The Big 'Let's sell our cars and take buses/ebikes instead' thread (warning: probably very dull)
Comments
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87% of British Columbia's power is hydroelectric. Austria 57%. Switzerland 61%. I don't know how much of that capacity is susceptible to pump storage, but given the right geography, it seems possible that it could be a solution to storing renewable energy.TheBigBean said:
If you do the calculations on how much water you need to raise, you'll find it isn't trivial unless nature has built a convenient mountain and lake.First.Aspect said:
Energy storage is trivial. Either use some energy to raise the elevation of water and then run it through a turbine, or use some energy for electrolysis to store energy as hydrogen and burn it to turn a turbine, or use a fuel cell.
Hydrogen could act as form of storage, but a lot needs to happen before it does on any real scale. The government had a very positive consultation on the subject, but then the PM changed and nothing has happened since.
Power storage with water probably isn't a large part of any solution here, which is why I mentioned hydrogen. We store and transport methane for power generation and hydrogen isn't that much more difficult (leaks are the main issue, because it is such a small molecule, but it is achievable). A bigger challenge is turning that hydrogen into electricity because although you can burn it to generate power the same way, its not as energy dense as methane and that isn't the most efficient way to get electricity from hydrogen. But there is ultimately money to be made so given time large scale fuel cell energy generation would happen.
The fact a historically awful Tory government full of ostriches hasn't made progress in the few tens of seconds since the last time it ate itself is hardly relevant.0 -
So yes, in other words.rjsterry said:
F*** me. What is this chip on the shoulder of all the country dwelling townies.First.Aspect said:
The "carrot" approach to reducing car journeys is fine.rick_chasey said:
When I say sustainable, I mean, literally sustainable. Not euphemistically green. I mean, it cannot be sustained indefinitely. It I'm not talking specifically green or emissions or whatever, though that is clearly a part of it, as our tolerance for pollution and emissions will continue to be less. Clearly lower emissions travel is beneficial.First.Aspect said:
So you are effectively arguing that cars are unsustainable because they take up too much space, and journey times are too long?rick_chasey said:
I literally don’t know why I can’t make this any clearer.briantrumpet said:Stevo_666 said:
It's not nasty, we can just spot bollox when we see it. In this case it seems to be persistent bolloxrick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Shame you started such a boring thread, Stevo.
RC, if you actually read what I've written you know I don't like cars - it's why I started the car thread to get them out of the way of more interesting stuff. But you can expect pushback if you can't find the nuance in people's arguments against your unfounded assertions about travel outside of urban areas. You might even notice that I don't accept MF's arguing for the status quo. Most of us accept that there's lots you can do in urban environments, and that we could do a lot more.
Currently the transport system for travel is fundamentally oriented around private cars.
For reasons, such as the fact that 85% of people live in urban areas and the associated geometrical problems (traffic jams and car storage) as well as the sustainability of resources needed for mass private car travel, means that, in the future, it’s not really viable for travel in the future to be private car oriented. In plainer English, it’s not sustainable for the majority of journeys to be made by private car.
Instead, we are likely to see a system where public transport is the main way to travel and the roads are left largely to commercial vehicles and ebikes, not private vehicles. The challenge with public transport is the miles betwee destinations and those hubs and I recon the vast majority of those journeys are e-bikeable.
This is not an argument, despite everyone’s best attempts, about the sustainability or otherwise of rural living. Or a discussion about how car reliant everyone is. That’s a given because that’s the system we have collectively built. For thy very reason I don’t understand the “you drive a car, so you’re been a hypocrite” argument, as I’m saying exactly that - we’re in a system where private cars are usually the best way to get around so of course I’ll have one. That is exactly why i am saying about the current model.
If we spent what we all collectively spent on cars and instead spent it on public transport and infrastructure for more efficient travel, the quality and reach of public transport would be better, and I recon, sufficient for the vast majority of journeys.
For things like shopping, the roads could clearly be used, as they are already, for commercial vehicles to deliver. I can’t remember the last time I needed the car to buy something, and soon it will cost me £5 every day i use my car, so it’ll even more economical to pay for delivery. I’d be surprised if the delivery costs were more than a few hundred quid a year for most people. And think how much faster they’d be without private cars clogging up the routes.
Taxis etc could form part of the travel network too, and for obvious reasons, taxis are much more efficient for those journeys not serviceable by the type of network I’m describing. (After all, private cars spend on average 96% of their time not being used)
I am genuinely surprised this is so controversial. I mean, if you read anything into transport planning in the future, what I’m saying is basically the model the experts want to head towards.
In the scenario where the grid is decarbonised, are individuals' willingness to waste time in traffic jams and dedicate some space in their property for a car really anything to do with sustainability?
There are clearly economic arguments in favour of moving people around more efficiently, but that's not what you've been arguing.
Or are you coming from the perspective that the power grid will NEVER be decarbonised?
And yes, everyone using private cars as their main way to travel is indeed unsustainable, because they take up too much space and journeys by car will be too long. They're getting longer ever year. We also dont have enough of the right metals in the ground to put batteries in all the private cars we will likely need with the existing model.
Often the reason people drive is because it's the best way to get around versus the alternatives. But that may well be just because the alternatives are really bad, rather than private cars being all that good.
I propose that if we invested as much non-private car travel as we have done in cars, then in the long run we'll have a system that gets people around more efficiently: that is, getting more people around faster with less energy and fewer resources used.
One delivery van is a much more efficient use of all the things that go into a vehicle than the 100 or so people who the van delivers to going back and forth in their own car to the supermarket, for example. So you're better off sitting at home and having your supermarket shop delivered to your door.
The amount we collectively spend on cars is remarkable. Outlay for the car, servicing, fuel, depreciation, repairs, parking the lot.
Imagine if all of that was instead spent on infrastructure, public transport, deliveries, taxis and ebikes, and all the extra space we get from not having to park cars everywhere.
The batpoo crazy "stick" approach of making living rurally impossible, is not, however because there is a level of personalised transportation that is sustainable (for everyone, not just rural dwellers).
In your mind what is that level?
No.First.Aspect said:
Are you doing that forum thing where someone inserts their own agenda into some other discussion, then getting huffy?rjsterry said:
Think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Not sure there's any point me arguing with your invented version of what I wrote.First.Aspect said:
All things being equal, if it is colder outside, one will spend more on hearing. Scotland is colder than Cambridge.rjsterry said:
Is insulation not available in Scotland? This nicely illustrates the point that even with your pretty extreme scenario, travel emissions are only roughly equivalent to domestic heating. Also it hides that car emissions are much higher than rail emissions per passenger mile. Average car emissions are 220g/mile, so let's say 6,000 miles for a low-mileage year, that gives us 1.3tonnes of CO2.First.Aspect said:.
