Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Have Become Top Carbon Polluters (technologyreview.com)

Transportation is likely to surpass the electricity sector in 2016 as the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, according to a new analysis of government data, MIT Technology reports. From the article: In 2008, the global financial crisis caused widespread declines in energy use. In the U.S., that coincided with the early stages of a large-scale shift away from coal toward cleaner-burning natural gas as a way to generate electricity. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector have continued to decline from their 2007 peak, even as the economy has resumed growing. The trend line for the transportation sector is less encouraging. Transportation emissions have begun rising as the economy rebounds. John DeCicco at the University of Michigan Energy Institute, who wrote the study, attributes the rebound we've seen during the past four years to straightforward causes: economic recovery and more affordable fuel prices. Vehicle sales numbers have been rising for several years, in particular for trucks and SUVs, and people are traveling more miles.

Comments

This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

When mass transportation is the largest producer of carbon (notice the lack of the word 'polluter'), it means you're making progress.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Air travel and air freight are the worst offenders for carbon output for work done.

Trains and container ships are the most efficient in terms of how much stuff gets moved from A to B for the amount of carbon outputted.

The best next thing to tackle is reducing air travel and freight. Air travel should be one of those novelty things that the lucky few can justify, same with having something air freighted, sure its nice to get stuff 2 days, but reality is waiting a week or two isnt a problem. Unless I realllllllly need something fast I choose the slower cheaper shipping, and so what that it took 2 weeks to get something shipped from Florida to Seattle for a home project that can wait.

The rest of us should be traveling via high speed rail or hyperloop.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[unixisc]

Actually, this trend makes pretty good sense.

Electricity - while the oldest form of generating electricity involved burning coal or oil, there had evolved several alternatives to it, thanks to electricity generation being stationary. Like hydro, nuclear, wind and solar. So it was not difficult to minimize one's dependence on carbon based fuels, aside from the political brinksmanship - the environmental protests that the dams will drown the fish, nuclear will be another Fukushima, windmills will slaughter birds that fly into it, leaving only solar, which is good in tropical and equatorial regions, but limited elsewhere.

Transportation is a different story, however, since one can't have hydroelectric damns on a train, nuclear power in a ship (aside from Russian icebreakers) or wind power driving a car. There, one is forced to use fossil fuels. However, if one can eliminate their use in electricity generation, that reduces their consumption, and ergo, whatever pollution they create. Hopefully, one day, solar powered cars would be completely viable.

Looks like the trend is right as far as reducing pollution due to electricity goes.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[houstonbofh]

Air travel should be one of those novelty things that the lucky few can justify, same with having something air freighted, sure its nice to get stuff 2 days, but reality is waiting a week or two isnt a problem.

The rest of us should be traveling via high speed rail or hyperloop.

Thank you for deciding how fast I need to travel, or how quickly I need something. And thanks for killing many people as auto travel is much more dangerous then air travel. Sure appreciate it! And can you direct me to a hyperloop, please? I can't seem to find mine.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[dgatwood]

Air travel should be something that you do when you're crossing an ocean, because trains over water (and subduction zones) are physically impractical, and ships are too slow to be practical.

That said, we badly need a high speed rail network in the U.S.; Amtrak is kind of fun to ride, but it takes three days each way to get across the country. As such, it is a luxury that few can afford on a regular basis.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[silas_moeckel]

Unless the door to door time is faster dont bother. I can suck carbon out of the air I can not make more time.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Stolpskott]

Very true... but outside of the article title, the article makes no distinction or breakdown between mass transit and personal transit, while alluding in the text to cars and other small/personal transport options - the Mike Orcutt article mentions vehicle sales, trucks, SUVs and cars, thus giving the impression that the increase is down to the American vehicle owner. Maybe the paper it references, written by John DeCicco, has a bit more of an objective viewpoint, but this particular paper is not yet linked from Prof. DeCicco's page on the MIT Faculty so it is impossible to say for sure.
Having said that, much of the language of his other linked papers specifically references "cars" and seems to point to an assumption that private transport is a greater contributory problem than mass transport so I would not hold my breath waiting for a balanced view on the relative impacts of mass- versus private-transport solutions.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Maury Markowitz]

> Air travel and air freight are the worst offenders for carbon output for work done.

So? If the goal is to reduce carbon, you start at the top. And that's car's.

We get equal carbon reduction by increasing car efficiency by 10% or increasing jet efficiency by 100%

Which do you think we should start on first?

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[houstonbofh]

But I was a Blue only 5 years ago!

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Maury Markowitz]

> There, one is forced to use fossil fuels

But we can reduce it significantly. Especially in cars, where plug-in-hybrids can easily double (or more) average milage with basically zero effect on the way the car is used. Pure electric doesn't really help much on top of that.

> solar powered cars would be completely viable

Not possible. Literally.

A Tesla, which is actually pretty average, goes about 5 km on a kWh. At highway speeds, that's three minutes of driving. The S has a roof about 2 square meters. There are 1000 W per meter of sunlight under perfect conditions. That means in those 3 minutes you will collect about 2000 * 0.05 = 100 Wh of electricity, or about 0.5 km. So basically you're discharging 10 times as fast as you could possibly charge.

If you consider realistic conversion on the order of 10% (15% power conversion, 30% geometry losses), its more like 100 times. Even if you drive and then park, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to cover even the shortest transports. A garage roof covered in panels *might* do for people who do shopping and such.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Air travel should not be justifiable under any circumstances if AGW is true. It can only be justified if AGW is false.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

One passenger mile in a jet plane creates more atmospheric carbon than 1500 miles in a car.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky you. To do the same thing in Canada takes 5 days... and that is just Vancouver to Toronto. Hard to get much further east than Montreal as train service is discontinued. OTH, after using the Japanese rail system and some prior experience in Europe, it just makes so much sense to take the train... as it used to be.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

The best next thing to tackle is reducing air travel and freight. Air travel should be one of those novelty things that the lucky few can justify, same with having something air freighted, sure its nice to get stuff 2 days, but reality is waiting a week or two isnt a problem. Unless I realllllllly need something fast I choose the slower cheaper shipping, and so what that it took 2 weeks to get something shipped from Florida to Seattle for a home project that can wait.

This is basically wrong, as Amazon has proven.

Of course, if you're buying for a specialty vendor that only has one shipping location that's across the country from you, it's going to take a few days to be shipped over by truck or train.

However, when you buy from a very large retailer like Amazon, they have multiple warehouses. Amazon has one in nearly every state now, last I heard. So when you order from them, depending on what you get, you may very well get it from a warehouse that's not very far from you, so you don't need air freight to get your item quickly. And those warehouses can, of course, be stocked by trucks or trains that take a week to get stuff around.

We really could be using more trains in the US for shipping stuff; it's a lot more efficient than truck, and it's compatible with trucks too, thanks to containerization (meaning you can ship a container from a rail terminal the last few dozen miles to its final destination, instead of driving it across the country with a truck). We've done a really bad job there, considering we used to have a lot more rail shipping.

As for travel, what we need to do is build SkyTran for shorter-distance travel to replace most cars, at least in the suburbs, and for inter-city transport. With pods that can travel at 100-150mph on suspended maglev rails, you'd be able to get around to cities within your region pretty quickly, much faster than by ground car, and probably faster than plane too since there's no TSA. For longer-distance travel, Hyperloop sounds interesting though it hasn't been proven (one problem with it seems to me that the passenger cabin doesn't hold nearly enough people to exploit economies of scale, but if it works out to have lots of pods, like SkyTran, then this might not be a problem). HSR seems to not be that great an idea; the speeds aren't much higher than SkyTran, it costs an absolute fortune to build (as it sits on the ground and has to be site-built rather than factory-built), it isn't suspended like SkyTran, and it isn't anywhere near as fast as Hyperloop.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[The-Ixian]

That sounds serious. I hope you made a full recovery.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[The-Ixian]

right wing scientists too, no doubt!

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Ichijo]

Transportation is a different story, however, since one can't have hydroelectric damns on a train...

Did you know that electric trains don't need to carry their own power source? True story!

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Planes fly better with both a left and right wing

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

Solar-powered cars are physically impossible. There isn't enough photonic energy, even in Arizona, striking the surface of a car to power it. Unless you mean battery-powered cars recharged using solar power, which is completely doable, and already done today (ask anyone who has a Tesla and a bunch of solar panels on their roof).

Solar power is completely viable almost anywhere, not just in equatorial regions and deserts. Germany makes a huge amount of power with it, and their climate is not sunny at all (look at their latitude on a globe). You do need more panel surface area in such places to make up for reduced sunlight though, but it's not that bad.

For windmills, you can use vertical axis windmills to avoid slaughtering birds.

For nuclear ships, there was a nuclear-powered cargo ship made back in the 70s I think. It wasn't used very long; it was simply too expensive to operate. It wound up in a museum in Charleston SC, though I think it's been moved from there now. Nuclear power works great for ships if you're the US Navy, but it's costly and requires extremely well-trained personnel. It's too bad someone like GE hasn't figured out how to make it much simpler to operate and thus cheap enough to build into cargo ships, perhaps as easily-replaced modules, to eliminate fossil fueling. The problem here is that fossil fuels for cargo ships are just too cheap, and there's no emissions laws at sea.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[houstonbofh]

Bad Logan'a Run reference with the wrong color because I forgot. Yes, i get the irony of that...

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[HornWumpus]

90% of statistics are made up on the spot. This is one.

It might be true, if you could wrangle a ride in a SR-71 vs a Geo Metro (and not the 'peppy' 4 cylinder version).

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

One passenger mile in a jet plane creates more atmospheric carbon than 1500 miles in a car.

But we have fewer jets than cars by enough that cars are still the better target for optimization.

Especially as electric cars are becoming increasingly competitive with gas burning cars for daily use, while electric planes are still a long way from being practical.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[rgbatduke]

I don't disagree with your math, but an article on NewAtlas TODAY extols a claim from a German company that they are going to build a car with 7.5 m^2 of 22% efficient polycrystalline solar cells covering its flattish surfaces, with a 14.5 kW-H internal battery, that will get at least 30 km/day from normal ambient (unobstructed, sure) sun. Their so-far rendered image of a car looks like a smallish four seater commuter car. They also CLAIM that they will sell this for $14 to $16K USD.

I'm skeptical -- but if the DO manage this, it would make a hell of a car for my in-town driving. Basically buy it and then use it without fuel for the rest of its useful life, because I don't drive 30 km/day on average, even including runs to stores as well as work. I'm not sure it would be a good "only car", but it would sure take the pressure off of my 4Runner (needed to pull a boat and for trips but overkill for daily commuting).

The point being that there may be "specialty cars" that can actually function as solar cars for limited length commutes. The ELF (made in Durham NOW, as opposed to dreaming-ware like the car in the new atlas article) could almost do it, if you could hook it up to a few square meters of panel this efficient, but it isn't really a "car", it is more of an electric enhanced tricycle with a tarp-like cover and a bit of storage. But for $6000, one could add the solar panels and a system to accumulate enough charge at home in a day to keep it charged for standard commutes, if it were really road safe (IMO it's not, quite).

rgb

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[cayenne8]

Air travel should be something that you do when you're crossing an ocean, because trains over water (and subduction zones) are physically impractical, and ships are too slow to be practical.

