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Bay Area To Install Electric Vehicle Grid
Mike writes "Recently San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States. The Bay Area will be partnering with Better Place to create an essential electric vehicle infrastructure, marking a huge step towards the acceptance of electric vehicles as a viable alternative to those that run on fossil fuels." Inhabitat.com has some conceptual illustrations and a map showing EV infrastructure, such as battery exchange stations, stretching from Sacramento to San Diego — though this is far more extensive than the Bay Area program actually announced, which alone is estimated to cost $1 billion.
American gas guzzlers can eat a dick. Adapt or die!
I bet 6 months after installation the left-wingers in SanFran realize that they don't have the electric grid & sufficient generation capacity to keep the cars on the road.
I remember the rolling blackouts in 2001 that drove California electric utilities bankrupt.
Smug alert! Meteorologists predict a huge smug-storm over San Francisco, on an intersection course with the smug from Obama's acceptance speech.
Maybe this is how it will start. Small isolated areas, that slowly spread across the entire country.
That would be neat.
The problem isn't that SF wants to be electric-friendly, or even environmentally friendly. The problem is that they are doing it simply to cash in on a trendy idea. The union bosses responsible for building this grid will charge SF taxpayers billions to produce a sub-par grid, that will need constant repair, and that is unlikely to be utilized.
Why? Because the same people who promote electric cars, are also the people that recoil from even the word "nuclear"... and thus ensure that while the rest of the world forges ahead in power generation technology, we are stuck with 30+ year old inefficient uranium-guzzlers.
Perhaps people should consider that it's better to do things because they are the right thing, not because they are the "in thing".
"You're just substituting one energy source for another. You're not doing anything about the energy shortage."
Yes you are. It's a lot more efficient to have convert all your chemical energy into electricity at one central spot than to have millions of engines that the vehicles have to carry around with them. I believe the efficiency factor is something like 60%. Besides, there are non-chemical ways to generate electricity.
State governments, especially California, just can't afford $1B projects. But the Feds sure can. Because they are trying to counter a deflationary spiral, they are printing money as fast as they can and giving it to banks.
Compared to what they've been giving away, $1B is nothing. They really should consider throwing some of that over to CA. [It will create JOBS and reduce foreign oil dependency, Mr. Obama!]
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
At least spending a billion for this will produce something useful and will provide some jobs. It sounds like a bargain compared to $700+ billion to keep the bankers from having to move to smaller mansions.
OK it was set in LA instead of SF, but the implication in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel was that the slotcar grid was at least statewide.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
I've lived and worked in the Bay Area. Pollution from cars is a problem. Cars are a problem.
Electric cars are not the answer. (I don't even want to imagine sitting in deadlocked traffic, heater or AC on, tunes playing, battery draining...)
Mass transit is the answer - not just BART - REAL mass transit. I cannot stress enough that if one travels to Japan and sees for oneself how fucking cool and efficient the Japanese mass rail system is - billion dollar proposals like this would die at conception.
Mass transit first - electric cars (if they're still needed, really) second.
Fuck me, America - can we try fixing problems instead of fixing symptoms - just once?!?!
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
So I take my used up, chemically destroyed battery to some government-sponsored facility and exchange it for a brand new one, and it costs me nothing? That's good!
But terrorists now have a great place to load up on acids that can be used to build bombs -- the government will now keep the raw materials in sealed plastic containers and give them away as "bio-friendly" electric car batteries. That's bad.
It'll create zero emissions and be cheaper to recharge than refill. That's good!
The batteries contain lead and other things that reeeeally shouldn't go into landfills. That's bad.
But they'll come with a free coupon! That's good!
The coupon is also cursed...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Let's just pray that the public does this time the opposite of what they did the last time the government made a big push to get EVs going. Last time they pushed GM to build an EV that everyone said they would drive but in end the demand turned out to be a tiny fraction of what everyone said it was going to be, GM had to cut down the program to a tiny portion of the country in order to be able to support and maintain them properly, and in end lost billions of dollars.
