faux environmentalism, like banning plastic straws but keeping the longtail of plastic waste. Electric buses are good, of course, but a wel

• bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Certainly we don't want to make perfect the enemy of the good: given a fixed budget we're probably better off buying 2 diesel buses rather than a single electric bus. But don't forget particulate emissions: I believe that's the primary motivation for electric bus conversion. Buses are a significant portion of particulates in many cities, and particulates kill people.
  • barney54 7y ago
    Particulates are one reason most city buses in the United States now run on natural gas. That's a real improvement over diesel in terms of particulates.
    • supergauntlet 7y ago
      One big question I have is why LPG isn't a bigger thing for cars. Regular gas and diesel engines can be (relatively) cheaply modified to run on LPG and indeed can often run on both. It's a cleaner burning fuel than both gasoline and diesel AND is cheaper to boot.
      • rjsw 7y ago
        A friend had a LPG conversion for a car, the tank took up a lot of luggage space. A larger tank for the same range doesn't matter as much for a large vehicle like a bus.
        • bobthepanda 7y ago
          It’s also not abnormal for equipment on a bus go onto the roof.
      • tastygreenapple 7y ago
        I think it's because most people don't understand the benefits of LPG fuel, and LPG vehicles incur costs similar to other alt-fuel vehicles without enjoying benefits. Honda used to sell a natural gas civic and you could buy a home fill station, in the late 2000s it probably made a lot sense. But now, you'd be better off getting an electric vehicle and a home charger. I think LPG is interesting, but if you're going to deal with speciality fuel/fueling, you can just get a hydrogen or battery electric vehicle and enjoy the benefits of an electrified powertrain. LPG powertrains retain the complexity and service costs of gas powertrains with pretty marginal benefits. Electrification has its own costs but unique advantages.
        • gattilorenz 7y ago
          > LPG vehicles incur costs similar to other alt-fuel vehicles without enjoying Not universally true. In Italy, where regular gas prices are stellar, LPG is a relatively common thing. Not common enough, but the infrastructure is "there" (although not as capillary as regular gas) and it's advertised as a consumer option.
          • tastygreenapple 7y ago
            You're right, I was American-centric. It's a land littered with gas stations and finding other fuels can be extremely challenging.
      • i_feel_great 7y ago
        In the case of New Zealand from the mid-70's to the early 80's, CNG (compressed natural gas) was subsidised by the government and there was a very large uptake. My dad had it installed in his Toyota Hiace van and Ford Falcons. This was during the oil shortages era. When oil became cheap again, the government stopped the subsidies and it was back to petrol. The tanks and the pumps at the services stations were ripped out and sold to the Indians, Eastern Europeans and the Chinese.
      • inferiorhuman 7y ago
        Worse fuel economy and increased engine wear are probably the big issues.
  • elihu 7y ago
    Also noise.
  • opencl 7y ago
    At least newer diesels are a lot better about particulates than the older ones, the EPA has mandated particulate filters since 2007 and they reduce them by ~85-95%. http://www.meca.org/regulation/us-epa-20072010-heavyduty-engine-and-vehicle-standards-and-highway-diesel-fuel-sulfur-control-requirements http://www.meca.org/regulation/us-epa-20072010-heavyduty-eng...
    • bradknowles 7y ago
      That's assuming you actually believe the numbers haven't been rigged, VW-style.
      • ComputerGuru 7y ago
        The crazy thing about the VW scandal: their cars still met the legal requirements for maximum allowed emissions even without the cheat module (at least here in the USA)!
      • opencl 7y ago
        How would they possibly rig the numbers on a particulate filter? The cheating was achieved through engine control software selectively disabling parts of the emissions control system when it detected testing was not occurring. You cannot use software to selectively disable a particulate filter bolted onto the exhaust pipe.
  • NickM 7y ago
    given a fixed budget we're probably better off buying 2 diesel buses rather than a single electric bus. I think the situation is a little more complicated than that. Electricity is a much cheaper fuel than diesel, and maintenance costs are lower for electric vehicles too, so in the long term electric buses may end up saving more money than they cost. Add to that the fact that interest rates are very low right now, and it may even turn out that financing the electric buses and charging systems could allow cities to save money from day one, though I haven't crunched any numbers so this is admittedly just speculation on my part.
    • semi-extrinsic 7y ago
      > maintenance costs are lower for electric vehicles I think there is a <citation needed> here. Do ICE drivetrains really constitute a large fraction of the maintenance costs on cars and buses? In my experience, suspension and steering, and auxiliaries, are the things that break.
      • vvanders 7y ago
        My anecdotal evidence of ~90k miles on our EV says yes. A coolant flush, tires and windshield wiper fluid are the only things I've done in that time. Compare that with Brakes, Oil changes, Transmission service, DPF + DEF and the host of other things you get with a diesel engine + transmission. We've got a diesel truck, diesel tractor and EV, it's pretty easy to see the maintenance differences between the three of them over the years(the tractor being the highest with the added complexity of a hydraulic system).
        • crummy 7y ago
          I don't know anything about cars. Why did you need work done on your brakes on a diesel but not on an electric?
          • coryrc 7y ago
            Regenerative braking
  • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    My city has upgraded to hybrid and NG buses in the last decade (in addition to some non battery very old and new trolley electrics), there are plenty of solutions in between dirty diesel and clean electric that have to be considered as well.
  • dsfsafasfasf 7y ago
    For particulates you can switch to CNG, and you can probably convert the diesel engines to run off that too.
• deagle50 7y ago
  Except that diesel emissions kill city residents.
  • StreamBright 7y ago
    So does coal power plant emission.
    • munk-a 7y ago
      I don't mean to suggest that power generation modernization isn't important but... it's pretty beside the point, investing in diesel buses is locking that usage in for a great many years while an electric bus may be eventually powered by coal initially then transitioned over to an alternative energy source.