You have fun with that....

If my drive time is more than 3-4 hours, I fly.

I'd rather fly a few hours and get somewhere and have drinks brought to me, rather than drive long highway miles for the most part.

I can afford it....why not do it?

With all the cities and such, I doubt high speed rail work work that well in the US, it would constantly have to be slowing down for cities and intermediate stops. Flying is much quicker than that.....

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[PopeRatzo]

Air travel should not be justifiable under any circumstances if AGW is true. It can only be justified if AGW is false.

I just want to amplify Mr Marxist Hacker's comment.

You could start a graduate level course in logic from those two simple sentences. Here they are again:

Air travel should not be justifiable under any circumstances if AGW is true. It can only be justified if AGW is false.

Impressive. It's like saying, "If drowning is real, then no bathing should be justified under any circumstances. Bathing can only be justified if drowning is false."

 

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[cayenne8]

But I was a Blue only 5 years ago!

I see you are now blinking red/black, that means you are on Last Day citizen...when you officially turn 21yrs, please turn yourself in for "Sleep"...otherwise, the Sandmen will come for you, and you don't want to face The Gun shooting a homer at you....very unpleasant.

;)

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[cayenne8]

Actually, I think the greatest producer of pollution in the world is still Animal Agriculture .

Yep, that steak you're eating is one of the largest carbon footprint problems in the world.

But, it is SOOO tasty!!!

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Mr D from 63]

This is an area where I think autonomous vehicle actually may have the biggest impact. My fly vs drive cutoff is usually about 5 hours of driving. Below that driving wins the time vs convenience battle. If I have a car that can drive me, I''l significantly increase that time, probably to 8 hours, or even more. I could have the car drive overnight while I sleep, then no need to take a flight then rent a car, work around flight schedules, etc.

In short, fully autonomous vehicles could cut into business travel flight as well as personal flights, but it could put more cars on the road at any given time and increase road congestion. It also may breed a new type of vehicle... the sleeper car, where you have a full bed or two (or more). That might actually result in some bigger vehicles on the road.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[rgbatduke]

For windmills, you can use vertical axis windmills to avoid slaughtering birds.

Or, you can put cats in hamster-wheel cages that generate electricity. After all, cats kill somewhere between several hundred million and a billion birds a year, almost as many as transparent glass windows kill by enticing birds to bash in their own brains flying into them. According to at least one of the efforts to put names to causes of human-linked bird mortality. Turbines aren't really in the top ten causes. Windows is number one, with cats at number 2, high tension power lines, pesticides, cars, communication towers, and hunting all much higher in total mortality than wind turbines. So if you want to save birds, put some of those ugly little butterfly decals on your windows and don't wash them so often that they are perfectly transparent. Use your neighborhood cats for target practice. Avoid using electricity, don't use chlorinated hydrocarbons and anticholinesterases on your lawn and garden, try not to drive, and go hunting for the human hunters as well as the cat (and even dog) hunters. As many birds are killed every year as fishing by-catch (in nets and with hook and line) as are killed by turbines.

Just to get a little perspective. I have other reasons to dislike turbines as energy sources, one of them being that they are large and ugly and have a poor duty cycle in many locations and have high maintenance costs and take up a lot of room and... but there is no need to throw birds in as a good reason to be hatin'.

Outside of that, I agree. But see the article on New Atlas today -- it alleges that a car that at least charges itself on a daily basis with no external power supply at all is possible and should be commercially available next year, maybe, if the article isn't bullshit. I rather think that it is, but will reserve judgement for the time being.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Mr D from 63]

Solar power is completely viable almost anywhere, not just in equatorial regions and deserts. Germany makes a huge amount of power with it, and their climate is not sunny at all (look at their latitude on a globe).

Solar capacity factor in Germany is on average only about 10%. Where they really struggle is in winter months, when their power usage is actually higher, but solar is almost non-existent on many days. "viable" is a subjective term, but I wouldn't agree it makes a lot of sense in Germany. Wind is much more productive for them.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[jcr]

Air travel should be one of those novelty things that the lucky few can justify

Fuck you. I'll buy what I can afford, and your approval is neither sought nor required.

-jcr

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[jcr]

That said, we badly need a high speed rail network in the U.S

No, we don't. We have aircraft.

-jcr

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[cnaumann]

A Boeing 737-900 with 180 passengers on board gets about 99 passenger-miles to the gallon for a 1000-mile flight. That is better than most cars with 3 passenger.

Single passenger cars are probably the worst common offenders for carbon output for work done.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[phantomfive]

Even in Europe and Japan, where trains are really good, people still take airplanes (for example, from France to Spain).

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the movies, you turn yourself in for *Carrousel* and hope for *Renewal*...
(strangely in the movies, the is no renewal, nor sanctuary, which seems to be a bit non-hollywood spin on things)

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[ChrisMaple]

"Output" is not a verb, and if it were the past tense would be "output", not "outputted".

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[slew]

Transportation is a different story, however, since one can't have hydroelectric damns on a train...

Did you know that electric trains don't need to carry their own power source? True story!

Because of cost of infrastructure, electric trains are really only viable in urban areas. You aren't going to electrify a rail between two cities and expect it to be cost effective... Passenger rail has a different set of economics, so when you do see electrified rail between cities, it's generally passenger only.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[ChrisMaple]

Breathing puts carbon into the air. Everybody must stop breathing. You first.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

We just need to change our definition of car away from "two ton metal box" into something more sensible.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, if autonomous cars can "travel" at night, it could significantly cut down on friday and Sunday traffic to/from weekend destinations.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or in a jet to a conference about all this

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[blindseer]

I hope you are never in an accident and need an air ambulance to get to a hospital before you expire. But then I'm sure you'll make an exception in such cases only because I point that out.

Also, you claim that air travel is justifiable if AGW is false? Okay then, I claim that AGW is false. Therefore I am not restricted from air travel.

Oh, that's not how it works you say? Well then I'll stop flying when all those Gulfstream liberals stop flying. They will stop flying about the same time pigs start.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

You can't, unless you're proposing to have vehicles that can't go faster than bicycle speed. The size and weight of modern cars stems directly from crash-safety requirements.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar powered cars are already viable. The panels just don't reside on the cars.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

Vertical-axis mills should be better for another reason, however: they don't care which direction the wind is traveling. Regular (fan-looking) windmills have to be actively turned into the wind. Also, they should have lower maintenance requirements as they should be mechanically simpler (just a straight vertical shaft, no 90-degree turn at the top).

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a notable counterexample, the trans-Siberian railroad is electrified from end to end.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[swillden]

You can't, unless you're proposing to have vehicles that can't go faster than bicycle speed. The size and weight of modern cars stems directly from crash-safety requirements.

Crash-safety requirements are necessary only because cars crash. When we mandate fully-autonomous vehicles, crashes will be reduced to a miniscule fraction of what they are, because they'll occur only in cases of severe mechanical failure or some non-vehicle object on the roadway (big rocks, etc.). Effectively, we'll move the crash safety assurance from heavy steel to lightweight sensor, communications and computing equipment.

I'm not sure if cars can be made lightweight enough to operate at useful speed from on-board solar panels, but we will be able to get much, much closer than we are now.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

That's a good point, but it's going to be a while before we get to that point. A lot of people are going to insist on keeping their non-autonomous cars. But you still have to worry about things like the car sliding off the road due to icy roads, and crash resistance is important there too. Finally, you can't shave *that* much weight off the car even if you stopped worrying about crashworthiness altogether; you can only make a steel box for 4/5 people so light, and still make it ride nicely, not be noisy inside, have comfortable seats, be able to fit people over 6' tall, etc.

As for solar panels, again, no, it's completely impossible. At highway speeds, you need tens of horsepower to overcome air resistance. There's no way you'd get even 10kW out of solar panels on a car's roof and hood, you need a house-size roof for that much. And that's just steady-state cruising, with no acceleration.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[swillden]

Finally, you can't shave *that* much weight off the car even if you stopped worrying about crashworthiness altogether; you can only make a steel box for 4/5 people so light, and still make it ride nicely, not be noisy inside, have comfortable seats, be able to fit people over 6' tall, etc.

As a first step you could roll back vehicle weights to what they were 40 years ago. You can also shift from steel to lighter materials, and you can eliminate the entire engine compartment (using small hub motors instead) so you can simply chop away much of the existing vehicle. Further, in an autonomous-vehicle world, it seems very likely that individual vehicle ownership will largely become a thing of the past, so you wouldn't have to have a box for 4/5 people except on the occasions you actually have to transport 4/5 people. Of course, the smaller you make the vehicle the less surface you have for solar panels, unless you have something like a highly-streamlined "solar umbrella" which is larger than the vehicle.

As for solar panels, again, no, it's completely impossible. At highway speeds, you need tens of horsepower to overcome air resistance.

Depends on streamlining, and on what "useful speed" means (you said highway speed, not me -- the solar challenge vehicles go much faster than bicycles but not highway speeds), and on how much you can rely on batteries. I know I said "from on-board solar panels" but didn't mean to preclude the idea that the vehicle also has batteries. If the vehicle is parked in sunlight a significant portion of each day to charge the batteries, and it's very light and has very low air and rolling resistance... it may be possible that it can operate usefully without charging from an external source. Or perhaps just without very much external charging.

Also, you're implicitly assuming that the vehicle must overcome air resistance by itself. That needn't be true with autonomous vehicles at highway speeds, which could close up into big trains drafting off of one another. Perhaps the vehicles in the train could even join electrically or physically, so that the lead and trail vehicles don't have to draw down their batteries to maintain speed.

There are options, and I don't think the possibility should be dismissed out of hand. It's a stretch, certainly.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

As a first step you could roll back vehicle weights to what they were 40 years ago.

No, you can't. Vehicles 40 years ago were much smaller inside, much noisier, and far less comfortable. (I assume you're talking about European cars; 40 years ago was 1976, and the American cars of the time were gigantic, although there again they weren't that large inside, but had gigantic engine compartments, and were quite heavy.) People now expect larger, more comfortable vehicles which can seat people who are both taller and fatter than 40 years ago.

Depends on streamlining, and on what "useful speed" means (you said highway speed, not me -- the solar challenge vehicles go much faster than bicycles but not highway speeds),

I'm sorry, the general public does not want to travel at 25mph.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's because from Paris to Madrid it takes about 15-16 hours to drive (if you're lucky) ? and only 2h of flight.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[dgatwood]

Two words: Autonomous RV.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can suck carbon out of the air

Are you a plant? Even so you can't do it on an industrial scale. The only system that can, forests, is something we're currently destroying.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

> since one can't have hydroelectric damns on a train

Are you a clueless american who has never been to Europe or Japan? Anyhow, this is how it works in the "rest of the world":

The hydro-genetrator or nuclear power station is connected to the train via an over-head copper wire called a catenary. A tall metal scissor called pantograph sits on top of the locomotive and touches the wire, thus drawing current for the electric traction motors. The wire tension is usually 25kV single-phase AC at 50 or 60 Hz (frequency depending on the continent). The line side supply scheme usually works with 2x25kV auto-transformers, which are fed from the three-phase AC national grid (at 120kV or higher), to maximize efficiency.

