Recently I tracked down an article on the annual electricity use of the New York City subway system: 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh). To put that in perspective, the entire U.S. economy uses about 4,000 billion kwh annually. According to the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority, there were 1.499 billion trips made on the subway in 2006. So it takes a little over 1 kwh to move one person on trips, of varying length, in New York City.
That's 4.1 million riders per day, on average. So if 200 million trips a day are required in the U.S. for everybody, and if everybody rode a subway, we would need about 90 billion kwh for personal transportation -- about 2 percent of our current electricity use.
For comparison, let's use Gar Lipow's estimation that a super-duper plug-in hybrid would travel 65 miles using 8 kwh. If the average trip was 8 miles, we would also have 1 kwh per trip. Something to strive for?
N.Y. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand answers Grist’s questions on the Kerry-Boxer bill
Comments
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wayneluke Posted 8:48 am
10 Aug 2007
However this is good for New York City. But if there are 4.1 million trips daily, that means 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the city population are getting around by other means. All depending on how many trips a person makes on average per day.
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:56 pm
10 Aug 2007
As far as all the other points, yes, and I will be following up with other helpful hints as I calculate them. And certainly, buses at 1 kwh per trip would be great. By the way, about 50% of mass transit in NYC is buses and 50% subways; 50% of the people in NYC don't even own cars. So even if you multiplied mu estimates by 10, you will still get to less than 25% of current electrical use.
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 1:22 am
11 Aug 2007
To make an apples-to-apples comparison with automobiles, you need to include the energy used for roadway lighting and signals, maintenance, policing, emergency response; operation of parking facilities including underground garages with ventilation and water pumps, etc. etc.
Ped Shed Blog
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:27 am
11 Aug 2007
The whole point of comparing any linear (trains, airplanes) transportation system to a mutlinode, infinitely flexible system (cars, bikes, walking, buses, taxis) is ridiculous.
All your doing is setting initial conditions (I think that everyone should live in Point B, and Travel to Point A there and back again, five days a week) that guarantee that your optimized system will work.
But what that doesn't take into account is all the other optimizations in the economy that the flexible truck and auto transportation system delivers.
Examples...transporting goods. Yes, you can put all your goods on a train in LA and ship them to NY -- but then what? You still have to fan them out to markets all over the place by truck.
What's optimized about the multinode car/bus/taxi/bike/pedestrian system is that anything that has to be moved place to place, for added services, like many of our goods, for initial materials, to reformed intermediary materials, to assembled product, to sales point, is far better served by the current system.
Unless you take into account all the energy saved, all the miles not travelled, all the optimized development of products, all the consumer choices, all the freedoms inherent in the mutlinode system, you can't talk to me.
John Bailo
Supratext:
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:59 am
11 Aug 2007
In terms of multi-modal, I don't think we will ever phase out car use entirely (unless civilization falls, and we are back to dragging our asses through a hothouse world hunting and gathering). But I suspect most people make plenty of journeys where if train were available they choose it in preference to car trip. So for ground passenger transport, the goal is a mixture of increased ground rail transport, advanced PHEVs, better facilities for walking and biking, and better buses where appropriate. (Ultimately for buses to compete with cars they need their own streets or lanes. You also need arrangement like trains have where traffic stops to let them by, so they don't have to stop at stoplights AND bus stops. This is being done in some areas.)
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:03 pm
11 Aug 2007
Now, whether we will ever get to that system is a question of, as they say, "political will", not technical capacity. As Laurence points out, there is much higher cost to cars than just the mileage -- the cost to the health care system from the deaths and injuries alone is staggering. But at this point, the entire planet is definitely in an automobile frame of mind, so I was just pointing out that 1 kwhr might be a good goal to shoot for, if the drive-anywhere-anytime-whenever-I-want-to-dammit sentiment should ever change.
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Pangolin Posted 5:13 pm
11 Aug 2007
So they just don't keep up and the roads are turning to mazes of potholes and patches. This is in California where we don't get freezing ground ever. Any future scenariao that doesn't plan for repair and replacement of our roads without cheap crude oil is defunct.
What is cheap to install, repair and maintain in comparison to roadways is rails. Overhead light rails in particular would be cheaper to install than to maintain the existing roads.
Personal Rapid Transit systems could have the capacity to deliver both people and palleted goods to local transit hubs. Using smaller pods would require smaller rails, less material costs and would deliver more passengers or goods per Kwh. Ultimately that will be the goal.
So whatever system uses the least amount of energy to build, maintain and use will ultimately prevail. In much of the world that will be bicycles on dirt tracks or boats in streams and canals. In the industrial world we can continue to invest in a system we can't ultimately afford or convert to systems that can be maintained on a renewable power stream. Cars won't be it.
Put the Carbon Back
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amazingdrx Posted 2:25 am
12 Aug 2007
How long until the light rail is a high speed renewably (wind electric)powered train in a tube? Direct electric rail power due to the closed and protected tube, no rain, snow, deer, cars, people wandering onto the tracks.
This sort of light rail could go well over 100 mph on longer trips. How much air travel and resulting GHGs would that save? Billions of tons!!
Only 1 kwh per trip in NYC subways. This system could be 1 kwh per trip for commutes from chicago to missneapolis, for instance, and beyond.
I think people would gladly leave their cars behind and shun planes as well for this kind of travel. They could take their bikes with them or rent a plugin hybrid at the destination. Early adoption of plugins lend itself to car rental better than private ownership. Fleets of rental vehicles are a great way to introduce this technology.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:22 am
12 Aug 2007
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Nucbuddy Posted 9:29 am
12 Aug 2007
No, Jon. Walking burns energy: around 1/8 kWh per mile.
walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm
uwsp.edu/CNR/wcee/keep/Mod1/Whatis/energyresourcetables.htm
In addition to burning energy resources, walking burns intellectual resources.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_time
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Jon Rynn Posted 10:24 am
12 Aug 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 11:20 pm
13 Aug 2007
Renewable electric freeway median light rail in tubes for all. A transportation revolution. Bike racks in the trains of course.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:34 pm
13 Aug 2007
Wealthy citizens instead of going to Disney world could ride these tubes and see actual crimes in progress! Much more thrilling than tabloid teeveee.
The frustrated criminals could not get at the people in the tubes. Hehehey. Rupert? This is an idea Murdoch is probably already working on.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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