Extra zero typing on phone. Besides I was being conservative, more like 20k. Which equates to about 1-1.5 ton by your numbers.rjsterry said:
You are comparing different numbers of people. And who on earth does 100,000 miles of rail commuting a year. Even London to Cardiff every working day is only 70,000 miles a year, which works out at about 5 tonnes of CO2 emitted. The rural dweller will emit around 3-4 tonnes of CO2 just to heat his house, whereas a small terraced house is around 2.7 and that's shared between two people. I think it's likely the rural dweller will have a significantly higher carbon footprint despite working from home and cycling.First.Aspect said:.
It's the repetitive dogma that's the problem here.rick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Let's have another go at rational discourse.
If we all had a houshold environmental impact budget to spend each year, which would be the higher budget?
1. Rural dweller, no kids, two low mileage a year cars, work from home/cycle commute.
2. Town dweller, one low mileage car, one child, 100,000 miles of rail travel a year.
I think we are at about 5t co2 for heating, but I live in Scotland at some altitude, and the house is all but detached. (Would be a lot less in the south of the UK, but I'm sure no one is suggesting we abandon the north because its more sustainable for us all to live in Cambridgeshire.)
Anyway, by the back of the envelope calculations, it seems like a close run thing doesn't it?
I don't think a 60 mile e/w commute is that extelreme. I know people who commute from Oxford or even further north to Central London. Edinburgh to Glasgow is 49 miles and that is an extremely common commute.
Rail travel, at the moment uses about 20% the CO2 as road. At least in relation to propulsion, this could hypothetically be zero in both cases.
RC and now you seem to believe that should both modes be zero carbon to that extent, the car but not the train, would be unsustainable.
Why? Make ypu argument, don't just keep repeating things like a simpleton.
BTW, it's not that difficult to build a house that requires no heating at all even in the frozen wastes of Scotland.
As far as I can see, RC has somewhat clumsily pointed out the bleeding obvious that car use for most of us (who live in urban areas) will need to reduce our use of cars. A bunch of country dwellers are then jumping in to argue that it's *impossible* because they might need to pick up a Christmas tree or something when RC wasn't talking about the minority who live in the sticks. I've already commented that there is still lots of room for improvement in urban areas where public transport infrastructure already exists. If you do live in the sticks and largely work from home, then as you point out, travel emissions and congestion are non-issues but the sustainability of your home is something that should be addressed.0 -
I can afford my car and I have a driveway. So it is sustainable for me.rick_chasey said:Your car has not cost you nothing. Tax, servicing, MOT, wear and tear, fuel, parking, all costs money.
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No.First.Aspect said:
So yes, in other words.rjsterry said:
F*** me. What is this chip on the shoulder of all the country dwelling townies.First.Aspect said:
The "carrot" approach to reducing car journeys is fine.rick_chasey said:
When I say sustainable, I mean, literally sustainable. Not euphemistically green. I mean, it cannot be sustained indefinitely. It I'm not talking specifically green or emissions or whatever, though that is clearly a part of it, as our tolerance for pollution and emissions will continue to be less. Clearly lower emissions travel is beneficial.First.Aspect said:
So you are effectively arguing that cars are unsustainable because they take up too much space, and journey times are too long?rick_chasey said:
I literally don’t know why I can’t make this any clearer.briantrumpet said:Stevo_666 said:
It's not nasty, we can just spot bollox when we see it. In this case it seems to be persistent bolloxrick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Shame you started such a boring thread, Stevo.
RC, if you actually read what I've written you know I don't like cars - it's why I started the car thread to get them out of the way of more interesting stuff. But you can expect pushback if you can't find the nuance in people's arguments against your unfounded assertions about travel outside of urban areas. You might even notice that I don't accept MF's arguing for the status quo. Most of us accept that there's lots you can do in urban environments, and that we could do a lot more.
Currently the transport system for travel is fundamentally oriented around private cars.
For reasons, such as the fact that 85% of people live in urban areas and the associated geometrical problems (traffic jams and car storage) as well as the sustainability of resources needed for mass private car travel, means that, in the future, it’s not really viable for travel in the future to be private car oriented. In plainer English, it’s not sustainable for the majority of journeys to be made by private car.
Instead, we are likely to see a system where public transport is the main way to travel and the roads are left largely to commercial vehicles and ebikes, not private vehicles. The challenge with public transport is the miles betwee destinations and those hubs and I recon the vast majority of those journeys are e-bikeable.
This is not an argument, despite everyone’s best attempts, about the sustainability or otherwise of rural living. Or a discussion about how car reliant everyone is. That’s a given because that’s the system we have collectively built. For thy very reason I don’t understand the “you drive a car, so you’re been a hypocrite” argument, as I’m saying exactly that - we’re in a system where private cars are usually the best way to get around so of course I’ll have one. That is exactly why i am saying about the current model.
If we spent what we all collectively spent on cars and instead spent it on public transport and infrastructure for more efficient travel, the quality and reach of public transport would be better, and I recon, sufficient for the vast majority of journeys.
For things like shopping, the roads could clearly be used, as they are already, for commercial vehicles to deliver. I can’t remember the last time I needed the car to buy something, and soon it will cost me £5 every day i use my car, so it’ll even more economical to pay for delivery. I’d be surprised if the delivery costs were more than a few hundred quid a year for most people. And think how much faster they’d be without private cars clogging up the routes.
Taxis etc could form part of the travel network too, and for obvious reasons, taxis are much more efficient for those journeys not serviceable by the type of network I’m describing. (After all, private cars spend on average 96% of their time not being used)
I am genuinely surprised this is so controversial. I mean, if you read anything into transport planning in the future, what I’m saying is basically the model the experts want to head towards.
In the scenario where the grid is decarbonised, are individuals' willingness to waste time in traffic jams and dedicate some space in their property for a car really anything to do with sustainability?
There are clearly economic arguments in favour of moving people around more efficiently, but that's not what you've been arguing.
Or are you coming from the perspective that the power grid will NEVER be decarbonised?
And yes, everyone using private cars as their main way to travel is indeed unsustainable, because they take up too much space and journeys by car will be too long. They're getting longer ever year. We also dont have enough of the right metals in the ground to put batteries in all the private cars we will likely need with the existing model.
Often the reason people drive is because it's the best way to get around versus the alternatives. But that may well be just because the alternatives are really bad, rather than private cars being all that good.