Switzerland's rail network is 100% electrified (but they use 16.7 Hz for silly historical reasons). Rail networks of various other european countries are 30-60% electrified by line lenght, but 60-80% of all rail traffic happens on electrified tracks, since important or busy mainlines all tend to be electrified.

Sustained service at over 200km/h (124mph) are not even possible on rails with diesel, gas turbine or steam traction, only high-tension AC can provide for the needs of bullet trains. A single 4-axle all-purpose electric locomotive, e.g. a Siemens Taurus can be as powerful as 6400kW (8700hp), so powerful they can spread the rail head as if steel was rubber or butter, necessitating a control computer that continually regulates and limits torque per axis. (In comparison, even the largest 6-axle diesel locomotives don't go beyond 4500hp and even those are actually electric inside, as the pistons turn a DC dynamo or a more modern AC generator which feeds electric motors attached to the axles.)

By the way, it's quite mysterious how and why the USA got lost on railway electrification? In the 1920s they had something called the phase-splitter locomotives, which were quite similar to the Kando umformer (rotary phase-converter), which initiated the development of modern day 50 / 60 Hz AC high-tension electric railway traction system in Europe. Until about 1925 USA was the world leader in railway electrification, tied with the swiss. Now you have the Acela line and two short, private super-heavy railways running from coal mines to powerplant in the middle of a first nations reservation and that's it.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[TheRaven64]

It's often also cheaper. It costs me less to take a train to Stansted airport, then an Easyjet plane from Stansted to Edinburgh and a bus to the city centre than it does to take a train from Cambridge to Edinburgh. Even including faffing at the airport time, the plane is a bit quicker. I'll take the train given the choice, because it's more comfortable and I can get some work done on the way, but it's a close-run thing.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

A solor-powered family car has already proven possible in prototype form:
http://www.solarteameindhoven.nl/stella-lux/

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Alioth]

Not so fast.

Passenger air travel is becoming ever more fuel efficient. Airlines are keenly interested in the lowest fuel used per passenger seats, especially the low cost airlines. EasyJet's fleet (a low cost European airline) is almost brand new, same with RyanAir (who are notorious for making everything as cheap as possible). Not only do the airlines want efficient planes, but they want them as full as possible. EasyJet's load factor is 90% for example (meaning on average at least 90% of the seats are filled).

EasyJet's A319-neo aircraft have an average fuel burn (no wind) of about 2L/100km per passenger seat (about 115 mpg (US)). Adjusting with a 90% load factor about 103mpg per passenger flown. This is roughly equivalent to a reasonably efficient mid-size car carrying 3 people (note: most cars most of the time only carry 1 person), but remember the plane is doing 500+ mph while getting this efficiency, whereas the car will only be doing about 60mph to get that efficiency per seat.

A well-loaded electric train can better this of course, but airline travel isn't as absurdly fuel thirsty as you presume - there have been very impressive efficiency gains over time.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Alioth]

I would take the train just to avoid the mini-hell that is Stansted airport.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Alioth]

Rubbish. The A319neo has a fuel efficiency of roughly 2L/100km per passenger seat (about the equivalent to 115 US mpg). The airlines that operate them get about a 90% load factor, so the passenger seat figure you quote is off by orders of magnitude.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Alioth]

We seem to have electrified railways going between cities in Europe, and they seem to be cost effective. We even have an electric train that crosses the English channel.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

that's because there's no high speed train connection between france and spain atm

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[hipp5]

Hard to get much further east than Montreal as train service is discontinued.

Funny, I could have sworn I saw a VIA train here in Halifax this week.

No, train service is NOT discontinued past Montreal. They did reduce the number of trains per week though. Apparently the new VIA boss is looking at reversing that.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[wagnerrp]

Using wiki numbers, a loaded 787 at maximum range will do some 4.2M person-km on 101 tons of fuel. That's ~0.024kg/km of consumed fuel. A Prius with a single occupant will only do ~0.036kg/km. The aircraft is actually a third more efficient than the car. Now, you can carpool, quartering the Prius's number. Meanwhile, aircraft are not always full (increasingly rare these days), shorter flights are less efficient, regional jets are less efficient, the hub-and-spoke means you're not flying directly to your destination. On the other hand, typical car travel is single occupant, dominated by trucks, SUVs, and large cars with less than half the average rated economy of that Prius, and you're not traveling straight line in a car either.

Where did you come up with three orders of magnitude discrepancy? I could maybe see one vehicle-mile equating to 1500 in a car, which puts passenger-mile production around an order of magnitude higher.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Grishnakh]

Impractical and unpopular:

The car is made of carbon fiber and aluminum, which means it basically has similar construction to something like the McLaren F1 ol Ferrari Enzo. People can't afford $1M cars. CF is extremely labor-intensive material to work with; there's a reason it isn't used on production cars in normal price ranges.

That huge central tunnel means you can't get close to your girlfriend. Who wants to drive like that? Also, it doesn't look like there's much width there for passengers. That might work ok for tall, thin Dutch people, but not fat Americans and Brits.

But seriously, this thing's a proof-of-concept only, and unless they come up with ways of making CF really really cheap to make, it won't fly. Also, I couldn't find anything there about a top speed or cruising speed. If it can't go 80+mph and at least cruise at 70, it won't work. No one's going to buy a car that they can't drive safely on the freeway.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[BostonPilot]

Reminds me of the bumper sticker I saw once:

"Meat is Murder"

and then in smaller print:

( tasty tasty murder )

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Maury Markowitz]

> 7.5 m^2 of 22% efficient polycrystalline solar cells covering its flattish surfaces

Did you check that figure? Lets:

We just got a Subaru Forester, a relatively large car. It's roof is about 1.25 m wide, and the hood and roof together are maybe 2.5 m long, so that's ~3.25 m^2. Now you might cover the sides too, but A) that means only one side could possibly be in the sun, and B) the cosign error makes it entirely useless.

Now 22% solar cells still have to go through 95% efficient inverters/charge controllers, and then into a 90% efficient battery and back out again. So that's maybe ~18% end-to-end, ignoring dirt. And finally, you get maybe 3 or 4 hours of "bright direct sunlight" per day once you consider cosine error. (look up PVWatts and play with it)

So, that means: 3.25 m x 1000 w/m x 0.18 x 3.5 = ~ 2 kWh

In a Tesla that would get you maybe 10 km, and there's no way a "real" car of any description is *three times* as efficient. And it's likely smaller than a Forester too. So yeah, color me skeptical.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[BostonPilot]

Fuck you. I'll buy what I can afford, and your approval is neither sought nor required.-jcr

Unfortunately this is how civilization ends (and a lot of other species along with us). "Fuck you, I can pollute as much as I want and you can't stop me".

I actually agree with the GP: We could do a lot to reduce air travel. How many business trips could be done just as well with telepresence? I work for a company that is really used to doing things face to face. They keep trying to convince remote workers to come visit the home office for fairly trivial reasons. Ignoring the thousands of dollars that costs, and the lost work during travel, think of the carbon footprint of moving me and my luggage vs good teleconference hardware/software?

Right after 911 lots of companies put in teleconference systems with the idea of decreasing travel, but I think we've slipped back into wanting people to visit in person. It'll take a cultural shift (and maybe some better telepresence devices) to be able to avoid all this business meetings where people have to fly in. Or maybe just the TSA continuing to make us all want to avoid air travel!

Vacationing, on the other hand, yeah, that'll continue to be via airliner... Too many destinations are impossible with ground transportation, and nobody wants to use up half their vacation time getting to/from their destination...

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[BostonPilot]

That's an interesting statistic. My electric car gets about 105 mpge, so with 1 occupant it's roughly equal to the Boeing. So with two people the electric car is much better... But of course the electric car isn't so great at 1,000 mile journeys!

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I've already invested in my hybrid car. When will concerned scientists stop flying?

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

More like- if the drought is real, then no bathing should be justified under any circumstances. Bathing can only be justified if the drought is false (that is, if we have the water necessary to bathe).

In other words, more a matter of conservation in time of emergency. If the emergency does not exist, then continue as normal.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That is exactly how I intended it to work. >:-)

And exactly my current attitude. I've conserved quite a bit for my life, it makes sense to do so since energy costs money and a penny saved is a penny earned. If this is such a dire emergency- then it's time for those gulfstream liberals to stop flying.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

We seem to have electrified railways going between cities in Europe, and they seem to be cost effective. We even have an electric train that crosses the English channel.

As I mentioned, passenger rail has different economics and electric is quite viable (e.g., people will pay a premium for high-speed rail).
On the other hand, bulk ship low-speed rail economics are quite sensitive to the intra-city infrastructure costs inherent in electric.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[rgbatduke]

Yeah, I looked at the arithmetic and yeah, the arithmetic is sketchy (if 22% cells aren't already sketchy for that price). But yes, they do cover the doors, the rear, basically all non-transparent surfaces with cells. Other neglected things are what happens if you park under trees, in a forest of tall buildings, in parking garages. It's never going to be 7.5 m^2 x 0.22 x whatever you want to claim for mean daily integrated flux through a perpendicular surface (200 to 300 W/m^2 if I recall correctly).

It's also not clear how much of a "real car" they have in mind. Is it an ELF http://organictransit.com/ with solar cells on all surfaces? The ELF now looks more like a car with glossy hard sides than it used to, and they now seem to come with a 100W solar panel on the roof, allowing one to accumulate as much as a KW-H over a whole day. Since it comes with a 500+ W-H battery, it actually could fully recharge over a day in the sun. This gives it a range of around 15 to 18 miles no pedalling on flat ground. Obviously if you add battery, you can add range, but you probably can't fully recharge with only sun unless you add more panels.

The ELF is not vaporware -- I live in Durham and see these all the time on the roads (they cost $6000 to $9000 depending on how tricked out you get them). Adding solar capacity is actually pretty easy, as is adding battery capacity. One could probably accessorize to 30 miles a day and still manage a full recharge on its rated mileage of 34 mpkwh (add another 500 W-H battery and another 100 W panel with some sort of hinge that you can tilt up to horizontal-ish when you park). Actually, this isn't bad at all, and would probably do me just fine on my commute, leaves the money in my home town, and gives me the option of pedalling to get SOME exercise on the run without having to pedal up all the hills on muscle alone (hot and sweaty, at least, during the summer). Pedalling also extends the range, obviously.

The catch is that it isn't technically a car, and cannot go 45 to 50 mph on the one road I would HAVE to drive on that is 45 to 50 mph if you want to go WITH the traffic, and it is even more of a road obstacle than a bike if you are traveling under road speed. Which makes it still quite dangerous, although maybe a hair less so than a bike (at least one person I know of has been killed on the road I have to ride in on in the last year on a bike).

So, can one imagine taking the working ELF design, bumping its internal energy storage to 14.5 KW-H, bumping its solar capacity to (say) 400 to 600 W, (say, 2400 KW-H/day) increasing its top speed to street legal (say 55 mph for mostly in town driving), sticking with polycarbonate sides but increasing seating to four in more of a car-like configuration, and still maintaining at least 12 m/KWH, needed to get 30 m in a day's charge (with no pedals)?