Now the Volt will be coming -- a real opportunity for people to finally put their money where their mouths are. Since it can also generate its own electricty when the battery runs out, there'll be no more excuses such as that it doesn't have enough range.
None of these things ever work if the consumers aren't willing to put their money where their mouths are and actually buy the damn cars. Hybrids and diesel cars that get a few more mpg than traditional gas cars are lovely and all, but with EVs we could switch to burning no oil whatsoever. That's so huge. I just pray this time around the public will play their part and actually drive the things.
Recently San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States.
Capitol is a proper name, originally of a temple and the hill it sat on, but now often of a building that serves as the seat of a legislature. Capital means the city that serves as the seat of government. It also means the chief city of a region, and is the metaphorical sense intended here.
Even if submitter didn't know the difference, a professional editor should have. Good thing we don't have any of those around here, huh?
And the brethren went away edified.
I wonder how many of those fancy expensive-looking cords are going to disappear when copper prices go up and people are stealing them for scrap...
Doesn't San Francisco already have trolleybuses on several of its local routes? They've already had a major electric vehicle system from that for quite some time.
I happen to live near Seattle, so I do know the problems associated with being on a paved road while receiving power overhead.
Anyone remember that California energy crisis from a few years ago? What exactly has been done (besides firing some politicians and energy execs) to help produce more power?
I'm not sure its a great idea to be building HUGE structural draws like this into (what will eventually become) every major city worth a damn, without a plan for how to power all of it. The "not in my backyard" problem must be solved first.
battery exchange stations, i didn't think of that
when mentally strategizing electric powered vehicles you are struck by the onerous amount of time it would take to recharge
but this scheme skips that problem entirely, by having service stations stocked with fresh batteries
of course, you'd then need some sort of airtight battery integrity system, so someone doesn't get stuck with a tampered or faulty one
but battery exchange is a fabulous conceptual leap, for me at least (what, has everyone else in the room already figured this out 5 years ago? ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I took a look at the proposed California infrastructure plan. I suspect that part was drawn up by someone unfamiliar with the state.
It never fails to amaze me how some people can throw up a "proposal" without thinking about the viability of that which they propose.
the car was like heroin for the usa
well, it seems the romance is over. we're hung over with gridlock, polluted air, and oil-funded latin american gasbags/ russian neoimperialists/ saudi wahabbism
but the usa is less densely populated than japan or europe. their adherence to rail more than us makes sense. don't poopoo our poor rail planning: our population density sealed our fate
but times they are a changing. rail is going to come back strong. our romance with the car is over
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's why I installed an electric vehicle grid in my driveway 2 years ago. Get on the ball, Bay Area!
[...] unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States.
Sorry to be the spelling Nazi, but (from the New Oxford American Dictionary):
Capitol
1 the seat of the U.S. Congress in Washington, DC.
â ( capitol) a building housing a legislative assembly : 50,000 people marched on New Jersey's state capitol.
2 the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome.
ORIGIN from Old French capitolie, capitoile, later assimilated to Latin Capitolium (from caput, capit- âheadâ(TM) ).
On the other hand:
capital
noun
1 (also capital city or town) the most important city or town of a country or region, usually its seat of government and administrative center.
â [with adj. ] a place associated more than any other with a specified activity or product : Milan is the fashion capital of the world.
[...]
I'm not a native English speaker and even I knew that.
Either battery replacement, or plug-ins. We don't yet have a standard as to how to recharge these cars.
110v...220v...different plugs...different acceptable recharge times.
Replacement batteries will require some sort of mechanical/robotic system to do it. Your grandmother is not going to wrestle a 100lb battery pack out of the car. And none of the elec cars I've seen have easily (no more than 5 mins) replaceable packs.
Finally, we have the apartment problem. If I live on the 4th floor, how do I ensure my car won't be unplugged overnight by some miscreant on the street.
All of these can be overcome. But spending billions to build out a grid for this without the standardization in place will fail.
I really, REALLY want this to succeed. But this effort may be premature.