I propose that if we invested as much non-private car travel as we have done in cars, then in the long run we'll have a system that gets people around more efficiently: that is, getting more people around faster with less energy and fewer resources used.
One delivery van is a much more efficient use of all the things that go into a vehicle than the 100 or so people who the van delivers to going back and forth in their own car to the supermarket, for example. So you're better off sitting at home and having your supermarket shop delivered to your door.
The amount we collectively spend on cars is remarkable. Outlay for the car, servicing, fuel, depreciation, repairs, parking the lot.
Imagine if all of that was instead spent on infrastructure, public transport, deliveries, taxis and ebikes, and all the extra space we get from not having to park cars everywhere.
The batpoo crazy "stick" approach of making living rurally impossible, is not, however because there is a level of personalised transportation that is sustainable (for everyone, not just rural dwellers).
In your mind what is that level?
No.First.Aspect said:
Are you doing that forum thing where someone inserts their own agenda into some other discussion, then getting huffy?rjsterry said:
Think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Not sure there's any point me arguing with your invented version of what I wrote.First.Aspect said:
All things being equal, if it is colder outside, one will spend more on hearing. Scotland is colder than Cambridge.rjsterry said:
Is insulation not available in Scotland? This nicely illustrates the point that even with your pretty extreme scenario, travel emissions are only roughly equivalent to domestic heating. Also it hides that car emissions are much higher than rail emissions per passenger mile. Average car emissions are 220g/mile, so let's say 6,000 miles for a low-mileage year, that gives us 1.3tonnes of CO2.First.Aspect said:.
Extra zero typing on phone. Besides I was being conservative, more like 20k. Which equates to about 1-1.5 ton by your numbers.rjsterry said:
You are comparing different numbers of people. And who on earth does 100,000 miles of rail commuting a year. Even London to Cardiff every working day is only 70,000 miles a year, which works out at about 5 tonnes of CO2 emitted. The rural dweller will emit around 3-4 tonnes of CO2 just to heat his house, whereas a small terraced house is around 2.7 and that's shared between two people. I think it's likely the rural dweller will have a significantly higher carbon footprint despite working from home and cycling.First.Aspect said:.
It's the repetitive dogma that's the problem here.rick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Let's have another go at rational discourse.
If we all had a houshold environmental impact budget to spend each year, which would be the higher budget?
1. Rural dweller, no kids, two low mileage a year cars, work from home/cycle commute.
2. Town dweller, one low mileage car, one child, 100,000 miles of rail travel a year.
I think we are at about 5t co2 for heating, but I live in Scotland at some altitude, and the house is all but detached. (Would be a lot less in the south of the UK, but I'm sure no one is suggesting we abandon the north because its more sustainable for us all to live in Cambridgeshire.)
Anyway, by the back of the envelope calculations, it seems like a close run thing doesn't it?
I don't think a 60 mile e/w commute is that extelreme. I know people who commute from Oxford or even further north to Central London. Edinburgh to Glasgow is 49 miles and that is an extremely common commute.
Rail travel, at the moment uses about 20% the CO2 as road. At least in relation to propulsion, this could hypothetically be zero in both cases.
RC and now you seem to believe that should both modes be zero carbon to that extent, the car but not the train, would be unsustainable.
Why? Make ypu argument, don't just keep repeating things like a simpleton.
BTW, it's not that difficult to build a house that requires no heating at all even in the frozen wastes of Scotland.
As far as I can see, RC has somewhat clumsily pointed out the bleeding obvious that car use for most of us (who live in urban areas) will need to reduce our use of cars. A bunch of country dwellers are then jumping in to argue that it's *impossible* because they might need to pick up a Christmas tree or something when RC wasn't talking about the minority who live in the sticks. I've already commented that there is still lots of room for improvement in urban areas where public transport infrastructure already exists. If you do live in the sticks and largely work from home, then as you point out, travel emissions and congestion are non-issues but the sustainability of your home is something that should be addressed.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I live about a mile from a village that used to have a bus service. Has about 40 houses I think, so about 100 or so residents.rick_chasey said:
I mean firstly, a better transport system would service the rural communities better, especially villages etc.kingstongraham said:
OK, so articulate how travel in a rural environment can be better without private cars to do at least part of journeys than with.rick_chasey said:
Genuinely, i am baffled when i am talking about an entire system everyone seems hell bent on making it a rural vs city thing, and can't distinguish between their current experiences of non-private car travel in a system where that is the main means of travel and one where it isn't.First.Aspect said:
I'm not either - the point I am making is that there is considerable overlap between what you consider to be "acceptable" and what you do not. Which helps us to circle right back to the absurdities that others have pointed out about you about your initially very polarised line of argumentation.rick_chasey said:FA, I'm not interested in a competition for who is greener. I'm thinking about the entire transport system as a whole and how it needs to adjust to a denser population by the day that is increasingly intolerant of fossil fuel burning.
Clearly there are other factors like housing etc that impact how far people travel daily, but let's assume they're roughly constant and we look at where the collective investment goes on what and how to get people around more efficiently. On all levels. Time, resources, money, number of people the system can move about easily, the lot.
The system is *everything*. All of it. No system for people will be perfect for all individuals, and no system will be exclusively one thing.
Obviously. It's absolutely mad that that needs spelling out. That is totally a given.
I feel like I'm being straw manned because people are assuming I'm so thick that I can't conceive of people travelling in the rural world. FFS, it's really not hard to conceive. I have actually lived in a village for half my life.
Come on.
To give an illustrative example, my MIL lives in a village which used to have buses every 10 minutes either into town or the surrounding villages.
Now there's one every hour and it's unreliable, so everyone uses a car - problem for her, as she can't drive for health reasons, so she has to rely on lifts. That's mad. Busses would be able to travel faster and more efficiently because they're not snarled up behind private cars anyway.
For the further afield, shopping is done by delivery, and travel is done by I guess taxi to the nearest hub, or I guess a private car but let's assume there's nowhere to park?
I mean, clearly you've chosen to live somewhere where your primary way of getting around is private car, so obviously a move away from that is going to be more costly for you. Had that not been an option you probably wouldn't have moved there in the first place.
I'd be curious if you added the cost of your car over the years, how much more expensive it would be than taxis and delivery. If it's less than 4 figures...? Assuming you'd want to use your bike a little more too.
The MPG of a bus will be about 10-20% that of a car at best. Means you need at least 5-10 people per bus journey to make it more sustainable than individuals taking a car. The equation doesn't change if the fuel source changes.
If you have a bus service every hour from that village to Ricktopolis, or to the station that takes you into Rictopolis Central, do you think that would be sustainable?