It's not completely insane. Doubling speed increases power required by around a factor of 8 but takes only 1/2 the time to go the distance, so it needs 4 times as much energy IF one assumes energy is dominated at that point by quadratic drag. Well, we've quadrupled incoming power (relative to 30 miles/day), increased stored power by a much larger factor than necessary, so in principle if we haven't added TOO much weight or MUCH less efficient motors, we are at least in the ballpark. Can we do this by no more than doubling the high end cost? Again, maybe, hard to say. We'd save some by not having pedals and all the dual power source gearing, we'd spend it and more on the extra batteries, solar capacity, and the 4+x more powerful motor. But it might be doable. ELF might make it there on its own as it has the substantial advantage of building and selling actual vehicles right now that already work pretty well as in-town commuters, better/safer where the speed limit is 35 mph and under, not so well where it is 35 mph and over. If they are and remain profitable as they grow, they could end up bringing out higher end, closer

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[CanadianMacFan]

The A319neo makes up a small percentage of the planes flying today. A plane has a lifespan that lasts decades and so there are many far less efficient planes flying today and many years into the future.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[CanadianMacFan]

On the other hand the 737 isn't so great at going down to the supermarket for the weekly grocery shopping so maybe it's best to use the right form of transportation for the job.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hard to get much further east than Montreal as train service is discontinued"

WTF are you smoking? Halifax in Nova Scotia is ~700 due east of Montreal - TWICE as far east from Montreal than Toronto is west and you've been able to get there by train since 1876, for fuck's sake.

http://www.viarail.ca/en/explo...

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because all of the pigs will be in the way?

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[TheRaven64]

It's a bit better since they finished the refurbishment (it was truly hell in the middle, as most of the seating was unavailable). I'd much rather be sitting on a train than sitting in Stansted though.

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Planes also fly better when you place the fuselage between the left wing and the right wing (and not on the extreme outer ends of either). However, right now we have a right wing that goes to the moon (or some planet other than Earth).

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, more a matter of conservation in time of emergency.

Conservation doesn't mean no consumption is justified "under any circumstance"

You're thinking of prohibition.

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm thinking of WWII- where all material went to the war effort and extremely strict rationing was in effect.

AGW, if it is true, is far worse of an emergency than beating the axis. Why aren't the very people who are trying to convince us that it exists acting like it?

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[jcr]

this is how civilization ends

Idiotic Malthusian hyperbole much?

-jcr

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking of WWII- where all material went to the war effort and extremely strict rationing was in effect.

State of war and rationing still doesn't mean consumption is not justified "under any circumstance". There are certainly circumstances during war where it would be justified.

And we aren't in a state of war. Not yet anyway. Just because you are pro-war doesn't mean you had to start rationing yourself before war is actually declared and government passes a law on rationing.

AGW, if it is true, is far worse of an emergency than beating the axis.

What makes you think that? A lot of anti-AGW people don't think that. They usually think the opposite - that government is the biggest threat to humanity. No matter what problem you talk about, they think a bad government is still far worse

Re:This simply means we're succeeding.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm not talking about the anti-AGW people. I'm talking about the pro-AGW people. They aren't *acting* in accordance with their *words*.

Let's take the pro-AGW people at face value. Their data shows we just passed a tipping point, one which hasn't been passed in the last 800 million years.

That is a FAR bigger threat to humanity than any government could ever be. So why aren't the pro-AGW people *acting* like it is the biggest threat?

Re: This simply means we're succeeding.

[Coren22]

Didn't Winnebago come out with those years ago? Just don't get up to make coffee.

Between two pillows.

[quonsar]

THOSE AREN'T PILLOWS!

Re:Between two pillows.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wants pillows, get them shipped for two dollars and a....... Casio.

Re:Between two pillows.

[sconeu]

Apparently bad movies raise your carbon footprint!!!

Kinda makes sense actually

[foxalopex]

As processes improve large scale projects such as factories and power generation tend to get more efficient as predicted but it's hard to get the same economies of scale on smaller systems like cars. It's death by millions and millions of cuts instead of by one massive blow. I'm sort of contributing by owning a Volt and have managed to go gas free for most of spring, all of summer and fall until winter when it switches over to inefficient gas engine because it needs the waste heat. To be honest thou, I never entirely went with the Volt to save gas even thou it does as a bonus. EV's are just incredibly smooth cars to drive and lack of engine noise is really nice. Hopefully more folks realize the Volt is a good option and EV's become more popular.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Centralizing carbon emission is a good idea because it can then be captured.

Getting away from coal (as much as coal producing states may hate it) is just a good idea. That stuff is nasty.

As troublesome as fracking may be, It appears that the risks are probably worth it. Natrual gas is much cleaner, and makes a great chemical feedstock. - We just need to be upfront and honest about the potential damage and make sure to compensate affected people. Environmental factors need to be studied and accounted for as well.

Geo-politically, it removes us from overseas oil influence too.

Fracked nat gas isn't the whole solution though, but a transitional one that will help us move to renewables.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[Anonymous Coward]

The beautiful thing about global warming is just how much the Democrats can use it to destroy Republicans. We've got 7.4 million voters in rural areas, that likely lean republican, that currently can probably not afford their $1000 beater that burns world killing sludge that they must have because there is no economic or environmental case for public transportation. We can't feed that many people EVs, but we can make it impossible for them to live where they do and they can come to the urban areas and get caught up in urban issues that favor the Democratic party. Great news if you care for the environment as long as you ignore all the environmental issues that come with clumping everyone together in urban cesspools.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[serviscope_minor]

Wherefore dost thou use archaic forms?

Oh you mean though.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[Grishnakh]

No, what GM needs to do is license their technology from the Volt to other automakers. The biggest problem with the Volt is that it's made by GM, the same company that made defective ignition switches for years and intentionally hid this and murdered people so they wouldn't have to pay for a recall. They're also known for making cars that don't last long and have crappy interiors that fall apart in a few years, and very ugly exteriors too, not to mention very poor driving dynamics.

If I could get that technology in a car made by Honda or Mazda, I'd buy one.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[presidenteloco]

Not saying that total urbanization is a great idea.
However...

Clumping people together results in less environmental impact PER PERSON than distributing people across the countryside.
Dense urbanization with a public transit network, and tower homes with fewer exterior walls per home, is much more energy efficient.
Food and goods distibution also benefits from efficiencies of scale. Sure you might get some accumulated garbage and sewage, but even then, it's more efficient to deal with that in a dense form than spread out.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[ChrisMaple]

Cities are also much more efficient for terrorists; a few pounds of gunpowder and some shrapnel can kill hundreds at rush hour, whereas out in the country he'd be lucky to kill one person.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, let's worry about that when terrorists causes more deaths than pollution.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[yes-but-no]

Centralizing carbon emission is a good idea because it can then be captured.

It also aids in economies of scale. As Elon mentioned in an interview, even if the source of electricity is coal/fossil-fuel based power-plant, it's still efficient to drive an electric car than a gas powered one.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[drinkypoo]

No, what GM needs to do is license their technology from the Volt to other automakers. The biggest problem with the Volt is that it's made by GM, the same company that made defective ignition switches for years and intentionally hid this and murdered people so they wouldn't have to pay for a recall.

While that is a particularly blatant example, the truth is that all automakers kill people all the time by making cost decisions. All cars could be safer, without exception. They would have to make other compromises which would in turn compromise retail value, so they don't do that. You only have to decide how much killin' is acceptable, much like how all government which does anything for the people is socialist, and you only get to argue over how much socialism is acceptable.

Re:Kinda makes sense actually

[Grishnakh]

That's a false equivalence fallacy. Most other automakers have not been proven to intentionally kill people by hiding defects. The only other big example I can think of is Ford with the Pinto in the 70s, and later on a smaller scale with the Crown Vic in the 90s. Basically you're advocating "guilty until proven innocent" type thinking.

There's a huge difference between not designing a car to be as absolutely safe as you can possibly make it (esp. when time and budget/cost constraints are limiting you), and knowing of a real and dangerous defect and choosing to hide it.

the elephants in the room

[nimbius]

of course we dont mention the prevalent trend of capitalism dependent entirely upon an endless supply of oil to fuel fleets of massive cargo ships bound for a collective of slave labour camps half a world away. The goods and services manufactured in these camps --everything from the slap chop to disposable sporks-- intended from its very inception to spend the next foreseeable eternity releasing CO2 and other gaseous effluent. We dont mention the thousands of tonnes of paper towels, disposable baby wipes, and Keurig style disposable coffee cups that live a comparably fleeting moment compared to our inexorably warming planet.

Re:the elephants in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

All you proved was that you don't understand capitalism.

Re:the elephants in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to add the piles of spent unrecyclable Nexpresso capsules leaping upward at every Clooney ad. What else???

As for the vehicles, the tricked efficiency and CAFE numbers so eminently championed by VW (that we know of) helped.

Re:the elephants in the room

[liquid_schwartz]

Way to conflate Globalization and Capitalism.

Re: the elephants in the room

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Wait, so utilizing cheap transportation to get your hands on cheap labor isn't capitalism?

Re:the elephants in the room

[Locando]

Way to conflate Globalization and Capitalism.

Take a look at any recent history of capitalism or post-1500s global trade and you'll see that they developed and spread in tandem. If anything, global trade on the part of European colonial powers created and maintained capitalism as we know it, meaning that anything that you consider a key distinction between capitalism and feudalism (or socialism or whatever) is inextricably tied to and dependent on globalization. Or to put it more simply (albeit admittedly while being a bit reductionist), if it weren't for the British Empire, we wouldn't all be working by the rules of British capitalism.

Re: the elephants in the room

[ChrisMaple]

Slavery and capitalism are mutually exclusive.

Re:the elephants in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

What about globalism and capitalization?

So what next?

[DatbeDank]

Do they want us to stop the modern movement of goods and revert back to the 17th century? Isn't this a good thing?

Re:So what next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they want us to stop the modern movement of goods and revert back to the 17th century? Isn't this a good thing?

Since "they" are just reporting measurements

what would you do to make a world that works for the generations to come? pollute more? please enlighten us

Re:So what next?

[Speck'sBacon]

Yes. And for statist government types, such a change has the added benefit of hindering *people's* freedom of movement.

Re:So what next?

[Smidge204]

If you RTFA (yeah yeah...) you'd notice that this is not an indictment of transportation, but a sign that efforts to reduce emissions from power generation are succeeding. In other words, it's not that transportation emissions are unusually high, it's that other sources of emissions are on the decline.... so you can now unbunch your panties.

The article then laments that efforts to curb transportation emissions haven't gained much traction yet, and notes that higher fuel prices are the best chance to drive efficiency gains and adoption of alternatives. Boo hoo!
=Smidge=

Re:So what next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, with the technology we have, we should be able to live a 17th century lifestyle without the drawbacks. Presently, modern technology is used only to efficiently siphon productivity gains to the 1% taker class, the billionaire beggars that rigged the system.

Re: So what next?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

No, "they" merely want the externalities to be priced properly.

Re:So what next?

