The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I don't think there's much disagreement here, except to say that there's no harm in providing credits for carbon capture at an appropriate price. If it turns out that someone can make money through carbon capture (perhaps by planting trees), then great. If they can't (as is likely until the price is very high), then no matter.

An appropriate price would be the easiest way of proving what you say to be true. Better than having people claim CCS as a panacea and have the government arbitrarily fund schemes on an inconsistent basis.

I'm not generally opposed to CCUS, like say the groups that petitioned Parliament and Congress to oppose carbon capture investment.


But I am suspicious of the climate denier brigade that has jumped on the CCUS/DAC bandwagon lately, often to the exclusion of all other policies and efforts. Not to mention these folks often also oppose the very carbon taxes that enable the business case for CCUS and DAC.

If CCUS and DAC are simply part of the policy mix with an equivalent rebate price? Sure. As an alternative to actually making cuts? Nope.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I don't think there's much disagreement here, except to say that there's no harm in providing credits for carbon capture at an appropriate price.

How about the following properties?

- There should be a competitive market in developing, implementing, and marketing carbon capture schemes.
- The emitters should not pay more than the market price of capture.
- The whole system needs oversight because otherwise emitters will underpay for fake carbon capture schemes. Schemes that cannot be overseen are considered invalid.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

- There should be a competitive market in developing, implementing, and marketing carbon capture schemes.

There is. They are just usually expensive or sort of greenwashing. Or at least of a questionable value. Right now, 88% of all captured CO2 goes to Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). This is a big part of why so many environmental groups oppose CCUS. There's also the issue of what to do with captured CO2 with a (hopefully) shrinking oil and gas market that doesn't need as much.

Originally Posted by someone123

- The emitters should not pay more than the market price of capture.

It's not just the capture part. It's the sequestration part that matters too. Nobody wants to subsidize industry just getting a new working fluid that ends up back in the atmosphere downstream.

Originally Posted by someone123

- The whole system needs oversight because otherwise emitters will underpay for fake carbon capture schemes. Schemes that cannot be overseen are considered invalid.

And credibility is a huge part of why governments don't want to touch this. CCUS at a powerplant is fairly easy to monitor for compliance. Random dude offering up Direct Air Capture in his backyard? Much harder to manage.

Also, if you see the above link and read through, you'll see that a lot of EOR today uses terrestrial CO2 (carbon trapped underground). And industry is already lobbying to get out of having to actually capture and use captured carbon.

[Truenorth00]

I hope we eventually get around to talking about better urban design as a climate solution.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

We can't know that, as it totally hinges on the frequency of the trains. (As well as whether or not the freeway is packed to the point of being sluggish.)

There are more people in that train than you'd find in a train-length's worth of freeway, sure, but that's just a snapshot in time; if the train passes once per day, the freeway moves more people.

[WarrenC12]

The carbon tax needs to be over $200/t, that's where it's at in Sweden and they are seeing progress.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by lio45

We can't know that, as it totally hinges on the frequency of the trains. (As well as whether or not the freeway is packed to the point of being sluggish.)

There are more people in that train than you'd find in a train-length's worth of freeway, sure, but that's just a snapshot in time; if the train passes once per day, the freeway moves more people.

freeways handle way more people on an all-day basis than most think.

Downtown Toronto for example has about twice the amount of people drive into downtown every day on the DVP and Gardiner as take the GO train - but far more people take GO at rush hour as service is focused around peak hour commuting. A GO train can handle about 1,200 people at full capacity, and most GO lines run at about 20 minute frequencies during rush hour, about 3,600 people per hour. The Gardiner can handle about 6,500 people per hour at average vehicle occupancy levels (1.2 people per car), and it operates at that level for most of the day, delivering about 300,000 daily person trips into and out of downtown.

The 401 sees through one interchange, about 1/2 of all daily TTC ridership across the entire network. At one point.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

We can't know that, as it totally hinges on the frequency of the trains. (As well as whether or not the freeway is packed to the point of being sluggish.)

There are more people in that train than you'd find in a train-length's worth of freeway, sure, but that's just a snapshot in time; if the train passes once per day, the freeway moves more people.

We do know that though. At least when it comes to cities. A single GO train in Toronto moves over a thousand riders in rush hour. During peak traffic it would take one freeway lane an hour just to move that many people if they were all in single occupancy vehicles. There's no getting around the math. And there's no getting around the geometry of how much space cars take up, compared to transit.



This isn't a big deal when cities are small. But as they grow, the problem scales pretty damn fast. The GTA is now just ridiculous compared to say when I grew up there in the 90s. It's perpetual traffic. There's no rush hour anymore. It's rush hours. And can easily take over an hour to get from end of the 416 to the other off-peak on a lot of days. And this before another million are added to the GTA in the next decade. Building a lane or two more here is like putting a Band Aid on a sucking chest wound. Building up transit is the only real solution here.

[Innsertnamehere]

a freeway lane handles about 2,000 people per hour, not 1,000. The Gardiner, Lakeshore, and DVP can handle about 16-17,000 people an hour coming into downtown.

That is far exceeded in rush hour, obviously, which sees demand exceed 100,000 people per hour trying access the core during peak periods, but it is a substantial chunk of off peak travel demand, and remains basically at full capacity for most of the day. There is a reason automotive modal shares in Downtown Toronto are around 25% - that represents the portion of auto capacity in the city.