A calculation of the german version of the AAA, the ADAC, showed that the electric smart that is currently on the road, would actually create more CO2 per km than the combustion engine version, IF the power plant was solely coal based (which is a popular power plant in germany at the moment). I also find if fascinating that the hydrogen for hydrogen production is currently produced by transforming oil into hydrogen and ... CO2. It is the most efficient and economic process to do it like that. Sure, at one point in time you could do create hydrogen by electrolysis of water. But in the mean time, because money is an inevitable driving force, it will be made the CO2-producing way.
Or, how biofuels will end up competing the farming of food and might lead to difficult hunger problems. All in all, these are exciting times, and for every alternative the effects of the complete life circle on environment and society should be considered....
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The people who don't use rail for cross country shipments do so for a reason, the same reason people stopped using it for transport in a serious manner, its too damned unreliable. Not inherently so, but the companies can't get their act together, and shipping something over rail is a good way to get it there somewhere between tomorrow and next month, with no idea which until the package arrives.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
It's great to see people getting out there and trying to get things done about making alternative energy-powered cars available, but it seems like it's happening sporadically.
Arnie is building hydrogen fueling stations around California, the Bay Area's getting electric, who knows what other places will do? And that's just in California!
It seems like a waste to use government money to implement conflicting standards when one of them is going to lose... and the conflict itself can slow down adoption; after all, if people didn't want to buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray for fear of buying the losing technology, who wants to buy a car susceptible to that problem?
Imagine if, in the 80s, the government had mandated use and sale of Betamax in some major cities and VHS in other major cities -- spent your tax dollars on raising infrastructure for conflicting standards! What a waste.
I hope Obama lays down a clear path for the United States to follow in terms of alternative energy generation and cars. Then perhaps we can sidestep this problem.
http://www.tenjou.net/
http://home.earthlink.net/~root.man/peak.html
http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm
Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum.
J. F. Kenney
Joint Institute of The Physics of the Earth - Russian Academy of Sciences
Gas Resources Corporation, 11811 North Freeway, Houston, TX 77060, U.S.A.
Ac. Ye. F. Shnyukov
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Vladimirskaya Street 56, 252.601 Kiev, Ukraine
V. A. Krayushkin
Institute of Geological Sciences
O. Gonchara Street 55-B, 01054 Kiev, Ukraine
I. K. Karpov
Institute of Geochemistry - Russian Academy of Sciences
Favorskii Street 1a, 664.033 Irkutsk, RUSSIA
V. G. Kutcherov
Russian State University of Oil and Gas
Leninskii Prospect 65, 117.917 Moscow, Russia
I. N. Plotnikova
National Petroleum Company of Tatarstan (TatNeft S.A.)
Butlerov Street 45-54, 423.020 Kazan, Tatarstan, RUSSIA
1. Introduction.
With recognition that the laws of thermodynamics prohibit spontaneous evolution of liquid hydrocarbons in the regime of temperature and pressure characteristic of the crust of the Earth, one should not expect there to exist legitimate scientific evidence that might suggest that such could occur. Indeed, and correctly, there exists no such evidence.
Nonetheless, and surprisingly, there continue to be often promulgated diverse claims purporting to constitute âoeevidenceâ that natural petroleum somehow evolves (miraculously) from biological matter. In this short article, such claims are briefly subjected to scientific scrutiny, demonstrated to be without merit, and dismissed.
The claims which purport to argue for some connection between natural petroleum and biological matter fall into roughly two classes: the âoelook-like/come-fromâ claims; and the âoesimilar(recondite)-properties/come-fromâ claims.
The âoelook-like/come-fromâ claims apply a line of unreason exactly as designated: Such argue that, because certain molecules found in natural petroleum âoelook likeâ certain other molecules found in biological systems, then the former must âoecome-fromâ the latter. Such notion is, of course, equivalent to asserting that elephant tusks evolve because those animals must eat piano keys.
In some instances, the âoelook-like/come-fromâ claims assert that certain molecules found in natural petroleum actually are biological molecules, and evolve only in biological systems. These molecules have often been given the spurious name âoebiomarkers.â
The scientific correction must be stated unequivocally: There have never been observed any specifically biological molecules in natural petroleum, except as contaminants. Petroleum is an excellent solvent for carbon compounds; and, in the sedimentary strata from which petroleum is often produced, natural petroleum takes into solution much carbon material, including biological detritus. However, such contaminants are unrelated to the petroleum solvent.