[presidenteloco]

Re "statist government" types.

You do realize I assume that the opposite of "statist" government is transnational mafia, mega-corporate, and warlord chieftain government, don't you?

You seriously think those types would let idealist libertarians prance around insisting on their "rights"? That would be good for a laugh.

Re:So what next?

[ChrisMaple]

Proper government exists for the sole purpose of protecting the rights of its citizens as well as possible. Such a government is by necessity small, because a large government requires high taxes to support it, and high levels of taxation do more harm than good both in principle and in practice. Such a small government is not "statist", "transnational mafia", nor "warlord chieftan". The "mega-corporate" term you use is vague and not necessarily bad, but in any case corporations should be neither favored nor disfavored by government.

Re:So what next?

[ChrisMaple]

Presently, modern technology is used only to efficiently siphon productivity gains to the 1% taker class...

Polio. Smallpox. Rickets. A whole host of other diseases. All eradicated or avoidable by modern technology.
Electronic communications and entertainment.
The automobile.
.
A 17th century lifestyle is nothing but drawbacks.
.
Anyone believing the vile garbage you spew is a fool.

Re:So what next?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mega-corporate" is necessarily bad. I do not understand people who hate 'big' government but think any mega-corp is going to serve their interests.

De plane, de plane!

[WalksOnDirt]

Planes and rockets are the only tough bits. We can electrify cars and trains with no problem. Iron refining and cement are only a little more difficult. At least that will give us more time to work on the planes.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[Anonymous Coward]

We could still use chemical fuel in planes, but use biofuel or another carbon-neutral production mechanism.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[houstonbofh]

We are... https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:De plane, de plane!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, but the nuclear salt water rocket is carbon neutral.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[cnaumann]

You have to "decarbonize" limestone (CaCO3) to Calcium Oxide (CaO) to make cement. You _cannot_ make cement without producing a lot of carbon dioxide, even if your energy source is carbon-free.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[Khashishi]

You have to "decarbonize" limestone (CaCO3) to Calcium Oxide (CaO) to make cement. You _cannot_ make cement without producing a lot of carbon dioxide, even if your energy source is carbon-free.

Or, you could simply use a different kind of cement.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[ChrisMaple]

Orbiting solar satellites beaming microwaves to airplanes (A Step Farther Out, Pournelle, 1973).

Re:De plane, de plane!

[DRJlaw]

Or, you could simply use a different kind of cement.

Enlighten us as to what that is, why don't you.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pozzolans can be used to replace from one third to one half of the portland cement, improving the resulting concrete.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[penguinoid]

You have to "decarbonize" limestone (CaCO3) to Calcium Oxide (CaO) to make cement. You _cannot_ make cement without producing a lot of carbon dioxide, even if your energy source is carbon-free.

Nothing says you have to dump that CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 has various uses in industry, or can give a slight growth boost to greenhouses.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[Anonymous Coward]

sure thang! Elmers glue!

Re:De plane, de plane!

[WalksOnDirt]

Cement isn't identical with Portland Cement, although there are proposals to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from making that, too.

Another way to go is a magnesium silicate based cement.

There's a lot that needs to be done to get us close to carbon neutral, but it's doable and we need to get started.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[Anonymous Coward]

No more cold meals on chilly airplanes

Re:De plane, de plane!

[drinkypoo]

Nothing says you have to dump that CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 has various uses in industry, or can give a slight growth boost to greenhouses.

In fact, you could use the CO2 from making cement to make cement.

Re:De plane, de plane!

[blindseer]

I'm pretty sure you are just trying to be funny but in case you aren't I'll say that orbiting solar satellites is a nice science fiction that in reality will never work.

What might just end up working is the seawater to jet fuel technology the US Navy is researching. The process works by extracting the dissolved CO2 from the water and hydrogen from electrolysis and synthesizing hydrocarbons from them. This technology is intended for nuclear powered warships but would work just as well on land.

Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon Musk will 3D print us to Mars with Hyperloops made from recycled Powerwall parts. Carry on, there's no problem!

Transportation and GHG emissions

[atomicalgebra]

Transportation has been a leading contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) for some time. In California transportation contributes 36% of GHG emissions while electricity accounts for 20%. That is why it is vital to get electricity to 0 GHG emissions because it the easier problem to solve. The only way to do that effectively is through a combination of solar, wind and nuclear.

Re:Transportation and GHG emissions

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to do that effectively is...nuclear.

Great, now you have summoned him.

Work From Home

[Oswald McWeany]

Cut down on automobile pollution: Save our planet. Work from home. Tell your boss he hates panda bears if he won't let you. No one wants to be known as a Panda bear hater.

value of coal

[unixisc]

Actually, while there is a case for not using coal just to produce energy, producing metals out of their ores is a very valid use of coal. As it is, that carbon dioxide is trapped in the mines - never gets out in the quantities that, say, factories produce when burning coal for electricity. As long as we keep digging up iron ore, bauxite, copper ore and other metal ores, we'll need comparable amounts of coal to extract those metals. And that is the only thing that coal should be needed for.

Re:value of coal

[WalksOnDirt]

Actually, while there is a case for not using coal just to produce energy, producing metals out of their ores is a very valid use of coal. As it is, that carbon dioxide is trapped in the mines ...

Refining iron releases a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the air. Iron ore, ferrous or ferric oxide, is heated with coke, which come from coal. The reaction produces iron and carbon oxides. We normally just let the carbon oxides go. Capturing them might be possible, but it isn't easy.

More promising is to substitute hydrogen or electricity for the coal, but this is still in the early stages of development. It should work, but iron will probably get more expensive.

Re:value of coal

[unixisc]

One step - instead of releasing them, would be to pass them through sodium hydroxide. That would produce saturated washing or baking soda before any CO2 leaks. Would that be more expensive than using either hydrogen or electricity?

Re:value of coal

[WalksOnDirt]

There is an enormous amount of gasses released. As I said, it isn't easy, but it may be possible.

Methane

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice they only talk about carbon. (No, didn't RTFA). Methane is a much bigger problem per molecule and the energy sector is releasing massive amounts of it now that they use natural gas and fracking. So yeah, good job.

Re:Methane

[Anonymous Coward]

New report estimates enough natural gas is leaking to negate climate benefits

Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over short periods of time and 30 times more potent over the long term.

The leaks are the equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced by 5.6m cars.

"With 3% leakage, we’re being sold climate benefits when what we are really getting is marginally less climate damage."

Re:Methane

[rubycodez]

in my world methane is based on carbon atom

do tell about yours

I live not too far from a major highway

[linuxguy]

I live not too far from major highway. Noise and pollution from automobiles worry me. The electric revolution cannot come soon enough. Also, I don't know if it is old age or something else, but those extremely loud motorcycles annoy me to no end. I wish I could stop them and beat the shit out of them. Anybody else feel that way? And why the hell do these riders intentionally make their bikes so loud?

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[Anonymous Coward]

I live not too far from major highway. Noise and pollution from automobiles worry me. The electric revolution cannot come soon enough.

Also, I don't know if it is old age or something else, but those extremely loud motorcycles annoy me to no end. I wish I could stop them and beat the shit out of them. Anybody else feel that way? And why the hell do these riders intentionally make their bikes so loud?

Why do motorcylists make their bikes so loud?

To save lives. Bikers are constantly being forced off the road and hit by folk that aren't paying attention. A loud bike makes it easier to get other driver's attention.

LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps road rage incidents, in an act of Darwinism take the lives of people annoying everyone in a half mile radius.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[Anonymous Coward]

I live super close to I-5. Noise and so-called "pollution" are not a concern for me. I sleep like a baby.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[Grishnakh]

I live not too far from major highway. Noise and pollution from automobiles worry me. The electric revolution cannot come soon enough

Electric cars aren't going to help your noise problems. With modern cars, most of the noise comes from the tires at high speeds. Electric cars use the same tires as gas cars.

And why the hell do these riders intentionally make their bikes so loud?

Two reasons: 1) many of them actually believe (or claim to believe) all the noise makes them more visible to car drivers, even though it doesn't (it's mainly people behind them who hear all the noise; that isn't helpful for safety), and 2) they're obnoxious people who like to make a nuisance of themselves for attention.

As for beating the shit out of them, they only really annoy me if I'm outside my car, such as when they pull into a gas station or parking lot that I'm at. When I'm inside my car, the noise is a little annoying but generally short-lived and not that high in volume; outside, it's deafening.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[HornWumpus]

If this were true the fags would have their exhaust tips pointed up and forward. They don't because the fags don't want the full noise of their own sybians either.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[djbckr]

LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES

Bullshit. Any decent motorcycle rider knows to drive defensively because everybody else is out to get you. The loud motorcycles tend to cause (at least some) motorists to get surprised and swerve dangerously when confronted with one. I have a Honda Goldwing - it's quieter than most cars. It's big, so that helps for visibility, but I've driven many, many miles without incident because I've been vigilant. I've had several other smaller bikes as well. Not to say there haven't been any close calls, but I get through them by always having an exit strategy wherever I am. The MSF (Motorcycle Safety Foundation) is a great place to learn to actually be safe while riding.

For those folks that wonder how the loud cycles can get away with it, it's because motorcycles are currently exempt from noise/emission regulations, for some dumb reason. Today, those reasons really no longer exist. It should be fixed, IMO.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[AlanBDee]

And why the hell do these riders intentionally make their bikes so loud?

Because a loud bike is a known bike. If you choose to ride a motorcycle then your greatest risk is other drivers. By having a loud bike it's harder for them to not know you are there.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it should be legal to shoot the loud motherfuckers with a potato-potato-potato gun. Not real bullets, so it's not a "real" gun, which keeps the anti-gun-nuts away and prevents them from supporting the moto-twats for tangential issues.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[amiga3D]

They're loud so you'll know they are there. Too often they don't get seen and often flattened as a result. I heard one the other day riding in my blind spot off my quarter panel. Death wish I guess, since he was riding a crotch rocket.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[AmiMoJo]

Because they are dicks. Isn't it illegal where you live, can you call the cops? Removing the muffler makes the vehicle in-roadworthy.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I don't know if it is old age or something else, but those extremely loud motorcycles annoy me to no end. I wish I could stop them and beat the shit out of them. Anybody else feel that way?

What's it like to hate freedom so much?

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[rastos1]

By having a loud bike it's harder for them to not know you are there.

If that is the concern, they should get a beacon or strobes.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[thegarbz]

Lol. Sorry but no. People don't give two shits about the source of a noise unless it's a siren.

You want to not get hit? Don't coast in blind spots, don't lane split, but then I'm asking you not to do the things which are the main perks of riding a motorbike so that's not going to happen.

Re:I live not too far from a major highway

[drinkypoo]

And why the hell do these riders intentionally make their bikes so loud?

They are selfish, spoiled children who want their conveyance to continually shout "LOOKATMELOOKATMELOOKATME". The first thing the stereotypical Harley owner does is straight pipe his 1930s technology boat anchor and reduce the torque to the point that you can out-accelerate them in with a total ramp turd of a cage. Only spectacularly old riders don't do that, probably because it makes their tinnitus act up.

