question for phil about trains...
Phil; I've been thinking about the reduction of energy usage. Although I've not calculated
my energy usage like you have, I'm still pretty good. I cycle to work for example. But there
are occasional days where I get the train. (I don't (at the minute) drive in; hard to find parking and traffic is a pain. This may change when Claire gets a job and I have to take the kids to school...) So I come up with three energy usage figures.
1 - I cycle in. Zero energy cost.
2 - I get a full train (ie before 9am). The energy cost is the energy cost of getting
the train 6 miles divided by a full train-load of people, over two carriages.
3 - I get a half-full train (ie after 9am). The energy cost is the energy cost of getting
the train 6 miles divided by a half a train-load of people, over two carriages.
My difficulty is that if I am on the bike, the trains still run. And if I get to the station late, the energy cost has gone up!
So I think my big question is: should large communal public service transportation (trains, buses) be counted to individual who use them, or should they be counted to the population as a whole?
Is the argument that if no-one used the train, Adam Smiths' silent hand would come and remove the trains, and so the overall energy cost would fall? How does that balance with ego projects that are heavily subsized by the government?
(I thought that the TGV was an example of this, but http://www.railfaneurope.net/tgv/map.html as it as making a massive profit each year, and it's only blog posts that seem to argue that its subsidized. Maybe my google-fu is weak.)
Oh, and as we are talking about trains:
my energy usage like you have, I'm still pretty good. I cycle to work for example. But there
are occasional days where I get the train. (I don't (at the minute) drive in; hard to find parking and traffic is a pain. This may change when Claire gets a job and I have to take the kids to school...) So I come up with three energy usage figures.
1 - I cycle in. Zero energy cost.
2 - I get a full train (ie before 9am). The energy cost is the energy cost of getting
the train 6 miles divided by a full train-load of people, over two carriages.
3 - I get a half-full train (ie after 9am). The energy cost is the energy cost of getting
the train 6 miles divided by a half a train-load of people, over two carriages.
My difficulty is that if I am on the bike, the trains still run. And if I get to the station late, the energy cost has gone up!
So I think my big question is: should large communal public service transportation (trains, buses) be counted to individual who use them, or should they be counted to the population as a whole?
Is the argument that if no-one used the train, Adam Smiths' silent hand would come and remove the trains, and so the overall energy cost would fall? How does that balance with ego projects that are heavily subsized by the government?
(I thought that the TGV was an example of this, but http://www.railfaneurope.net/tgv/map.html as it as making a massive profit each year, and it's only blog posts that seem to argue that its subsidized. Maybe my google-fu is weak.)
Oh, and as we are talking about trains:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/organic_fuel.png
posted by Will Grainger at 10:14 AM
3 Comments:
I was just working out train costs last night! All numbers from David MacKay's book, as usual, but you can get some useful condensations here:
http://tartufo.physics.ucsb.edu/~pjm/energy/irvine.txt
For the train I used the mean number for Japan, 6kWh per 100 person-km. I think you could safely use this, and twice this after 9am, in your calculations. Anyway, it's going to come out that trains are ~10 times cheaper than cars energy-wise, and the non-loss of time seals it.
I think computing individual energy costs is absolutely the right thing to do: I believe in Adam Smith's silent hand as a stable mechanism for turning social epidemics into economic reality. I have heard the line about "the plane is going to leave anyway" before, and it's a total red herring - not only do transport companies have to respond to falling demand, it usually reflects the dangerous apathy in the apologist.
The energy problem is so big though, that government is going to have to step in as well - Adam Smith has short sight. Apparently sales of SUVs are back up over here after petrol fell back to $2 a gallon from $4 last summer. Emily's friend is campaigning for $10 a gallon - right on! Let's hope Obama spends his political capital well.
PS. 12 miles per day on a train costs 1kWh per day, or 2kWh per day if you go on the late one - you could balance even the second one by having one less beef dinner per week!
I agree that Adam Smith has short sight. But politicians often only look to the next election; at worst a couple of years!
I'm not clear that $10/gallon is a viable level. I can
imagine the truckers and other road hauliers complaining/pushing away from that!
Anyway, we are physicists discussing economics. Next, brain surgery!
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