No, it wouldn't, which is one of the reasons why there's no bus service any more (the economics of providing a bus service being somewhat correlated). You'd need a much, much larger population to justify a sustainable bus service, and that would be called a "town".0 -
...
If you are genuinely interested, PM me some photos of the house and I will get back to you.First.Aspect said:
Can you tell me how to make a 19th century stone cottage heating-free please? And the price? And also how I can sustainably travel between Utopia and Ricktopia?rjsterry said:
Think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Not sure there's any point me arguing with your invented version of what I wrote.First.Aspect said:
All things being equal, if it is colder outside, one will spend more on hearing. Scotland is colder than Cambridge.rjsterry said:
Is insulation not available in Scotland? This nicely illustrates the point that even with your pretty extreme scenario, travel emissions are only roughly equivalent to domestic heating. Also it hides that car emissions are much higher than rail emissions per passenger mile. Average car emissions are 220g/mile, so let's say 6,000 miles for a low-mileage year, that gives us 1.3tonnes of CO2.First.Aspect said:.
Extra zero typing on phone. Besides I was being conservative, more like 20k. Which equates to about 1-1.5 ton by your numbers.rjsterry said:
You are comparing different numbers of people. And who on earth does 100,000 miles of rail commuting a year. Even London to Cardiff every working day is only 70,000 miles a year, which works out at about 5 tonnes of CO2 emitted. The rural dweller will emit around 3-4 tonnes of CO2 just to heat his house, whereas a small terraced house is around 2.7 and that's shared between two people. I think it's likely the rural dweller will have a significantly higher carbon footprint despite working from home and cycling.First.Aspect said:.
It's the repetitive dogma that's the problem here.rick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Let's have another go at rational discourse.
If we all had a houshold environmental impact budget to spend each year, which would be the higher budget?
1. Rural dweller, no kids, two low mileage a year cars, work from home/cycle commute.
2. Town dweller, one low mileage car, one child, 100,000 miles of rail travel a year.
I think we are at about 5t co2 for heating, but I live in Scotland at some altitude, and the house is all but detached. (Would be a lot less in the south of the UK, but I'm sure no one is suggesting we abandon the north because its more sustainable for us all to live in Cambridgeshire.)
Anyway, by the back of the envelope calculations, it seems like a close run thing doesn't it?
I don't think a 60 mile e/w commute is that extelreme. I know people who commute from Oxford or even further north to Central London. Edinburgh to Glasgow is 49 miles and that is an extremely common commute.
Rail travel, at the moment uses about 20% the CO2 as road. At least in relation to propulsion, this could hypothetically be zero in both cases.
RC and now you seem to believe that should both modes be zero carbon to that extent, the car but not the train, would be unsustainable.
Why? Make ypu argument, don't just keep repeating things like a simpleton.
BTW, it's not that difficult to build a house that requires no heating at all even in the frozen wastes of Scotland.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Not if no-one has a car to take instead ;-) And buses obviously work better when there are no private cars in the way.First.Aspect said:
I live about a mile from a village that used to have a bus service. Has about 40 houses I think, so about 100 or so residents.rick_chasey said:
I mean firstly, a better transport system would service the rural communities better, especially villages etc.kingstongraham said:
OK, so articulate how travel in a rural environment can be better without private cars to do at least part of journeys than with.rick_chasey said:
Genuinely, i am baffled when i am talking about an entire system everyone seems hell bent on making it a rural vs city thing, and can't distinguish between their current experiences of non-private car travel in a system where that is the main means of travel and one where it isn't.First.Aspect said:
I'm not either - the point I am making is that there is considerable overlap between what you consider to be "acceptable" and what you do not. Which helps us to circle right back to the absurdities that others have pointed out about you about your initially very polarised line of argumentation.rick_chasey said:FA, I'm not interested in a competition for who is greener. I'm thinking about the entire transport system as a whole and how it needs to adjust to a denser population by the day that is increasingly intolerant of fossil fuel burning.
Clearly there are other factors like housing etc that impact how far people travel daily, but let's assume they're roughly constant and we look at where the collective investment goes on what and how to get people around more efficiently. On all levels. Time, resources, money, number of people the system can move about easily, the lot.
The system is *everything*. All of it. No system for people will be perfect for all individuals, and no system will be exclusively one thing.
Obviously. It's absolutely mad that that needs spelling out. That is totally a given.
I feel like I'm being straw manned because people are assuming I'm so thick that I can't conceive of people travelling in the rural world. FFS, it's really not hard to conceive. I have actually lived in a village for half my life.
Come on.
To give an illustrative example, my MIL lives in a village which used to have buses every 10 minutes either into town or the surrounding villages.
Now there's one every hour and it's unreliable, so everyone uses a car - problem for her, as she can't drive for health reasons, so she has to rely on lifts. That's mad. Busses would be able to travel faster and more efficiently because they're not snarled up behind private cars anyway.
For the further afield, shopping is done by delivery, and travel is done by I guess taxi to the nearest hub, or I guess a private car but let's assume there's nowhere to park?
I mean, clearly you've chosen to live somewhere where your primary way of getting around is private car, so obviously a move away from that is going to be more costly for you. Had that not been an option you probably wouldn't have moved there in the first place.
I'd be curious if you added the cost of your car over the years, how much more expensive it would be than taxis and delivery. If it's less than 4 figures...? Assuming you'd want to use your bike a little more too.
The MPG of a bus will be about 10-20% that of a car at best. Means you need at least 5-10 people per bus journey to make it more sustainable than individuals taking a car. The equation doesn't change if the fuel source changes.
If you have a bus service every hour from that village to Ricktopolis, or to the station that takes you into Rictopolis Central, do you think that would be sustainable?
No, it wouldn't, which is one of the reasons why there's no bus service any more (the economics of providing a bus service being somewhat correlated). You'd need a much, much larger population to justify a sustainable bus service, and that would be called a "town".0 -
By taking a magic bus that comes only where there are enough passengers to make it sustainable?rick_chasey said:
Not if no-one has a car to take instead ;-)First.Aspect said:
I live about a mile from a village that used to have a bus service. Has about 40 houses I think, so about 100 or so residents.rick_chasey said:
I mean firstly, a better transport system would service the rural communities better, especially villages etc.kingstongraham said:
OK, so articulate how travel in a rural environment can be better without private cars to do at least part of journeys than with.rick_chasey said:
Genuinely, i am baffled when i am talking about an entire system everyone seems hell bent on making it a rural vs city thing, and can't distinguish between their current experiences of non-private car travel in a system where that is the main means of travel and one where it isn't.First.Aspect said:
I'm not either - the point I am making is that there is considerable overlap between what you consider to be "acceptable" and what you do not. Which helps us to circle right back to the absurdities that others have pointed out about you about your initially very polarised line of argumentation.rick_chasey said:FA, I'm not interested in a competition for who is greener. I'm thinking about the entire transport system as a whole and how it needs to adjust to a denser population by the day that is increasingly intolerant of fossil fuel burning.