An excellent paper on that subject

[Weaselmancer]

I take this article to be good news. Renewable energy is finally contributing to the grid well enough to where emissions will drop below the carbon emitted from transportation. This is excellent progress and excellent news.

Now, here's how you fix the transportation part. A wonderful article you can only find on the Wayback Machine, from 2004. UNH Biodiesel Group, Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae, Michael Briggs, University of New Hampshire, Physics Department.

It's my favorite paper on the topic and I'll take any opportunity to post it.

TL;DR - if we really wanted to, we (meaning the USA) could utilize biodiesel entirely for our current transportation needs. It would be 100% renewable, carbon neutral, and all the money spent would stay inside our own borders. And any other country could easily do the same. There is absolutely NO need to haul oil out of the ground anymore.

Check the math in the paper. We really could do this.

Re: An excellent paper on that subject

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm rather skeptical that the biological approach beats the industrial one. Especially with future availability of intermittent cheap electricity surplus and improved water splitting, more options could be available such as Sabatier or Haber.

Re: An excellent paper on that subject

[Weaselmancer]

Oh sure, it's not a sexy solution at all. I'd like to see a future with a Tesla in every garage and fusion plants dotting the landscape. And I do think we'll get there someday. But this approach does have the merit of being available today. It uses the petroleum infrastructure we already have in place, so no spin-up costs there. And it's 100% carbon neutral, which will become increasingly important in the next few decades.

Millions of years of evolution has already given us a pretty darn efficient solar energy battery in algae. Even in a future with wind farms everywhere or fusion or whatever, hydrocarbons are a hard to beat storage meduim in terms of energy density. A carbon neutral hydrocarbon solution would still have a place.

Re:An excellent paper on that subject

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, the major difference is that methane is CH4 v.s. gasoline being, on average C8H17, so burning natural gas in "peaker" emits less CO2 per megaJoule. The drop in carbon emissions from electricity generation, specifically, is all about the switch from coal to natural gas, coal being roughly solid carbon. Renewables are generating a huge profit for the profiteers, driving up electricity costs and making people feel good about themselves, but not really doing anything great for the environment.

Question: Why was the paper pulled?

Re:An excellent paper on that subject

[AmiMoJo]

Problem is the emissions. While it may be carbon neutral, other nasty stuff comes out if the exhaust, and people have to breathe it in.

Electric vehicles are the best solution. Batteries are getting really cheap and are highly reusable and recyclable.

Re:An excellent paper on that subject

[Anonymous Coward]

VERY nasty stuff comes out of the exhaust, and auto makers have to cheat to meet the current diesel emission standards. Anything with 'diesel' in it's name isn't a solution to any kind of pollution at the moment. It's a technology of the past.

Re: An excellent paper on that subject

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm sorry but one of the arguments against your idea is pretty much the efficiency issue (and the resulting land use, for example). Nature has optimized for survival but not for extreme efficiency. The same reason why wild weeds survive better than pampered, domesticated grain varieties. What your mutating algae populations on a massive scale are going to do while adapting to you pushing them into new roles is anyone's guess, but we already have a device that converts incident sunlight with 20% efficiency straight into electricity while not being alive or constantly changing, and then we also have a pathway at least 60% efficient in turning surplus electricity we can't consume at the moment into hydrogen, plus some other options. And both works pretty predictably and on a large scale.

Re:An excellent paper on that subject

[K. S. Kyosuke]

CCGT plants are also more efficient than even the best coal plants. Something like 60% vs. 45% when comparing the best cases of both. That's another 25% reduction per unit of electricity generated.

strange choice of title

[pD-brane]

The author misleadingly puts trains at the same level of polution as planes and cars, while trains use much less fuel a person than planes or automobiles. Trains also typically run on electricity (generated from a mix of sources).

Re:strange choice of title

[ChrisMaple]

Electric trains are an urban-suburban phenomenon (think commuter trains). Vast stretches of rural landscape are not cost-effective for electric trains.

Re:strange choice of title

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends a great deal on where you are. They usually only make sense on heavily used lines, because of capital costs, but those can be anywhere. As an example, the trans-Siberian railroad, which just about defines "vast stretches of rural landscape", is fully electrified.

Re:strange choice of title

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe, Russia and China might disagree.

Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[King_TJ]

The author concludes that our best hope to fix this trend is a return of high gasoline prices.

IMO, that's ONE way it might change, but pretty much the WORST option.

Personally, I'd rather see more people opt for electric cars or public transit because improvements were made in those areas, making them more desirable!

High fuel prices punish the people who are already struggling, on tight budgets. If they need to drive a vehicle for any kind of delivery or taxi job (Uber, Lyft, etc.) - it means their costs go up, because they can't just "drive less". Often, it's the same story for someone who relies on a car to commute to/from work. All those people telling you to carpool to work or take a bus aren't being that realistic. In many cases, you need the ability to haul things around in a trunk or back seat of a car that you don't get when using a bus or other mass transit, and you can't always find a workable carpool. It makes everyone pay more for package delivery too, harming your ability to get your asking price when you sell used goods on the Internet via sites like eBay. (It actually hurts the whole economy since pretty much every business relies on shipping in some manner. But it hurts individuals the most, IMO. The big companies do enough volume so they can negotiate pretty nice discounts with shippers like UPS or FedEx. They may pay more than they used to to ship goods, but it'll still be far less than you or I pay.)

I know personally, I live around 50 miles from my workplace. I used to take the commuter train, but the combination of increased prices for it and reliability issues forced me to go back to driving. There are just too many times the train is really late due to freight train traffic that gets priority on the rails they use, or mechanical breakdowns. When I was waiting on the last train of the evening and it was one hour, then 1 1/2 hours, then 2, 3 and finally 3 1/2 hours late -- I had enough. (To add insult to injury, it was cold and raining outside, and the station platform is outdoors with no good shielding from the wind or rain.)

What I *have* done is to express my plight to my bosses at work, who finally agreed to let me start working from home more often. That winds up letting me claw back all of that commuting time I lost before - as well as saving on travel expenses. So it's a win all around. But yeah -- I really tried to stick with the public transit option. They just don't have their act together enough to make it attractive.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I took public transportation, the whole train smelled like piss and there were two people having sex towards the rear of the cab. After I got off, I was in bad part of town and felt like I was going to get mugged and have my date raped in an alley.

Apart from my single bad experience, parking around public transportation is expensive if it even exists and taking a bus to ride a train can cause your commute time to triple. It would take me 90 minutes to ride a bus to a BART station, and 45 minutes for the train to arrive at my stop, or I can drive and be there in 40 minutes if traffic is light.

What I would like to see happen is communal transportation, where 10 individuals invest in a single automobile, schedules pick-up/drop-off times and the machine runs an algorithm that provides windows for each of the individuals. I just purchased a vehicle for $30k, which I plan on using for 80 minutes/day, for 1360 minutes/day the car will be vacant and available for use.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

The author concludes that our best hope to fix this trend is a return of high gasoline prices.

IMO, that's ONE way it might change, but pretty much the WORST option.

It depends on priorities. See, your priorities include outdated notions like trying to preserve life and share prosperity. The author has more modern priorities based on killing off the least capable 30% of the earth's population because generosity like yours has been hindering the evolutionary forces that would lead to a more ideal set of surviving genetic traits.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[ADRA]

But but, higher gas prices CAUSES your outcomes.

  If gas gets too expensive, people in your town will demand either telecommunting and better non-personal travel options. If the economics of personal car driving becomes untenable, then people should start car-pooling (why aren't you?). Further, expand car pools into even cheaper daily bus routes. Further, enough bus services and all of a sudden new rail lines become another viable option. And all that's strictly driven through commerce and economics. Imagine government conflation causing this to happen faster (or at least with fewer natural leaps).

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[b0bby]

If we committed to gradually raising taxes on fossil fuels in a predictable way, we would encourage the purchase of more energy efficient vehicles. Even prices half of what they have in Europe would go a long way towards this. If you knew that in 10 years the minimum price per gallon would be $4-5, and that taxes would be going up ~$.25 a year until then, your next car purchase might be a smaller one than otherwise.
Opting for electric cars, while obviously a nice idea, is currently even harder for poor people than raising fuel prices. A Volt will be $30k after tax credits; a Corolla is less than half that.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Ichijo]

High fuel prices punish the people who are already struggling, on tight budgets.

This is why it ought to be a revenue neutral carbon tax where the revenues are distributed to everyone equally. Maybe your wallet wouldn't notice that extra $500 check from the government, but it would be a windfall for someone on a fixed income.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you live 50 miles from your workplace? What forces you to live in one place, and what forces you to work in the other place?

Have you considered the possibility that that commuting distance is a lifestyle choice that you've made? And higher gas prices would be part of paying a fair price for that choice?

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Obfuscant]

but it would be a windfall for someone on a fixed income.

It will be a windfall for two groups: the people who never pay for any gas and get free money from other people, and the government employees who are hired to manage the program. The latter, by the way, is why such a system will never be "neutral" and never pay out as much as it takes in in additional taxes.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried carpooling around here?

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Ichijo]

It will be a windfall for...the people who never pay for any gas and get free money from other people...

Yes, and correcting negative externalities makes the market more efficient.

...and the government employees who are hired to manage the program.

That's another good point: it would create jobs.

So what's the downside?

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[sydbarrett74]

Why do you live 50 miles from your workplace?

Uhhh...perhaps the cost of housing near his job is prohibitive? If he works in the heart of San Francisco, he might not be able to afford a place there; 50 miles out, the housing gets cheaper. Think, McFly, think!

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric cars are a fad. The biggest problem is what do you do with all the batteries? Sure you can recycle them, but they will all eventually die. Then what..?

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[swb]

Bullshit.

In Minnesota user fees (of which gas taxes are just a subset) doesn't cover the maintenance cost of the roads and less than half the total cost of the roads. And the bitching about deferred maintenance and delayed capital spending for roads is endless.

Politically you would never get away with the $2-3 in statewide tax increase directly funneled to mass transit. The people who don't or can't use mass transit (ie, they live hundreds of miles from it) would never agree to a huge gas tax and the $4-6 increase you would need to impose on people who *could* use it in metro areas would be an economic disaster for almost everyone and a political impossibility.

If you imposed a metro-area transit gas tax of $5/gal to meaningfully fund transit improvements it would jack up my personal fuel expenses by 300% and I drive barely 10,000 miles a year.

I could probably afford it financially, but the reality is almost all of my driving for work to client sites is impossible *now* with mass transit -- and I live in the city and have clients in the city. The schedule and timing is not remotely viable for that, let alone reverse commuting to some suburb on a schedule designed around driving.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the communal transportation aspect is where things are moving towards once self driving vehicles become viable for mass use.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[ChrisMaple]

Government employees are inherently unproductive.They suck up the livelihood of honest folk and produce nothing but their own excretions.

"Creating jobs" without a full analysis of all effects leads to such silliness as the Broken Window Fallacy.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[ChrisMaple]

Recycling includes disassembling the batteries and recovering the raw materials - raw materials already much more refined than ores dug from the ground.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Obfuscant]

So what's the downside?