      • merpnderp 7y ago
        I’d argue for diesel buses because wind and solar already strain keeping the electric grid stable, except it won’t be a coal plant, it will be a natgas plant, which by itself is a huge win over diesel motors in a big city.
    • deagle50 7y ago
      Are you really comparing pedestrians inhaling NOx directly from tailpipes to a remote power plant?
      • sokoloff 7y ago
        Isn't it the particulates in diesel emissions that are particularly more harmful than other internal combustion engines? NOx promotes low level ozone, which is an irritant, but I thought by far not the differentially harmful portion of diesel exhaust.
      • StreamBright 7y ago
        Yes I do. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-co2-emissions-by-sector-or-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-co2-emissi... https://blog.mybacharach.com/articles/sources-nox-emissions/ https://blog.mybacharach.com/articles/sources-nox-emissions/ I know your feelings is as good as data but still.
• StreamBright 7y ago
  Depending on what is the source of energy used to charge the buses.
• WhompingWindows 7y ago
  It's neither misguided nor faux environmentalism. As a cyclist, going behind buses is straight toxic. Maybe you're a car user and you don't mind the dirtiest diesel engines, but those particles poison the lungs of our citizens and that nasty emission discourages people from using buses and cleaner transportation modes. We must move to electrification if we want to save our lungs and our planet. No amount of dirtiest diesel is going to save us.
  • ajross 7y ago
    > As a cyclist, going behind buses is straight toxic. Maybe[1], but still less so than the equivalent emissions from the dozen or so passenger vehicles that bus replaced. The upthread point (which is correct) is that the environmental gains from bus transportation are concentrated in the efficiency gains of shared vehicles and that the relative impact of the fuel used is fairly minor. Get people on buses, then optimize. The linked article is worrying about things in the wrong order. [1] I mean, no, not really. Diesel exhaust stinks, it's not particularly "toxic".
    • hollerith 7y ago
      >Diesel exhaust stinks, it's not particularly "toxic". You might know your body well enough to be able to tell that it is not particularly toxic to you personally, but please consider the possibility others are more vulnerable it (because for example their bodies have more chronic inflammation than yours does). The URL below goes to an article not about diesel exhaust or pollution, but about chronic inflammation, entitled "Understanding inflammation". Here is all the advice near the end of the article on how a reader might reduce inflammation. Emphasis mine. >“Losing weight can have profound effects on lowering inflammation,” says Brown, who adds that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in fats, processed foods, and sugars is generally a good idea, though more study needs to be done to determine how it might affect inflammation. Exercising, which causes an acute inflammatory response in the short term, but an anti-inflammatory one when we regularly get moving, is another strong step to take, he adds. Other researchers advise getting plenty of sleep, lowering stress levels, and seeking out treatment for inflammation-inducing culprits, such as gum disease and high cholesterol levels. Avoid contact with heavy metals such as mercury, which is found in dangerous amounts in some large fish, and limit exposure to substances, such as diesel exhaust and cigarette smoke, that can set off the immune system. https://www.johnshopkinshealthreview.com/issues/spring-summer-2016/articles/understanding-inflammation https://www.johnshopkinshealthreview.com/issues/spring-summe...
• woodandsteel 7y ago
  >Electric buses are good, of course, but a well-designed and highly utilized bus network, even with the dirtiest diesel engines, is going to get you serious wins over GHG/CO2/VOC emissions from automobiles if you can replace those trips. The long-term plan is to electrify both the buses and the cars, and also the trucks, and to do that in a reasonable amount of time, you need to work from now on at all of them at once. What's your long-term plan? And by the way, most of these cities already have a big diesel network. But let me ask again, what is your long-term plan?
• tropo 7y ago
  That "well-designed and highly utilized bus network" is the hard part. I've never seen it. Around here the buses run pretty empty. Sometimes they are literally empty. They take longer routes than cars, with each passenger going a longer distance because the bus route is not what they really want. It would be far better if the passengers had cars.
  • crummy 7y ago
    Wouldn't the proper solution be to improve the bus routes?
    • tropo 7y ago
      If that were possible, it should have already happened. The bus just isn't going to take people point-to-point. It will go to a hub, and then people will change buses, and then another bus will go out. Point-to-point service is personal transportation. Shared transportation fundamentally can't be optimized to individual needs. So the buses drive longer distances, and they have to drive even when empty. BTW, bus usage can seem better than it really is. You are likely to go on the popular parts of the routes, so you see the buses being fuller than they usually are.
    • closeparen 7y ago
      Bus routes are already subject to pretty sophisticated optimization. You can push utility around to do different segments of the community depending on your political priorities, but there aren't global optimizations just sitting on the table. Unless your transit agency is really incompetent, in which case you have to ask why your call to "improve the bus system" today will fare differently from all those that came before.
  • esoterica 7y ago
    You’ve never seen it because you live in a city with garbage transit. (It would not be better if all the passengers had cars, because then it would lead to greater congestion and it would take everyone 2 hours to go 10 miles.)
• dsfsafasfasf 7y ago
  "even with the dirtiest diesel engines, is going to get you serious wins over GHG/CO2/VOC emissions from automobiles" Not for particulates. Even a clean diesel bus is going to be dirtier in particulates vs. gasoline. Its the nature of the fuel (i.e. not the thermo cycle used). ON the other hand, converting to CNG eliminates particulates completely (you use the same engine, just feed it CH4)
• eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  > even with the dirtiest diesel engines, is going to get you serious wins This is true: more public transport should be the n.1 priority, even if it's diesel. However you are creating a false dichotomy: electric VS diesel. We can have more public transport and electric transport at the same time. Less cars, thanks.