Clearly there are other factors like housing etc that impact how far people travel daily, but let's assume they're roughly constant and we look at where the collective investment goes on what and how to get people around more efficiently. On all levels. Time, resources, money, number of people the system can move about easily, the lot.
The system is *everything*. All of it. No system for people will be perfect for all individuals, and no system will be exclusively one thing.
Obviously. It's absolutely mad that that needs spelling out. That is totally a given.
I feel like I'm being straw manned because people are assuming I'm so thick that I can't conceive of people travelling in the rural world. FFS, it's really not hard to conceive. I have actually lived in a village for half my life.
Come on.
To give an illustrative example, my MIL lives in a village which used to have buses every 10 minutes either into town or the surrounding villages.
Now there's one every hour and it's unreliable, so everyone uses a car - problem for her, as she can't drive for health reasons, so she has to rely on lifts. That's mad. Busses would be able to travel faster and more efficiently because they're not snarled up behind private cars anyway.
For the further afield, shopping is done by delivery, and travel is done by I guess taxi to the nearest hub, or I guess a private car but let's assume there's nowhere to park?
I mean, clearly you've chosen to live somewhere where your primary way of getting around is private car, so obviously a move away from that is going to be more costly for you. Had that not been an option you probably wouldn't have moved there in the first place.
I'd be curious if you added the cost of your car over the years, how much more expensive it would be than taxis and delivery. If it's less than 4 figures...? Assuming you'd want to use your bike a little more too.
The MPG of a bus will be about 10-20% that of a car at best. Means you need at least 5-10 people per bus journey to make it more sustainable than individuals taking a car. The equation doesn't change if the fuel source changes.
If you have a bus service every hour from that village to Ricktopolis, or to the station that takes you into Rictopolis Central, do you think that would be sustainable?
No, it wouldn't, which is one of the reasons why there's no bus service any more (the economics of providing a bus service being somewhat correlated). You'd need a much, much larger population to justify a sustainable bus service, and that would be called a "town".
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If our village had a bus an hour each bus would probably only have one or two people on it.
I suspect Rick's idea of a village is a place with 3-5,000 population about 10 minutes from a large urban area. Somewhere like Sawston (which I would not consider a village).
Bournemouth & Poole (519,000) is the largest urban area near to me, which is 25 miles, then Salisbury (25 miles), Bath (40 miles), or Dorchester (20 miles). The local towns are not big enough to be transport hubs. It would be totally uneconomic to serve all the villages and hamlets by public transport. That is typical of a lot of the counties in England once you move away from the SE and the M62 corridor.
I suspect you need 50,000 population or more in the urban area to make Rick's ideas work. In such areas then sure, improve the public transport options significantly, but they won't replace the car in small towns and villages. Even in the urban areas you need to work out a solution to the weather for the last mile or more.
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What did these places do before the 1950s?0
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Probably born, educated, worked, married and died all in the one town/village.kingstongraham said:What did these places do before the 1950s?
Blame Norman Tebbit for the 80s onwards. 😉The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
I already know I can't afford it. Just a stone built cottage with stud walls, mostly from the 1980s, when an extension was added that was stone cladding, breeze block and then stud walls. The plaster board they used is backed with polystyrene, but to 80s insulation standards. There is a shitload of rock wool in all of the roof spaces (all of which are rooms, pretty much). Over time, the bits we get renovated get insulated to today's standards, but I'm not planning on stripping things back to the stone to do that in the whole house. It is already double glazed. The ceilings are only 7ft so we aren't heating much dead air above us, at least.rjsterry said:...
If you are genuinely interested, PM me some photos of the house and I will get back to you.First.Aspect said:
Can you tell me how to make a 19th century stone cottage heating-free please? And the price? And also how I can sustainably travel between Utopia and Ricktopia?rjsterry said:
Think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Not sure there's any point me arguing with your invented version of what I wrote.First.Aspect said:
All things being equal, if it is colder outside, one will spend more on hearing. Scotland is colder than Cambridge.rjsterry said:
Is insulation not available in Scotland? This nicely illustrates the point that even with your pretty extreme scenario, travel emissions are only roughly equivalent to domestic heating. Also it hides that car emissions are much higher than rail emissions per passenger mile. Average car emissions are 220g/mile, so let's say 6,000 miles for a low-mileage year, that gives us 1.3tonnes of CO2.First.Aspect said:.
Extra zero typing on phone. Besides I was being conservative, more like 20k. Which equates to about 1-1.5 ton by your numbers.rjsterry said:
You are comparing different numbers of people. And who on earth does 100,000 miles of rail commuting a year. Even London to Cardiff every working day is only 70,000 miles a year, which works out at about 5 tonnes of CO2 emitted. The rural dweller will emit around 3-4 tonnes of CO2 just to heat his house, whereas a small terraced house is around 2.7 and that's shared between two people. I think it's likely the rural dweller will have a significantly higher carbon footprint despite working from home and cycling.First.Aspect said:.
It's the repetitive dogma that's the problem here.rick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Let's have another go at rational discourse.
If we all had a houshold environmental impact budget to spend each year, which would be the higher budget?
1. Rural dweller, no kids, two low mileage a year cars, work from home/cycle commute.
2. Town dweller, one low mileage car, one child, 100,000 miles of rail travel a year.
I think we are at about 5t co2 for heating, but I live in Scotland at some altitude, and the house is all but detached. (Would be a lot less in the south of the UK, but I'm sure no one is suggesting we abandon the north because its more sustainable for us all to live in Cambridgeshire.)
Anyway, by the back of the envelope calculations, it seems like a close run thing doesn't it?
I don't think a 60 mile e/w commute is that extelreme. I know people who commute from Oxford or even further north to Central London. Edinburgh to Glasgow is 49 miles and that is an extremely common commute.
Rail travel, at the moment uses about 20% the CO2 as road. At least in relation to propulsion, this could hypothetically be zero in both cases.
RC and now you seem to believe that should both modes be zero carbon to that extent, the car but not the train, would be unsustainable.
Why? Make ypu argument, don't just keep repeating things like a simpleton.
BTW, it's not that difficult to build a house that requires no heating at all even in the frozen wastes of Scotland.0 -
He didn't tell them to get in their cars, now did he?pblakeney said:
Probably born, educated, worked, married and died all in the one town/village.kingstongraham said:What did these places do before the 1950s?
