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> Or we can rethink our use of cars. I drive one about once per week. The rest of my transportation needs are neatly provided by electric light rail. How do you deal with doing groceries ? I have to do groceries for 5 people, have to actually cook for them about 14x a week, at, let's say, 150gr of food per person per meal, at 50% waste to allow for actual cooking, so let's say 150gr * 14 * (1/(1-50%))= 5 kilogram, plus stuff to drink. Humans drink about 1.5 liter per day. So all in all, I need the ability to carry some 25-40kg easily. How do I do that using light rail ? Note: going twice, by itself, increases the cost of groceries due to economies of scale. Going 5 times increases it by a lot, ignoring the lost time. Also, let's not pretend 12x1.5 liter bottles are easy to carry on light rail, even if it's just that and nothing else. Also light rail, at least in Sydney and London (ie. the metro), only connects places that are ridiculously expensive to rent, and to top that off, light rail is only a little cheaper than a car compared to using a car by myself. With 5 people, they are ridiculously more expensive than using a car. Compared to using a nice secondhand car and traveling 30 times a week (20 of which are simply dropping the kids off at school), the price difference is so high that we cannot discuss using light rail for this. So how can you claim that this is a solution ? When you're 20 and alone, perhaps. When you have a family, the financial difference is off the scale. Come to think of it, once I turn 60 or so, is this still your suggestion ? Because then it'll be physically impossible for me to do it at all without a car, just for 2 people. Personally, I think public transport is effectively a failure. The only function it has is to allow rich middle classers to travel in for their job from the suburbs, taking the car for part of the way. Aside from that it's useful for going out and the like, but it cannot reasonably be a primary mode of transportation. If it were up to me, I'd tear down public transport entirely and replace it with "uber rail cars". Replace all tracks with normal road, reserved for a government-run fast automated-cars-only network that get called on request using an app, with ride sharing. As soon as possible, make that a network for automated call cars that can actually drive to supermarkets, jobs, ... and use the extensive right of way that we have on rail to have essentially a better highway system. No more stations. No more horrible overcrowded-and-ill-ventilated-and-source-of-countless-infections trains (guess what industry I work in). > sugarcane ethanol, which has a pretty close to zero carbon footptint. It also has a 1.05 or so ROEI (or, more likely, <1, when you count full cycle) and is a gimmick. We can probably support a 1905 economy on it. We cannot support the current economy on it. |
Doing groceries is one of the reasons I still have a car.
> Also, let's not pretend 12x1.5 liter bottles are easy to carry on light rail
Water is transported in pipes. This reduces my need to transport beverages substantially.
> I think public transport is effectively a failure
Most Europeans would disagree.
> It also has a 1.05 or so ROEI (or, more likely, <1, when you count full cycle)
Where did you get that number? Also keep in mind ethanol manufacturing from biomass can probably be very optimized. Sugarcane is just one case that yielded an enormous success in Brazil.