The claims about âoebiomarkersâ have been thoroughly discredited by observations of those molecules in the interiors of ancient, abiotic meteorites, and also in many cases by laboratory synthesis under imposed conditions mimicking the natural environment. In the discussion below, the claims put forth about porphyrin and isoprenoid molecules are addressed particularly, because many âoelook-like/come-from
Atlanta, Tokyo, NY, London, etc. work because they are spoke and hub. The bay area is a scattered mix-match of suburban and urban with jobs sites everywhere. Oh, and we get laid off and find new jobs with some regularity so planning where I live compared to where I work is not feasible.
Don't get me wrong, I love mass transit and use it when I can. But just saying "kill the cars, add more rail" misses the point. For a simple example look at Santa Clara counties wasted of effort on the light rail system. Goes no where useful and does it slower than my car in traffic.
if you are transporting things like coal, or timber, or trash, and many times more effective because rail is so much cheaper than truck
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Bought 'em up, tore 'em up - so we could buy more cars and tires and gas.
I dislike the counter-arguments in the Wikipedia article that the move to buses were more efficient - the light rails were already in place, so a working system was dismantled in favor of a competing one.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
All California government vehicles are required to be 100% zero-emission vehicles by 2010 or face huge cuts in transit funds.
I personally like the 2010 Chevy zero-emission electric... finally!
While it would seem they are "on the ropes" so to speak, Big-3 Auto often has a lot to say when it comes to getting their will. They had a lot to do with the failure of competing technologies including passenger rail. The next argument may be "now we REALLY can't compete because we don't have an electric car! give us more money and time to sell off the rest of our SUVs and we will consider making an electric car provided it has a high enough profit margin and a controlled 3rd party parts market."
The scheme involves a number of ground-breaking proposals to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles, including speeding up the installation of electric vehicle charging outlets on streets and in homes, and offering incentives for companies to install charging stations in the workplace.
On streets?!? Gee, what could possible go wrong with that... nobody would be tempted to, say, unplug that cable from your car and steal the power you are paying for, now would they? How many companies (other than government contractors like Lockheed) have secure parking lots? What's to stop me from plugging in my motor home and living there? Have they really thought about all the different ways this system can be abused? Wouldn't a simple battery-exchange program(just like the propane-tank exchange they already have at Lowe's/Home Depo) work a lot better?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
this is cool. You know, most of the rest of the ChristianWalmartMicrosft States of America can't stand this stuff. And that's fine. I hope California can just gracefully say adios to the other 49, best wishes, etc. Kind of like how Singapore parted ways with Malaysia when they realized Singapore was doing all the heavy lifting there.
Atlanta, Tokyo, NY, London, etc. work because they are spoke and hub. The bay area is a scattered mix-match of suburban and urban with jobs sites everywhere.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the Tokyo I know is better described by your second sentence than spoke and hub....
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
The Bay Area would be perfect for bikes. They are far more energy-efficient than EVs (by like 2 orders of magnitude), the Bay Area is largely flat, it suffers from massive congestion (EVs don't even begin to address that), it doesn't get too warm, it doesn't rain much all summer long, the societal cost of maintaining the facilities to park a few million cars are devastating, a few of the people who live there could use some exercise...
I like bikes even in hilly, rainy country, but there they have some disadvantages. It's utterly absurd that somewhere as perfect as the Bay Area doesn't encourage cycling.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
this is cool. You know, most of the rest of the ChristianWalmartMicrosft States of America can't stand this stuff. And that's fine. I hope California can just gracefully say adios to the other 49, best wishes, etc. Kind of like how Singapore parted ways with Malaysia when they realized Singapore was doing all the heavy lifting there.
Separation you want, eh? No problem. Hell, it's been the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia for years now when it comes to personal freedoms. We'll take the Military with us if you don't mind. Based on your laws, you seem to be oblivious to crime anyway, so we wouldn't want to burden you with those budgets or protection.