If you look at Chicago, where that image was taken, has about 29 freeway lanes inbound in the peak hour (compared to 7 in Toronto), resulting in a peak capacity of about 58,000 people an hour by car. This is still obviously way below total demand in Chicago, which is likely closer to 150,000 people in peak hour, but also reflects it's peak hour downtown auto modal share of about 40% of trips.

[lio45]

So (Truenorth00) if there's a GO Train every 15 minutes and the 401 has 6 lanes each direction, you're saying the freeway still moves 50% more people than the train... and that's if every vehicle contains only one person (obviously not reality).

I agree that freeways are wasteful, just pointing out it won't be very easy to change that. My best case realistic scenario is approximately business as usual except with everyone now in an electric car powered by hydro or nuclear. (Self-driving, as well; should help greatly with traffic fluidity.)

[WarrenC12]

All you have to do is look at the space they both take up. You can add an extra train every 20 mins or so and it's the equivalent of multiple additional lanes on the freeway.

Rush hour peaks area already the problem. With the GO train example, what would happen without it?

[Innsertnamehere]

yup, not disagreeing. Automotive mode's crux is peak hour loads, which it handles terribly.

Just more so pointing out that a 6 lane highway is often higher capacity than many think. The overall footprint of GO's infrastructure into and out of Downtown Toronto is larger than that of the DVP and Gardiner, but actually delivers less daily trips.

Transit is definitely needed for peak hour congestion, my point was more so that highways move more people than that image suggests.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

a freeway lane handles about 2,000 people per hour, not 1,000.

So 2 GO trains per hour beat one lane of the 401. I don't think that changes my point substantially. Especially when talking about a city where more lanes would either be exorbitantly expensive or ask but impossible. How much, for example, can they really widen the 401 at Yonge, at this point?

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

That is far exceeded in rush hour, obviously, which sees demand exceed 100,000 people per hour trying access the core during peak periods, but it is a substantial chunk of off peak travel demand, and remains basically at full capacity for most of the day. There is a reason automotive modal shares in Downtown Toronto are around 25% - that represents the portion of auto capacity in the city.

This brings up another point. Having that many cars trying to access the downtown core, means we dedicate an insane amount of some of the most valued real estate in the country to servicing them. Building six figure parking spots ain't exactly the most economically sensible thing.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

With the GO train example, what would happen without it?

I lived through a transit strike in Ottawa in 2008. Lived about 5 km from work. But it was winter. So couldn't really walk it easily. My brother was a grad student at the time. He would drive me to work and drive home. Nearly 1.5 hr roundtrip.

Don't build enough transit to keep up and cities get there naturally. Welcome to the Downs-Thomson paradox.

The Downs–Thomson paradox ..., states that the equilibrium speed of car traffic on a road network is determined by the average door-to-door speed of equivalent journeys taken by public transport.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down...homson_paradox

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The overall footprint of GO's infrastructure into and out of Downtown Toronto is larger than that of the DVP and Gardiner, but actually delivers less daily trips.

Isn't this just a function of a vastly underutilized track network?

Presumably, this ratio changes substantially with all-day two way 15 min service.

[Hackslack]

What about high frequency, rapid transit bus lanes? Are there dedicated HOV lanes on those freeways that rapid transit buses could use as well? I absolutely despise driving to downtown Calgary, let alone Toronto. I always take the bus.

[rofina]

Qualifier, I love cars, I drive, I enjoy driving (when you're actually, you know, moving).

But I can definitely see that personal automobiles are easily one of the worse ideas ever.

Where to start?

1. Emissions - this is obvious.

2. Road network - asphalt required, the bridges, the tunnels, etc. The water diversion that happens is horrendous and massive. The prevention of natural ground absorption. The heat effect; road surfaces absorb inordinate amounts of heat.

3. City design - car scale, not human scale. Suburbs, etc.

4. Car manufacturing - multi nation, global shipping, cars towing cars.

5. Car storage - we dig stories deep just to form parking.

If you combine the total human effort to accommodate our use of cars, its actually mind blowing.

[Hackslack]

People expect and desire the freedom to go wherever want, whenever they want, with whatever and whoever they want. The automobile allows them do that.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

People expect and desire the freedom to go wherever want, whenever they want, with whatever and whoever they want. The automobile allows them do that.

That's true. I have a car and enjoy it. But we've built a civilization that all but requires it except in the most dense urban areas. So it has been a self-reinforcing problem.

*IF* we can get to that future of shared autonomous EVs, that will free up a ton of money and space for people. I think many underestimate the cost of owning and running a vehicle.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

People expect and desire the freedom to go wherever want, whenever they want, with whatever and whoever they want. The automobile allows them do that.

The only thing the automobile changes it the time input of that calculation.

Its a device that provides efficiency.

Unfortunately, it was developed during a time where a risk/reward analysis was probably the furthest thing from anyone's mind.

Slower pace of life is definitely principally what's needed to guide us back to anything resembling sustainability.

That's part of the issue with all these discussion; the solutions are now left to the radicals, if anything is clear after this report is that only radical ideas would achieve the change needed to course correct from absolute disaster.

The solution is not, and will not be EV's, or minor changes or alternate fossil fuels, or clean tech, or more technology, industry driven solutions.

The solution is a complete change to how humans live; our expectations need to be realigned with nature and with what's possible.

What we want, partly because of our nature, partly because of social conditioning is to have our cake and eat it too.

We want to have Western comforts, and sustainability.