Blame Norman Tebbit for the 80s onwards. 😉0 -
No, he told them to have some ambition and work in central London.kingstongraham said:
He didn't tell them to get in their cars, now did he?pblakeney said:
Probably born, educated, worked, married and died all in the one town/village.kingstongraham said:What did these places do before the 1950s?
Blame Norman Tebbit for the 80s onwards. 😉0 -
Work on the local estate almost certainly, and once a week walk the 6 miles to the local town, or catch the (rare) bus. They bought their groceries from the village shop or coop, which would have been supplied by the estate - no out of season foods.kingstongraham said:What did these places do before the 1950s?
Go back further, to the first world war, and very few had ever been more than 10 miles from where they were born.0 -
Fair point but's the starting point of extended commuting imo.kingstongraham said:
He didn't tell them to get in their cars, now did he?pblakeney said:
Probably born, educated, worked, married and died all in the one town/village.kingstongraham said:What did these places do before the 1950s?
Blame Norman Tebbit for the 80s onwards. 😉The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Maybe a very very small bus, with just three or four seats, and a voluntary driver (to keep down labour costs, and increase flexibility)... dunno what you'd call it though... an 'arc', maybeFirst.Aspect said:
By taking a magic bus that comes only where there are enough passengers to make it sustainable?rick_chasey said:
Not if no-one has a car to take instead ;-)First.Aspect said:
I live about a mile from a village that used to have a bus service. Has about 40 houses I think, so about 100 or so residents.rick_chasey said:
I mean firstly, a better transport system would service the rural communities better, especially villages etc.kingstongraham said:
OK, so articulate how travel in a rural environment can be better without private cars to do at least part of journeys than with.rick_chasey said:
Genuinely, i am baffled when i am talking about an entire system everyone seems hell bent on making it a rural vs city thing, and can't distinguish between their current experiences of non-private car travel in a system where that is the main means of travel and one where it isn't.First.Aspect said:
I'm not either - the point I am making is that there is considerable overlap between what you consider to be "acceptable" and what you do not. Which helps us to circle right back to the absurdities that others have pointed out about you about your initially very polarised line of argumentation.rick_chasey said:FA, I'm not interested in a competition for who is greener. I'm thinking about the entire transport system as a whole and how it needs to adjust to a denser population by the day that is increasingly intolerant of fossil fuel burning.
Clearly there are other factors like housing etc that impact how far people travel daily, but let's assume they're roughly constant and we look at where the collective investment goes on what and how to get people around more efficiently. On all levels. Time, resources, money, number of people the system can move about easily, the lot.
The system is *everything*. All of it. No system for people will be perfect for all individuals, and no system will be exclusively one thing.
Obviously. It's absolutely mad that that needs spelling out. That is totally a given.
I feel like I'm being straw manned because people are assuming I'm so thick that I can't conceive of people travelling in the rural world. FFS, it's really not hard to conceive. I have actually lived in a village for half my life.
Come on.
To give an illustrative example, my MIL lives in a village which used to have buses every 10 minutes either into town or the surrounding villages.
Now there's one every hour and it's unreliable, so everyone uses a car - problem for her, as she can't drive for health reasons, so she has to rely on lifts. That's mad. Busses would be able to travel faster and more efficiently because they're not snarled up behind private cars anyway.
For the further afield, shopping is done by delivery, and travel is done by I guess taxi to the nearest hub, or I guess a private car but let's assume there's nowhere to park?
I mean, clearly you've chosen to live somewhere where your primary way of getting around is private car, so obviously a move away from that is going to be more costly for you. Had that not been an option you probably wouldn't have moved there in the first place.
I'd be curious if you added the cost of your car over the years, how much more expensive it would be than taxis and delivery. If it's less than 4 figures...? Assuming you'd want to use your bike a little more too.
The MPG of a bus will be about 10-20% that of a car at best. Means you need at least 5-10 people per bus journey to make it more sustainable than individuals taking a car. The equation doesn't change if the fuel source changes.
If you have a bus service every hour from that village to Ricktopolis, or to the station that takes you into Rictopolis Central, do you think that would be sustainable?
No, it wouldn't, which is one of the reasons why there's no bus service any more (the economics of providing a bus service being somewhat correlated). You'd need a much, much larger population to justify a sustainable bus service, and that would be called a "town".0 -
"Get on your ebike and look for remote work" if I remember correctly.pblakeney said:
Fair point but's the starting point of extended commuting imo.kingstongraham said:
He didn't tell them to get in their cars, now did he?pblakeney said:
Probably born, educated, worked, married and died all in the one town/village.kingstongraham said:What did these places do before the 1950s?
Blame Norman Tebbit for the 80s onwards. 😉0 -
Cost nothing to buy (which you knew I meant but are being deliberately obtuse). Running costs have been minimal, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do all non-public transport journeys by taxi for less given the restricted bus hours from my home (technically in a city) to other nearby towns I need to travel to several times a week. The buses on a lot of routes stop at around 7pm and a taxi would be around £30-£40 each way.rick_chasey said:Your car has not cost you nothing. Tax, servicing, MOT, wear and tear, fuel, parking, all costs money.
On top of that it simply isn’t possible for me to do my job without a car and once you need a car the tax and insurance costs are basically the same whether you are only doing 1,000 essential miles or 30,000 leisure miles (running costs will obviously vary).0 -
That's where I am now with my Almera. When that dies though I might will go down the car club route.Pross said:
Cost nothing to buy (which you knew I meant but are being deliberately obtuse). Running costs have been minimal, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do all non-public transport journeys by taxi for less given the restricted bus hours from my home (technically in a city) to other nearby towns I need to travel to several times a week. The buses on a lot of routes stop at around 7pm and a taxi would be around £30-£40 each way.rick_chasey said:Your car has not cost you nothing. Tax, servicing, MOT, wear and tear, fuel, parking, all costs money.
On top of that it simply isn’t possible for me to do my job without a car and once you need a car the tax and insurance costs are basically the same whether you are only doing 1,000 essential miles or 30,000 leisure miles (running costs will obviously vary).0 -
OK so we've established cars are basically free.- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
A hydroelectric plant can be used as storage simply by varying the flow. That's why the UK's interconnector with Norway is helpful. It still requires nature to do its thing which is why you have named countries with mountains.First.Aspect said:
87% of British Columbia's power is hydroelectric. Austria 57%. Switzerland 61%. I don't know how much of that capacity is susceptible to pump storage, but given the right geography, it seems possible that it could be a solution to storing renewable energy.TheBigBean said:
If you do the calculations on how much water you need to raise, you'll find it isn't trivial unless nature has built a convenient mountain and lake.First.Aspect said:
Energy storage is trivial. Either use some energy to raise the elevation of water and then run it through a turbine, or use some energy for electrolysis to store energy as hydrogen and burn it to turn a turbine, or use a fuel cell.