Good luck, and I hope no one comes across your "free and open-minded" borders to mug you with a spork while you stand there with that "I'm sooo baked" look on your face.
Peace out.
If you want electric vehicle recharging infrastructure to be installed throughout the United States in about ten minutes flat, make a very simple law: Every gas station that installs at least one electric vehicle recharging thing for each gas pump that they have within the next year will become exempt of paying ALL taxes of ALL types for a period of twenty years. Those things will be installed
It wouldn't be the first time that GM had interfered:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Mass transit is the answer - not just BART - REAL mass transit. I cannot stress enough that if one travels to Japan and sees for oneself how fucking cool and efficient the Japanese mass rail system is - billion dollar proposals like this would die at conception.
No. Sorry. Mass transit is part of the solution, but it is not the solution.
The problem lies in the inherent difference between mass transit and public transit and most people don't recognize the difference.
Mass transit focuses on getting mass number of people between various high density locations. These are your medium to heavy rail systems. For the Bay Area that's BART and CalTrain.
In places like Japan, where they have high population densities, it works great. There's a reason places like Tokyo, Moscow, New York, London, etc., can have fantastically efficient mass transit systems: they have the population density to deal with it.
Public transit on the other hand focuses on being a 'vehicle replacement' so people in lower density areas can actually give up their cars. This is taxies up through light rail. Fewer passengers, but more convenient and more versatile.
Bay Area geography doesn't really favor Mass Transit. It's why BART basically sucks for commuting. With the exception of MUNI linking well to BART, most of the Public to Mass links suck.
The whole electric car infrastructure is an expensive idea, and it talks to the whole "chicken and the egg" problem. Without infrastructure, electric cars are useless. Without electric cars, no one will build the infrastructure. This is actively solving the infrastructure problem ahead of the cars.
Is it a good idea? Ultimately, yes. Is it the right idea? That's a lot harder to say. A massive bay area wide fleet of on-demand bio-diesel fueled hybrid shuttle buses might be better. But who's to say? Cars are a part of US culture partially because of our geography. We live in suburbia, which is inherently tied in with car culture.
Unless your mass transit plan includes re-arranging US cities and how people live in this country, it will never be the solution.
Cheers,
Bagheera
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Excellent points - although I'll have to struggle with the semantics of public vs. mass transit....
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
What makes the government think it knows which technology is good for reducing carbon emissions? Just put a cap on pollution, punish polluters, fix the market failure by capturing external costs associated with pollution, and let the market fix the problem efficiently and cheaply.
Currently hooked on AMP
As an aside, what the heck would you do if you run out of charge? Currently a can of gas is pretty portable... enough batteries to move a depleted car... not so much. I don't think it's very feasible to have a recovery vehicle come out and juice the car up for 2 hours (optimistically). That leaves towing. Not the end of the world, but a step down from the current situation.
Electric cars help on the pollution front, but do jack squat for the congestion problem, and I think that's a problem that's just as bad in the Bay. That coupled with the fact that the hippies won't budge on nuclear, and we're still burning the same hydrocarbons to make the power, we're just doing it in a different place (which might be more efficient, but is it *that* much more efficient?).
Just because your car is powered by electricity doesn't mean the electricity was generated without the use of fossil fuels. Might I remind the greens that most electricity in the U.S. is (unfortunately) still produced by burning coal? The same coal combustion which causes acid rain?
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch (but solar and tidal energy are as close as we'll get).
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Judge Doom: A few weeks ago I had the good providence to stumble upon a plan of the city council. A construction plan of epic proportions. We're calling it a freeway.
Eddie Valiant: Freeway? What the hell's a freeway?
Judge Doom: Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. Smooth, safe, fast. Traffic jams will be a thing of the past.
Eddie Valiant: So that's why you killed Acme and Maroon? For this freeway? I don't get it.
Judge Doom: Of course not. You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.
Ah, liberal politics: Politicians deciding to spend other people's money on ideas that no business in its right mind would invest in, due to limited profitability. Billions of dollars of tax money being spend on something with extremely limited benefits, if any.