The downside is that the claim that all money that is taken from the economy as the carbon tax would be paid back to the people. A large amount has to be skimmed from the top to pay the management. This makes it inherently unfair, and in large part a hidden tax, as it will increase the prices of anything that is transported or manufactured using energy.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[swillden]

High fuel prices punish the people who are already struggling, on tight budgets. If they need to drive a vehicle for any kind of delivery or taxi job (Uber, Lyft, etc.) - it means their costs go up, because they can't just "drive less".

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, it just means that it shouldn't be done too quickly or without warning. People can adapt, by moving where they live, by relocating businesses, by switching to telecommuting, by carpooling, using mass transit (which may require transit buildout) etc. (and taxis can simply raise their prices to account for the higher fuel costs -- or switch to electrics). The key is to give people time to adapt, and let them know that they need to.

IMO, we should implement a schedule of federal fuel tax increases. The increases should start very gently, but then get steeper, much steeper, and everyone should know they're coming well in advance. And the taxes collected should be invested in renewable and mass transportation.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[swillden]

Electric cars are a fad. The biggest problem is what do you do with all the batteries? Sure you can recycle them, but they will all eventually die. Then what..?

Among other things, EV batteries are going to have a long life as home electricity storage batteries. After a decade or so of use in a vehicle, a battery will have lost ~30% of its capacity. That sucks because it means you have a lot of dead weight to haul around. But it's not nearly as much of a concern to have it parked in the corner of your garage or basement. A couple of old EV batteries would be fantastic for time shifting rooftop solar production to match home consumption. And in that usage model, you should be able to get several more decades of use out of a battery.

And then, recycling... which provides access to high-value raw materials much less expensively than mining.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[penguinoid]

The author concludes that our best hope to fix this trend is a return of high gasoline prices.

IMO, that's ONE way it might change, but pretty much the WORST option.

Oh, there are far far worse options. Increasing the cost of something will decrease usage, starting with the least necessary usage. Also, a lot of supposedly "necessary" usage will eventually be reduced or eliminated, possibly after a painful transition. The price could be increased by placing a tax on it, and returning the proceeds to the people in a way that would minimize the damage to the most affected people or industries.

Alternatives such as laws requiring carpooling, laws forbidding gasoline engines, etc would have a similar effect but be painfully inflexible. Certainly less restrictive laws or even "encouraging conservation" could also help, but would have a more limited effect.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think all the public school teachers, civil engineers, firemen, policemen, clerks, public works staff, etc. in your town would differ on that point -- as would you if you thought about it.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Whibla]

It is precisely because of (most of) the reasons you give that raising gasoline prices is the optimal solution to the problem.

High fuel prices mean people drive less. Full Stop. Ergo pollution, of all kinds, drops. In addition higher fuel prices discourages urban sprawl, encouraging people to live closer to where they work, in cities, where they use less land, more efficiently, own less, which in turn requires less production, which once more means less pollution is created..

At the end of the day, the solution is not intended to enable us all to have and eat as much cake as we want, whenever we want, it is intended to limit our consumption to sustainable levels. This requires a(n uncomfortable) change in our lifestyles. Denying this delays the necessary adjustment(s), and, barring any future tech which automagically makes the problems go away, will inevitably exacerbate the eventual pain - albeit maybe shift that pain down a generation or two.

Understand I'm not trying to have a go at you personally, or in fact anyone in particular. The sad fact is that mass transit is not a viable option once you get outside city limits, both in terms of the financials or the pollution it creates. Unfortunately the 'American Dream' of life in suburbia, with a large house and yard, a dual car garage, all the mod cons is not, currently, a sustainable lifestyle. Switching to electric cars will not change that, as it does nothing to discourage the sprawl, with the infrastructural necessities that entails. Gains in efficiency will not change that, as they are swallowed by a chain of rebound effects - essentially the more you save from efficiency the more you can buy, so the more you (and everyone else in the supply chain) use.

I know this is an unpopular viewpoint. I suspect I will receive some scathing replies. Another sad fact is that that doesn't change the facts...

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was waiting on the last train of the evening and it was one hour, then 1 1/2 hours, then 2, 3 and finally 3 1/2 hours late -- I had enough.

You should write your legislator and demand that the public transport organizations have to pay for a taxi if the train is more than 20 minutes (for local trains; maybe 1h for "long distance" trains) late. Once such laws or agreements are in place, they may learn to send a bus if the train is broken down.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[drinkypoo]

The author concludes that our best hope to fix this trend is a return of high gasoline prices.
IMO, that's ONE way it might change, but pretty much the WORST option.
Personally, I'd rather see more people opt for electric cars or public transit because improvements were made in those areas, making them more desirable!

The problem is that people don't buy fuel-efficient vehicles while fuel costs are low. They make purely economic decisions, because someone else will pay the cost of their externalities.

The best approach is to build the costs of the externalities into the fuel prices, and actually spend the money improving things. The best way to do that is to make the producers of a product responsible for cleaning up the results. EU laws along these lines have succeeded somewhat brilliantly at reducing landfill waste; manufacturers are now designing products to be easier to recycle as a means of reducing their costs. So, here's what you do rather than using regressive taxes to solve this problem: Make the oil companies responsible for fixing the carbon released when fuel is burned. This is trivially calculated, or at least estimated. The costs of fixing the CO2 will then wind up baked into the fuel prices, and the problem actually gets solved so long as we actually hold them to their obligation. Yeah, I know, that's the part that rubs. But fuel taxes going into the general fund don't actually address the real problem now. They try to change behavior for the future, but don't do anything to address the results of ongoing bad behavior. We need to do both.

I used to take the commuter train, but the combination of increased prices for it and reliability issues forced me to go back to driving. There are just too many times the train is really late due to freight train traffic that gets priority on the rails they use, or mechanical breakdowns.

It's sad, because these things can be done much better.

Re:Don't agree with the conclusion ....

[drinkypoo]

And then, recycling... which provides access to high-value raw materials much less expensively than mining.

Yes, but only a small amount. What is needed now is batteries with recyclable electrolyte chemistry. That stuff is just thrown away (presumably incinerated?) We recycle the electrolyte from wet cell lead-acid batteries, but that's easy.

They always were if you had a clue

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how much fossil fuels it takes to manufacture them, especially the tires.

CO2 is NOT a pollutant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pollutants are things that you would want to 100% remove from the environment. CO2 is not one of those. Why you ask? Because all life on Earth would end if you were able to remove all CO2 from the atmosphere.

Container ships are worse

[MS]

Planes, trains, and automobiles?
You forgot the biggest polluters: ships!

Re:Container ships are worse

[Anonymous Coward]

...are there many of those in the United States?

Water is not harmful!

[Weaselmancer]

Your body is composed of about 60% water, so it's clearly harmless! So go drink five gallons all at once and report back to us how it went.

Simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop giving fossil fuels a free ride. Take away their subsidies, they don't need it.

Implement a carbon tax. They pollute, they pay. They're the only ones still getting a free ride here, and they don't need it.

This is not breaking the system. It is un-breaking the system. Electric vehicles are already starting to win on the uneven playing field they've got. Let's not keep rigging the game against common sense.

Make it a priority when you vote. Tell your politicians it's important and will affect how you vote, and follow through.

It's amazingly wonderful news that power generation is making such great strides. Let's take the next step, too.

Re:Simple answer

[ChrisMaple]

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Re:Simple answer

[swillden]

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

It is in the quantities we're generating. Whether something is a pollutant (or a toxin) often depends heavily on the amount produced.

Re:Simple answer

[drinkypoo]

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Take the plastic bag challenge and find out real quick whether CO2 is a pollutant. You don't even have to kill yourself, although I do suggest keeping the bag on until you panic for maximum effect.

Propaganda every day

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Slashdot, enjoy your stay.

Natural Gas is almost as bad as coal

[presidenteloco]

As far as CO2-equivalent global warming effect, generating electricity with natural gas is almost as bad as burning coal.
The reason is subtle.

When UNBURNED natural gas leaks out of the distribution pipe network and leaks at extraction from the ground, that is methane that is being emitted into the atmosphere.

100-year global warming potential of methane (CH4)
25 x – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of CH4 into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 25 kg of CO2

20-year global warming potential of methane (CH4)
72 x – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of CH4 into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 72 kg of CO2, in terms of warming effects over the 20 years following emission.

If the total leakage in the production and distribution of natural gas is about 3%, natural gas energy's global warming potential is about the same as coal's.

The actual leakage percentage is a much debated unknown.

Re:Natural Gas is almost as bad as coal

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention many areas where fracking is employed to obtain natural gas, such as Oklahoma and parts of Texas, are now more earthquake-prone than the San Andreas Fault.

What about boats?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, all those diesel boats going from one country to the next. Isn't diesel the fuel of globalization. I'm suppose all those trucks, trains and planes hauling goods for multinationals are the real culprit.

AmTrack

[Anonymous Coward]

AND Amtrack is more expensive than flying!

WTF! from Altanta to NY is like 20 something hours and cost more than a ticket on any airline.

In case anyone takes this seriously

[raymorris]

In case anyone takes this comment seriously, the emissions per passenger mile are about the same for airliners and cars. Bo
Big planes use more fuel per hour than ONE car does, but they carry heck of a lot more people, in a much shorter time.

A private jet carrying just Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and four hookers is of course dirtier - both because there are fewer people carried vs emissions, and because Clinton and hookers always ends up dirty.

For freight, airplanes carry 35% of all freight, and produce 12% of freight-carrying emissions.
   

Re:In case anyone takes this seriously

[ChrisMaple]

For freight, airplanes carry 35% of all freight, and produce 12% of freight-carrying emissions.

Measured how? Weight? Volume? Items? Dollar volume?

Re:In case anyone takes this seriously

[blindseer]

Those are your questions? I'd rather hear more about the hookers.

Re: In case anyone takes this seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll be 4.99 a minute, but press 1 now and get the first half hour for only 100 dollars.

Time for lawsuits!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right - Airbus, Boeing, GM, Ford, etc - time to pay for all the damage you caused!!

The next step in the research

[RogueWarrior65]

I'll need a whole lot of unrestricted grant funding to develop a machine to measure the size of the sh*t I do not give.

We need nuclear

[blindseer]

But this approach does have the merit of being available today.

No, it is not available today. What we have now are a handful of small experimental producers that make biodiesel at considerable cost for vanity consumers. The US military is buying a lot of this biodiesel and they are paying something like 4X the price they would for petro-diesel. I don't have a real problem with that since they are funding research that might prove useful in the future. I also don't have a problem with biodiesel research because the US military is also working on synthetic hydrocarbons.

The US Navy has a prototype device that take in electricity and seawater and outputs oxygen and jet fuel. This is shown to work in nearly any weather or location, since it does not require sunlight like the biodiesel. You may ask, where would the electricity come from then? I'm glad you asked. The answer is nuclear power.

Nuclear power is great. It is a technology that works now, and I can prove it with a short drive to the nuclear power plant near me. We get 20% of our electricity from nuclear now, and we'd make a serious dent in our CO2 output if it was more like 80%. We should be building more nuclear power plants.

I've had people claim that we can't build more nuclear power plants because of... reasons. No matter what reason you come up with the answer is that nuclear power has the lowest deaths per MWh produced, is as cheap as coal, is as plentiful as dirt, and has a lower CO2 output than wind or solar.