Hydrogen could act as form of storage, but a lot needs to happen before it does on any real scale. The government had a very positive consultation on the subject, but then the PM changed and nothing has happened since.
Power storage with water probably isn't a large part of any solution here, which is why I mentioned hydrogen. We store and transport methane for power generation and hydrogen isn't that much more difficult (leaks are the main issue, because it is such a small molecule, but it is achievable). A bigger challenge is turning that hydrogen into electricity because although you can burn it to generate power the same way, its not as energy dense as methane and that isn't the most efficient way to get electricity from hydrogen. But there is ultimately money to be made so given time large scale fuel cell energy generation would happen.
The fact a historically awful Tory government full of ostriches hasn't made progress in the few tens of seconds since the last time it ate itself is hardly relevant.
I have posted a lot in support of hydrogen. I was mostly taking issue with your usage of trivial. For example, there are proposal to use old salt mines, but it's far from easy and is mostly without precedent.
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Pross said:
Who said that?pangolin said:OK so we've established cars are basically free.
Pross said:FWIW my car cost me nothing
It's just disingenuous nonsense, and I don't think Rick is being "obtuse" for calling you out on it. I think people kid themselves about how much cars cost them each year, and you only really take stock if you are going from a position of having no car to working out whether you can afford one (if then even).Pross said:Running costs have been minimal
Mine was only £1k to buy, I spend about £2k every year running it.- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
For cars there is a high initial outlay to get on the road but once you're on it, not much to use it. Very easy to see how that incentives the "drive everywhere" culture. You get things happening like my neighbour (in his 30s) drive the less than half a mile to the local coop to get the paper. Genuinely large swathes of people don't see any alternative; leaving the house = car.0
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Before someone jumps in - yes I'm sure many of you will have a lower annual cost than that. Many other people will have cars on finance and be spending far more. The discussion isn't about anecdotal examples it's about the amount of money the country spends on cars.pangolin said:Pross said:
Who said that?pangolin said:OK so we've established cars are basically free.
Pross said:FWIW my car cost me nothing
It's just disingenuous nonsense, and I don't think Rick is being "obtuse" for calling you out on it. I think people kid themselves about how much cars cost them each year, and you only really take stock if you are going from a position of having no car to working out whether you can afford one (if then even).Pross said:Running costs have been minimal
Mine was only £1k to buy, I spend about £2k every year running it.- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
Disagree. I think many people kid themselves that this is the case.super_davo said:For cars there is a high initial outlay to get on the road but once you're on it, not much to use it. Very easy to see how that incentives the "drive everywhere" culture. You get things happening like my neighbour (in his 30s) drive the less than half a mile to the local coop to get the paper. Genuinely large swathes of people don't see any alternative; leaving the house = car.
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
Trivial was probably a bit strong. But the technology already exists, which is less clear than the case for batteries at scale.TheBigBean said:
A hydroelectric plant can be used as storage simply by varying the flow. That's why the UK's interconnector with Norway is helpful. It still requires nature to do its thing which is why you have named countries with mountains.First.Aspect said:
87% of British Columbia's power is hydroelectric. Austria 57%. Switzerland 61%. I don't know how much of that capacity is susceptible to pump storage, but given the right geography, it seems possible that it could be a solution to storing renewable energy.TheBigBean said:
If you do the calculations on how much water you need to raise, you'll find it isn't trivial unless nature has built a convenient mountain and lake.First.Aspect said:
Energy storage is trivial. Either use some energy to raise the elevation of water and then run it through a turbine, or use some energy for electrolysis to store energy as hydrogen and burn it to turn a turbine, or use a fuel cell.
Hydrogen could act as form of storage, but a lot needs to happen before it does on any real scale. The government had a very positive consultation on the subject, but then the PM changed and nothing has happened since.
Power storage with water probably isn't a large part of any solution here, which is why I mentioned hydrogen. We store and transport methane for power generation and hydrogen isn't that much more difficult (leaks are the main issue, because it is such a small molecule, but it is achievable). A bigger challenge is turning that hydrogen into electricity because although you can burn it to generate power the same way, its not as energy dense as methane and that isn't the most efficient way to get electricity from hydrogen. But there is ultimately money to be made so given time large scale fuel cell energy generation would happen.
The fact a historically awful Tory government full of ostriches hasn't made progress in the few tens of seconds since the last time it ate itself is hardly relevant.
I have posted a lot in support of hydrogen. I was mostly taking issue with your usage of trivial. For example, there are proposal to use old salt mines, but it's far from easy and is mostly without precedent.0 -
It’s worth re-reading page 57 of the cars thread as a reminder of what Rick’s original argument was. He has started to backtrack slightly on this thread.rjsterry said:
F*** me. What is this chip on the shoulder of all the country dwelling townies.First.Aspect said:
The "carrot" approach to reducing car journeys is fine.rick_chasey said:
When I say sustainable, I mean, literally sustainable. Not euphemistically green. I mean, it cannot be sustained indefinitely. It I'm not talking specifically green or emissions or whatever, though that is clearly a part of it, as our tolerance for pollution and emissions will continue to be less. Clearly lower emissions travel is beneficial.First.Aspect said:
So you are effectively arguing that cars are unsustainable because they take up too much space, and journey times are too long?rick_chasey said:
I literally don’t know why I can’t make this any clearer.briantrumpet said:Stevo_666 said:
It's not nasty, we can just spot bollox when we see it. In this case it seems to be persistent bolloxrick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Shame you started such a boring thread, Stevo.
RC, if you actually read what I've written you know I don't like cars - it's why I started the car thread to get them out of the way of more interesting stuff. But you can expect pushback if you can't find the nuance in people's arguments against your unfounded assertions about travel outside of urban areas. You might even notice that I don't accept MF's arguing for the status quo. Most of us accept that there's lots you can do in urban environments, and that we could do a lot more.
Currently the transport system for travel is fundamentally oriented around private cars.
For reasons, such as the fact that 85% of people live in urban areas and the associated geometrical problems (traffic jams and car storage) as well as the sustainability of resources needed for mass private car travel, means that, in the future, it’s not really viable for travel in the future to be private car oriented. In plainer English, it’s not sustainable for the majority of journeys to be made by private car.