(South park is never off topic!) : P
_-_-_GSLUG_-_-_
Because the same people who promote electric cars, are also the people that recoil from even the word "nuclear"
No, we just recoil at the way Bush pronounces it. We have no problem with nuclear energy.
The real problem is that good reactors are expensive. People don't want to invest so much in infrastructure because it's "socialist".
Petroleum produces less CO2 per Joule than coal, so it's expected (all else being equal) that powering a car with coal will produce more CO2 than powering it with petroleum. If we really wanted to be eco-friendly we'd replace all coal reactors with petroleum reactors to power our electric cars. Unfortunately, we don't have that option. Your point is moot.
Capitol? Capital!
Isn't that exactly what they're trying to do with this project? Standardize the charging and replacement, provide infrastructure adhering to the standards, and give incentives to go electric?
I saw nothing about preventing overnight sabotage, but that's really the same problem as preventing someone from deflating your tires or siphoning out your gas. Not exactly hot-button issues of the day.
Capitol is a building, capital is a city.
Sounds great. In fact why not put up solar panels and power the whole city, and while we are at it I'm sure there are lots of other stuff we could do too!
Look people, fact of the matter is that our government has been broke for a LONG time. Treasury is PRINTING money to bail out citibank.
It's over. Everything that's expensive and requires BIG infrastructure is going nowhere.
It may not seem like it now, but next year is going to suck. The dollar is going to drop like a rock and the rest of the world is going to stop lending cash to the U.S. government (at all levels). Once that hits the fan the true cost of what we THINK we have will be facing us.
Dreams of high-tech Eco powered society are done. Nobody will be able to afford it.
On the plus side big pollution will probably go down as well as we will not be able to afford that either.
I don't know about the Bay Area, but the LA area already has a lot of EV charging terminals at various places that were installed when the EV1 was on the road. Obviously more would have to be installed as the number of EVs on the road increased... but the point is they were already there.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Here's the thing I don't get. How come electric car manufacturers don't run pilots in my home town of Winnipeg.
Ok, so the -35C in January is a little hard on the batteries, and the auxillary heating systems might not be able to keep up. But have any of you ever been to Winnipeg, specifically downtown and looked at the outdoor parking lots??!?! They almost ALL have electrical outlets for drivers to plug their cars in! We already have the infrastructure in place!
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
Inhabitat.com has some conceptual illustrations and a map showing EV infrastructure, such as battery exchange stations, stretching from Sacramento to San Diego â" though this is far more extensive than the Bay Area program actually announced, which alone is estimated to cost $1 billion.
I always thought that was how EVs could be viable for long trips.
I liked the interview of its CEO at Web 2.0 summit. http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/11/a-conversation-with-shai-agass.html
Bay Area geography doesn't really favor Mass Transit. It's why BART basically sucks for commuting. With the exception of MUNI linking well to BART, most of the Public to Mass links suck.
I'm an Australian, and I've traveled a bit and spent a lot of time in San Fran, using the BART and MUNI to get from my relatives place in Pacifica to various places around.
I agree it sucks for commuting, unless the place you want to go happens to be on a connected line on the BART/MUNI lines. Fortunately most of the places I've been going to have been (well, not Pacifica - it's a fucking $40 cab fare from there to Daly City which I discovered last time).
I almost totally agree with the GP. I agree with some of what you said, but I think the Bay Area could (logistics aside - those fucking hills are a killer, not to mention quake-proofing everything) definitely benefit from improved public transport (using your nomenclature) around the city area. At the moment its a bit of a chore.
I've just come from spending 3 months in Europe and have been reminded again of the awesomeness of properly done transport systems. I think there's enough people in and around SF to justify a system (again, ignoring logistics, which I think would be the biggest roadblock there).
From the time I've spent in the US though, it'll be a long, long haul to get people out of cars onto public transport. It needs to be made cheap, clean, safe, and (most importantly) useful by having those links you're talking about.
I'd love to come to the US and see Euro/Japan style public transport to get around in. I really do not look forward to repeat visits and the fact that to get anywhere I have to drive or get a taxi.