More nuclear power would reduce our CO2 output even further than switching to natural gas. It's also a carbon free (electric cars) or carbon neutral (synthetic hydrocarbons) way to replace fossil fuels for transportation. Biodiesel may prove to be workable but I have my doubts. Nuclear power works. Synthetic hydrocarbons is a very likely technology that can turn that carbon free nuclear power into fuels and it doesn't take up nearly as much valuable land.

Obviously we both have our favorites. Having grown up on a farm, and worked on a solar powered car in college, I have my doubts on any technology that claims they can turn sunlight into cheap energy. Obviously we can turn sunlight into energy but making it cheaper than fossil fuels is really hard.

still, he should move

[Anonymous Coward]

He is spending half of his non-work non-sleep time in traffic. That's like throwing half his life away.

He might be able to move closer to work. More likely, he needs to find a new job. He might need to move to a different state.

Salary isn't everything. Throwing away half of one's life is pretty bad.

Fiscally impossible

[Roger W Moore]

Air travel should be something that you do when you're crossing an ocean, because trains over water (and subduction zones) are physically impractical

Actually it is fiscally impractical, not physically impractical. You could physically build a vacuum tube-based maglev train where the tube is at some depth in the ocean to avoid surface issues and plate boundary problems. However the costs when people look at these things are utterly insane...but in theory it is physically practical to build such a thing.

Re:Fiscally impossible

[dgatwood]

You could physically build a vacuum tube-based maglev train where the tube is at some depth in the ocean to avoid surface issues and plate boundary problems.

Yeah, in theory, you could design it to be neutrally buoyant at some depth, and you could make it thick enough to withstand the pressure while keeping the interior at survivable pressure levels. As for whether such a tube would be flexible enough to accommodate the two ends getting closer together or farther apart by three or four inches per year, though, I have my doubts.

Re:Fiscally impossible

[Roger W Moore]

As for whether such a tube would be flexible enough to accommodate the two ends getting closer together or farther apart by three or four inches per year, though, I have my doubts.

Look up vacuum bellows tube. Obviously this would only provide a limited range of extension but it should be enough to last quite a few years given the length of pipe involved. Of course you would also have to scale them up which would undoubtedly produce some technical challenges but probably nothing unsurmountable if you have the money.

And trucks

[WillAffleckUW]

Actually, the bizarre thing is many firms manufacture more efficient and less polluting planes, trains, and vehicles, including trucks.

End the tax exemptions for business use of fossil fuels: as fuel, in depreciation for vehicles, in deductions for business miles travelled in fossil fuel vehicles of any type.

The Invisible Hand of Capitalism will then crush fossil fuels, which are massively subsidized, and eat up large segment of national and state and county and municipal budgets.

This includes any lanes for fossil fuel vehicle usage, by passenger mile traveled.

Capitalism cares nothing about fossil fuels. It will crush these buggy whip manufacturers and kerosene users like it did before, if you give it the proper signals.

Time dilation

[Roger W Moore]

Unless the door to door time is faster dont bother. I can suck carbon out of the air I can not make more time.

Actually you can make more time: you just need to make the world go faster but extracting carbon from the air is probably easier.

"No, that's wrong, because.."

[Anonymous Coward]

"People are paid money. That's why climate change is wrong."

Seriously.

For "safety" reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, Harley bikers and their undying devotion to safety! Notice many don't like wearing helmets, esp. full face ones, and that would be the biggest safety measure they could take. The drawback of course to helmets is: 1) they are silent 2) make you look like a follower and not a rebel and 3) don't draw attention to you in an ostentatious way.

  All that pointless motor revving at stop lights must make them first class safety officers.

US is tops in freight rail

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent said:
"We really could be using more trains in the US for shipping stuff"

The US uses freight rail to greater efficiency than Europe, a region that fans hold up as being the standard for rail. (There is a lot of trucking in Europe too.)

The thing about freight is it is not subject to humans preferences like passenger rail is. This means freight is subject in the US to purely economic efficiency considerations, and if there is one thing that Americans are good at, it is making money.

Re:US is tops in freight rail

[Grishnakh]

US freight rail used to be a lot better. The problem was that back in the 50s, rail was highly regulated, but trucking was then deregulated, so it became cheaper to ship a lot of stuff by truck.

I'm guessing the reason freight rail isn't that great in Europe is because Europe isn't a single country (yet), so getting so many squabbling nations to agree on things and build a continental rail network hasn't been easy. Even worse, the continent was split in two by the Cold War until ~1990, and IIRC, Russia and its buddies used a different rail standard than the western nations which all used the UK standard. We never had either of these problems in the US. Being a single nation, composed of federal states with rather limited power, and occupying a whole continent, has been the biggest factor in our economic success. We tried letting the states have a lot more power back in the late 1700s under the Articles of Confederation and it didn't work out because no one could agree on anything and the central government didn't have the power to overrule them.

Re:US is tops in freight rail

[Maury Markowitz]

> but trucking was then deregulated, so it became cheaper to ship a lot of stuff by truck.

It has nothing to do with deregulation, and everything to do with time. You need to go watch them switch a railcar onto an industrial spur some time, it takes HOURS. The last one to go into Dominion Color, a single tanker car, took most of a day.

If your product has any time-dimension value, and they all do, then there is a price differential that means trucks are cheaper end-to-end. That line moves with the *relative* price of trains vs. trucks. Trains are cheaper than trucks, about 35% IIRC, but that's not enough to justify it unless you ship a LOT of stuff that can move from one siding to another. Like steel, or coal.

I seem to recall a study that said when diesel hits $4.00 a gallon an ungodly amount of freight suddenly moves to trains. I guess that's why the train companies are spending so much effort on truck-to-train systems, for that day when it might come.

Hogwash!

[p51d007]

Until the globalist, the powerbrokers, the UN get everyone riding bicycles or rubber band powered "cars", they won't be happy. This whole made up man made global warming crap isn't about saving the planet, but CONTROLLING the worlds people. Free thinking people, those who have the intelligence to figure this out, can't be controlled, and of course will be eliminated, or taken away to "education" camps to be done away with or to get their minds right.

Why not both?

[Weaselmancer]

I'm all for safe nuclear. Pebble bed reactors for the win.

But when you say algae biodiesel isn't available today, I think we're discussing two different things. You're saying you can't buy it today, and that's true. I'm saying we have the technology to make it if we wanted, which is also true.

As for startup cost, yeah. That will happen. But remember the first transistor was about the size of a baseball and took Bell Labs years to make. Now look what we can do. It'll be the same with algae if we choose to do it. Read that paper I posted. We already have had trial ponds and the numbers that paper uses come from those trial runs. What I'm saying is that we don't have to wait for some breakthrough like we would need to make hydrogen viable. We have everything we need right now. Land, sun, water, algae, and petrochemical infrastructure. All the pieces are already in place, just waiting for the word "go".

Here, read this. It's exciting! We could be doing this today.

If we wanted home grown diesel/gasoline, we could have it. We could stop pulling oil out of the ground and simply grow what we want. Easily and simply. By all means we should pursue nuclear and wind farms and the rest, but we should be doing this too.

Re:Why not both?

[blindseer]

But when you say algae biodiesel isn't available today, I think we're discussing two different things. You're saying you can't buy it today, and that's true. I'm saying we have the technology to make it if we wanted, which is also true.

Yes, it appears we are discussing two different things. What I'm pointing out is that unless a technology is cheaper than what it replaces, or has a slight cost increase but gains in some other way, then it cannot succeed. The algae to fuel process in that was described in the article you linked to even points out that the process is very expensive still. The process requires high temperatures and pressures to make it work, where is that going to come from? Is that solar powered too? If so then it can only run in daylight which severely limits output. If using nuclear power for that heat and pressure then why bother with the algae part and not just use a hydrocarbon synthesis process?

I used to believe as you did, that solar power would provide all the power we needed, but now I realize that solar power outside of pocket calculators, communications satellites, and a handful of other places is just not viable.

Think about how the process works and compares to processes we know. Ethanol production has an energy return on energy invested of about 2. If we use better crops for ethanol than corn and we might be able to get to 10. Oil and gas can have an EROEI of more than 20, even bitumen sands can get 3 and there is a lot of that. Algae might be able to beat the EROEI but it will have to rely on some other energy source for that to happen, such as nuclear. Nuclear has an EROEI of 10 now and if we use new technologies like pebble bed or molten salt then it becomes 100. With an EROEI of 100 the algae portion of the energy equation becomes a rounding error. If we use nuclear power to process the algae then so many other processes become viable.

If we are not using nuclear power to process the algae then we have other problems. If using a fossil fuel to process the algae then we gain nothing. If we use solar or wind then we add the cost of that energy on top of the unreliability of that energy.

Algae fuels are not here today. Nuclear is here today. We have a very safe and plentiful means to harness nuclear energy right now and the only thing holding it back is politics. If we get past the politics then we can develop next generation reactors and gain even more on the energy we can harness, improve the safety, and reduce the costs. All we have with algae is a theoretical process with a known top end on the EROEI of about 10. We can already do better than that with a theoretical fuel synthesis process from nuclear power. It appears to me that for algae fuels to work we'd need nuclear power, if we have nuclear power then we don't need the algae.

About to be a none issue

[WindBourne]

Seriously, German car makers are pouring in BILLIONS in hopes of stopping Tesla.
Oddly, they should be more worried about Chinese car makers since they have the financial backing of the Chinese gov, who will stop at nothing to beat down western companies.
However, within 5 years, it will be apparent to all, that NOBODY WANTS TO BUY AN ICE CAR. That might even apply to ICE based trucks and SUVs.

No scathing reply here, but I think you're wrong.

[King_TJ]

Higher fuel prices mean people drive a little bit less. (You start phasing out the unnecessary stuff, and encourage people to be a little more efficient about the trips they do make.) But that's the low-hanging fruit that doesn't really have a huge impact. People who are short on money already behave this way because even $2/gallon gas gets expensive. You can buy a couple of meals for what you pay to fill your tank one time.

And the "urban sprawl" you refer to is, IMO, a thing with just as many benefits as downsides. There's MUCH more to it than just worrying about logistics of how close to a job someone lives.

For example, look at the water shortage challenges happening in some places on the West Coast. That's basically a distribution issue caused by having too many people interested in trying to live all packed in to relatively small areas. Or look at some of the challenges with garbage in places like New York City. The people who decide they don't want to live in the "big city" help spread out the impact we have on our geography and natural resources. And as someone pointed out above - it has the effect of keeping housing prices down too. When you get a big concentration of people in one city, there's too much competition for housing and costs skyrocket for rent as well as home ownership.

There's nothing wrong with or unsustainable about the "American dream" as it traditionally existed. If you extend that to building a McMansion with a number of large rooms you rarely use but keep paying to heat and cool anyway -- that's a different situation. But for our family of 6, finding an older 2 story home with 4 bedrooms and a 2 car garage was exactly what we needed. This, in turn, allows my wife's mother to live with us instead of the popular theme today of pushing our elders off to some retirement community or nursing home to live out their remaining days ....