Instead, we are likely to see a system where public transport is the main way to travel and the roads are left largely to commercial vehicles and ebikes, not private vehicles. The challenge with public transport is the miles betwee destinations and those hubs and I recon the vast majority of those journeys are e-bikeable.
This is not an argument, despite everyone’s best attempts, about the sustainability or otherwise of rural living. Or a discussion about how car reliant everyone is. That’s a given because that’s the system we have collectively built. For thy very reason I don’t understand the “you drive a car, so you’re been a hypocrite” argument, as I’m saying exactly that - we’re in a system where private cars are usually the best way to get around so of course I’ll have one. That is exactly why i am saying about the current model.
If we spent what we all collectively spent on cars and instead spent it on public transport and infrastructure for more efficient travel, the quality and reach of public transport would be better, and I recon, sufficient for the vast majority of journeys.
For things like shopping, the roads could clearly be used, as they are already, for commercial vehicles to deliver. I can’t remember the last time I needed the car to buy something, and soon it will cost me £5 every day i use my car, so it’ll even more economical to pay for delivery. I’d be surprised if the delivery costs were more than a few hundred quid a year for most people. And think how much faster they’d be without private cars clogging up the routes.
Taxis etc could form part of the travel network too, and for obvious reasons, taxis are much more efficient for those journeys not serviceable by the type of network I’m describing. (After all, private cars spend on average 96% of their time not being used)
I am genuinely surprised this is so controversial. I mean, if you read anything into transport planning in the future, what I’m saying is basically the model the experts want to head towards.
In the scenario where the grid is decarbonised, are individuals' willingness to waste time in traffic jams and dedicate some space in their property for a car really anything to do with sustainability?
There are clearly economic arguments in favour of moving people around more efficiently, but that's not what you've been arguing.
Or are you coming from the perspective that the power grid will NEVER be decarbonised?
And yes, everyone using private cars as their main way to travel is indeed unsustainable, because they take up too much space and journeys by car will be too long. They're getting longer ever year. We also dont have enough of the right metals in the ground to put batteries in all the private cars we will likely need with the existing model.
Often the reason people drive is because it's the best way to get around versus the alternatives. But that may well be just because the alternatives are really bad, rather than private cars being all that good.
I propose that if we invested as much non-private car travel as we have done in cars, then in the long run we'll have a system that gets people around more efficiently: that is, getting more people around faster with less energy and fewer resources used.
One delivery van is a much more efficient use of all the things that go into a vehicle than the 100 or so people who the van delivers to going back and forth in their own car to the supermarket, for example. So you're better off sitting at home and having your supermarket shop delivered to your door.
The amount we collectively spend on cars is remarkable. Outlay for the car, servicing, fuel, depreciation, repairs, parking the lot.
Imagine if all of that was instead spent on infrastructure, public transport, deliveries, taxis and ebikes, and all the extra space we get from not having to park cars everywhere.
The batpoo crazy "stick" approach of making living rurally impossible, is not, however because there is a level of personalised transportation that is sustainable (for everyone, not just rural dwellers).
In your mind what is that level?
No.First.Aspect said:
Are you doing that forum thing where someone inserts their own agenda into some other discussion, then getting huffy?rjsterry said:
Think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Not sure there's any point me arguing with your invented version of what I wrote.First.Aspect said:
All things being equal, if it is colder outside, one will spend more on hearing. Scotland is colder than Cambridge.rjsterry said:
Is insulation not available in Scotland? This nicely illustrates the point that even with your pretty extreme scenario, travel emissions are only roughly equivalent to domestic heating. Also it hides that car emissions are much higher than rail emissions per passenger mile. Average car emissions are 220g/mile, so let's say 6,000 miles for a low-mileage year, that gives us 1.3tonnes of CO2.First.Aspect said:.
Extra zero typing on phone. Besides I was being conservative, more like 20k. Which equates to about 1-1.5 ton by your numbers.rjsterry said:
You are comparing different numbers of people. And who on earth does 100,000 miles of rail commuting a year. Even London to Cardiff every working day is only 70,000 miles a year, which works out at about 5 tonnes of CO2 emitted. The rural dweller will emit around 3-4 tonnes of CO2 just to heat his house, whereas a small terraced house is around 2.7 and that's shared between two people. I think it's likely the rural dweller will have a significantly higher carbon footprint despite working from home and cycling.First.Aspect said:.
It's the repetitive dogma that's the problem here.rick_chasey said:Lol remarkable how nasty the cyclists get when you say the car isn’t the future.
Let's have another go at rational discourse.
If we all had a houshold environmental impact budget to spend each year, which would be the higher budget?
1. Rural dweller, no kids, two low mileage a year cars, work from home/cycle commute.
2. Town dweller, one low mileage car, one child, 100,000 miles of rail travel a year.
I think we are at about 5t co2 for heating, but I live in Scotland at some altitude, and the house is all but detached. (Would be a lot less in the south of the UK, but I'm sure no one is suggesting we abandon the north because its more sustainable for us all to live in Cambridgeshire.)
Anyway, by the back of the envelope calculations, it seems like a close run thing doesn't it?
I don't think a 60 mile e/w commute is that extelreme. I know people who commute from Oxford or even further north to Central London. Edinburgh to Glasgow is 49 miles and that is an extremely common commute.
Rail travel, at the moment uses about 20% the CO2 as road. At least in relation to propulsion, this could hypothetically be zero in both cases.
RC and now you seem to believe that should both modes be zero carbon to that extent, the car but not the train, would be unsustainable.
Why? Make ypu argument, don't just keep repeating things like a simpleton.
BTW, it's not that difficult to build a house that requires no heating at all even in the frozen wastes of Scotland.
As far as I can see, RC has somewhat clumsily pointed out the bleeding obvious that car use for most of us (who live in urban areas) will need to reduce our use of cars. A bunch of country dwellers are then jumping in to argue that it's *impossible* because they might need to pick up a Christmas tree or something when RC wasn't talking about the minority who live in the sticks. I've already commented that there is still lots of room for improvement in urban areas where public transport infrastructure already exists. If you do live in the sticks and largely work from home, then as you point out, travel emissions and congestion are non-issues but the sustainability of your home is something that should be addressed.
Agreed that it has led to some equally ridiculous arguments to show why cars will always be necessary.
My biggest issue is the hypocrisy of saying how those who choose to live outside major urban areas should pay for their choice whilst absolutely refusing to accept that changes to working practices in his sector could reduce trips completely e.g. financial companies have to all be in Central London, meetings have to be face to face and constant bleating about his commuting issues.0 -
Well put.0