So why not rearrange the cities? The Bay area is still growing rapidly, it would seem, and the newer bits (I'm at the north edge of San Jose, for example) absolutely suck as places to live, because the population density is so low that there are no services. Nada. It's a thirty minute walk to buy groceries, a 50 minute walk to eat supper (with the possible exception of a Spanish language sports bar that sells quasi-pizza), there's nominally s Starbucks here, but it closes at, what, 8PM or something. The city planners are clearly retards. They need to draw lines and say NO MORE CONSTRUCTION OUTSIDE THIS LINE. Then they need to tear up every second street inside that boundary and make them pedestrian areas with light rail down the middle instead. Remove whatever zoning restrictions are separating the residences and the services. Charge for road use and make the light rail free, instead of the other way around.
There's no downside. The current arrangement is insanity.
of mining exotic minerals, manufacturing them into batteries, and then cleanly disposing of said batteries at the end of their life cycles?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
you should also add in the equivalent costs for electric: energy used to mine coal and get it to power plants, energy used to mine lead, nickel, cadmium, and other heavy metals and manufacture batteries with them (and then dispose of them as toxic waste), etc.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is a commercial proposal from that guy from Israel who runs BetterPlace. First he was going to wire Israel with charging stations. Then it was Hawaii. Now it's the SF Bay Area.
I'd be more impressed if he actually deployed something before announcing the next vaporware deal. They haven't even demoed a working prototype of the automated battery-exchange station. There's a an animated video, but it's just conceptual.
The first two locations made more sense. On a small island, electric cars could work - you just can't take a long trip. Since Israel doesn't get along with most of its neighbors, there's not much cross-border car traffic, and the country is small. But the SF Bay Area is a big step up from there.
The whole battery-exchange idea seems too complex mechanically. It requires a big standardized battery pack across a range of vehicles.
It's interesting to think about how one might make the battery-exchange system work. You need a very rugged connector suitable for heavy current, blind mating, and bad weather. Such devices are rare, but the New York City Transit Authority has had them on subway cars since 1914. Subway cars can be coupled and uncoupled without anyone going near a coupler, and the couplers connect air and electrical lines. So there's a mechanism that can do the job.
> Unless your mass transit plan includes re-arranging US cities and how people live in this country, it will never be the solution.
Global warming and rising sea levels may help you achieve that.
"Public transit on the other hand focuses on being a 'vehicle replacement' so people in lower density areas can actually give up their cars." There are a lot of places in Japan where people can give up their cars. It is not perfect yet, but the system is still expanding. A good transit system would go a long ways to helping with the problems in the US. As you said, it is not the whole solution, but if it is done right, it will go a long ways.
Until we'll have batteries that can last 12+ hours of continuous use (average and versatile use, not just stable-mph highway run), I wouldn't ever consider buying an exclusively electric vehicle. Yes, I could buy one for short range rides, and have a hybrid or else for real life distances (I wouldn't even dare to think about how an e.g. 1000+ mile ride - not that unfrequent for me - would be, and how long it would take), but having a gazillion cars is a stupid idea, although I guess car makers would love it.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
San Francisco needs a Monorail!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ql744tSfnXM
There is no need for "an essential electric vehicle infrastructure". what is needed are cars that run off the current infrastructure.
There's a car in india called the Reva that runs off electicity, and can be charged from any common power socket. Sure, it's a bit crap, but I'm sure Californian ingenuity can come up with a better design.
If the californian govt. wants to encourage electric car usage, they should sponsor design competitions, or offer tax breaks on electic cars, etc. etc, not plough money into massive top-down infrastructure projects.
Well, that's what I think anyway.
The Fail Infrastructure, that is, our Fearless Leadership, is an awesomely resilient and redundant system. The popular dissent is used as a tool to explain failure, rather than as useful input for promoting the greater good. Just look at the sheer weight of influencing factors and know the system will sink under he weight of profit-taking. I have a newspaper clipping from the early '60s of a certain tomorrowland fantasy they called Bay Area Rapid Transit. I will say no more.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Whose goo-headed idea was it to collapse all stories into headline bars?
