Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

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mattaudio
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby mattaudio » April 15th, 2016, 1:31 pm

We'll get incremental electrification as technology improves, without overhead wires.
I'd really like to see technology improvements around guiding buses into and out of stations, starting/stopping, etc... It amazes me how uncomfortable buses can be due to accel/decel. Another advancement would be bus bulbs or bus lanes, significantly reducing side to side lurching. Not that this is really a comment for Robert Street ABRT.

David Greene
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby David Greene » April 15th, 2016, 1:31 pm

There's certainly an environmental advantage to electric buses, wired or not.

MNdible
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby MNdible » April 15th, 2016, 1:34 pm

Maybe for the micro-environment where the bus is actually operating, but as long as we're burning coal to generate electricity, it's probably pretty close to a push at the macro-level.

David Greene
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby David Greene » April 15th, 2016, 1:46 pm

Maybe for the micro-environment where the bus is actually operating, but as long as we're burning coal to generate electricity, it's probably pretty close to a push at the macro-level.
I really disagree. Coal is dirty, but there are scrubbers in the stacks. Doesn't get everything obviously. Moreover, electricity generation at power plants is orders of magnitude more efficient than the power generation done by a diesel bus. Finally, we're pretty rapidly transitioning to natural gas and in the long run we will move much more to renewables. Electricity is flexible. Petroleum is not.

MNdible
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby MNdible » April 15th, 2016, 1:52 pm


VAStationDude
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby VAStationDude » April 15th, 2016, 1:55 pm

Electric buses make more sense in cities with hydro power resources nearby. San Francisco, Vancouver and Seattle have that and hills diesel buses struggle to climb.

MNdible
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby MNdible » April 15th, 2016, 1:59 pm

And I'm not arguing against electric buses -- I'd like to see them rolled out more widely. They're just not the panacea that some think they are.

mulad
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Re: Robert Street Corridor Arterial BRT

Postby mulad » April 15th, 2016, 2:23 pm

Eh. The energy mix is changing so rapidly that if they didn't use the most up-to-date data, that study was probably outdated even before it was written. Coal-generated electric power has declined by 33% since 2007, with natural gas reaching parity with coal last year. Coal still generated about 2% more energy than natural gas last year, but that's a huge shift from a decade ago when coal generated 140% more (2.4 times as much) electricity as natural gas.

I'm not a huge fan of natural gas, since the fuel itself is a far more potent greenhouse gas pollutant than the CO2 it produces when burned, but it is the bridge fuel we are using until other renewables get further along.

Edit: Also, it really isn't hard to arrange with Xcel to get renewable energy offsets for electricity, like through WindSource. I've been signed up for that program for over a decade now. It costs a bit more, but still has to be a lot lower cost per mile driven than diesel.


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