What a great way to lose readership.
Not that /. cares about that...
They don't even have enough electricity to keep their lights on, never-mind handle the load of millions of vehicles trying to charge up all the time.
They may rearrange themselves -- if the transport is built, people will prefer to live within walking distance of shops and a station.
They do here in London anyway -- any advert for a place to rent says something like "5 minutes walk to station, 3 minutes from high street with shops and bars, 6 minutes from large supermarket". Or a cheaper place might say "15 minutes to station, 10 minutes from shops, 10 minutes on bus to supermarket". The most important factors influencing the price of a flat are 1) affluence of an area, 2) how far it is from a station, 3) how far it is from decent shops.
His one paragraph is certainly far more detailed and comprehensive than the zero paragraphs we've seen to back up the original claim.
All of the numbers in the grandparent post are sourced from fairly authoritative sites, and the math he does on them is simple, so anyone can check his results rather than simply believing his conclusions. If you think he's wrong, then how about you say where he's wrong, and provide evidence for that claim, rather than simply waving your hands about some alleged analysis that may or may not even say what it was claimed to?
Evidence beats assertion. If someone doesn't back up their claims, why should we believe them?
Well, maybe just north from central California. We don't really have much use for LA or San Diego but if we bring Oregon and Washington along with us we can create the society from Ecotopia (or maybe even Cascadia).
Web consulting +
[rant]
I might note that the problem of US cities not working well with efficient transportation is tied to suburbanism, which is tied to crime, which in turn is tied to corruption. As far as I can tell, corruption is indigenous to the human species, displaying itself most often in those who are in political power in almost every institution (public, private, not for profit). That said, it shows up less in some places (say, Churches) and more in others (say, public schools).
I pick those two, because interestingly, the child abuse problems are far worse in the public schools than in (for example) the Roman Catholic Church. But you can't sue the schools due to certain laws (refer back to 2nd sentence of post). So the schools shuffle the abusers around...
But when I was back in Lithuania, the cities basically were set up not to require private transportation beyond foot or bike. A typical city was 20-30k people, and had apartment buildings, sometimes with commercial units on the ground floor. The apartment buildings themselves were in blocks, about 100' off the main roads, which were lined with other commercial entities. Typically speaking, it was no more than a 5 minute walk to *whereever* you wanted to go. For those few things that had to be carried out at a particular location, it was no more than a 30 minute walk.
Walk.
Bicycles are faster, and were an option.
Now, you might ask "if corruption is universal, what's the difference between the former Soviet cities and the American ones"? Basically, it is that the Soviets were singleminded about their "planned" state. Us Americans still have all of our wicked plans, but we try to hide it in Capitalist Speak. Consider it a case of "Animal Farm" in reverse, if you will.
That doesn't mean that I prefer the Soviet "solutions". I don't. What I would prefer is to abandon corruption and crime. Then we could live together in more efficient cities. I do prefer the Lithuanian setup to the US setup. But I don't consider worse, more immediate evil corruption to be better than hidden, sneaky evil corruption.
That's all.
[/rant]
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Does BART have a bad reputation? Every time I've been to SF I have been impressed by transit. Between the BART/Muni/CalTrain I have been able to get every place I needed to go without a car, relatively quickly and hassle-free. I had a car once in SF, due to traveling up PCH and hated it. Parking was a bitch, I had to get up early to move my car twice, and even though it burned like fire I paid $25 to park my car for a single night. Not to mention sitting in traffic, wishing I could be underground in a nice train actually getting somewhere without the stress.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I didn't mean to misrepresent BART. I am terribly served by BART but I guess I don't have enough business in the tiny fraction of the state that IS well served by that system. I feel that it disserves the vast majority of the people in this region. If you like to get drunk at ball games or shop at a few select places you might feel very well served. Lucky you. I'd have just made a lighter, less expensive system that went more places, or further, or more often, or faster, or at night, or anything to mitigate the punitive system that I've enjoyed on MY commute. It costs a rocket, compared to any of the other "services" that we provide ourselves with. Don't even get me started about CALTRANS. Or AMTRAK. Bastards.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.