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Author Topic: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure  (Read 8667 times)

Doug Fowler

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #70 on: June 12, 2021, 05:25:39 PM »

OPM, politicians love spending "Other people's money".

JR

PS: Ironic perhaps but some politicians are paying for their own private security while defunding the police. (I'll stop now and apologize in advance).

Good idea JR, let's not go there.

In Saint Louis County there approx. 88 municipalities/unincorporated areas.   Many of them are small fiefdoms, to the extent of having their own police departments.  There have been efforts to consolidate (STL City is not part of STL County).  Quite a few of the fiefdoms elect the same officials time and time again.  Someone could do a deep dive on not only the fiefdoms, but the "should city and county merge" question and find plenty of material.

It's a hot mess but (AFAIK) voters have never had a chance to weigh in on this.  One municipality (Bel Air I believe) just made a deal with a neighbor to provide fire department service.  Some other arrangements exist for law enforcement.  Overall IMO and plenty of others as well believe this should be "fixed" (apply your own definition here), send whatever revenue is collected to STL County, and let STL County police handle LEO.  Fire/EMS could be handled the same way.   The police stations are there, the fire stations are there, just rebadge everything "Saint Louis County", and fund appropriately.

I currently live in STL City, we have our own set of problems lol.



« Last Edit: June 12, 2021, 05:29:09 PM by Doug Fowler »
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W. Mark Hellinger

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #71 on: June 12, 2021, 06:27:51 PM »

OPM, politicians love spending "Other people's money".

The 4 ways money's spent: 
1)  You're spending your money on yourself.
2)  You're spending your money on somebody else.
3)  You're spending somebody else's money on yourself.
4)  You're spending somebody else's money on somebody else.

To the OT:  The 10KW solar panels on my roof more-than-likely wouldn't be there if it wasn't for our state's alt-energy incentive program.  I'll admit I was torn in my decision to purchase them, well knowing how it penciled out and who's paying the substantial portion that otherwise wouldn't have penciled out in the open market, while also knowing that I'd be a chump to not jump on the bandwagon... cause if I didn't jump on the bandwagon, I'd be one of those "walking" while in-part paying for the others who are riding the bandwagon.

In the past I've supplied the stage production (sound, lights, backline) for an annual festival in a nearby "golf" town:  Small town with really nice golf courses.  That town permits golf carts on the public streets... and during the suitable weather months there's electric golf carts "everywhere" in that town... typically more golf carts at the town's shopping center than vehicles... and it is nice:  Quiet, no parking problems, folks waving and smiling puttering around in their golf carts... none of them speeding... no golf cart cookie burnout tracks on the pavement.
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Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #72 on: June 12, 2021, 06:42:29 PM »

^^^ We won't even touch the socioeconomic elements of Shangrila.  Cuz where I'm at, many vacated apartments that were filled with military and defense workers in the 80's, downturn of the 90's - city found a great place to house Section 8 _____.  Today 20+ years into that condition, and now it's the typical throw more tax dollars at the problem - $3M traffic circle (lipstick on the pig) and converted YMCA with another $7M tax dollars for a community center.  No golf carts around here, plenty of hoopties though.
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Russell Ault

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #73 on: June 12, 2021, 07:16:33 PM »

I think I'll sideline this one Russ.  I'd like to see the math formula for education, local taxes paid per household in apartments -vs- houses -vs- schooling costs per student.

It's doesn't add up in my book using the rate per acre formula, as there are more students per acre.  Per household for school taxes is a lot lower in an apartment.  More students per acre, more toilets per acre, more crime per acre, more trash per acre, etc....
{...}

I was thinking more about this:

Let's say our municipality needs one teacher and one classroom for every 25 students. Well, obviously, these costs increase directly with the number of students, which will (roughly) track total population. Of course, now you have to get those students to and from school, and suddenly cost-per-acre rears its head (heck, if an acre has 1000 students on it, you just build the school there and the kids can walk). Garbage is an even more glaring example: the cost of garbage collection is primarily in the salaries of the people doing the collecting, and it takes them almost as long to collect the garbage for my one house as it does for them to collect the garbage for the whole 12-story apartment building I used to live in. Heck, even policing cost, while mostly population-driven, has an area component, since it costs more officer time (and vehicle wear-and-tear) if all the crime scenes are spread further apart.

(Just to see, I tried to take a look at the Fort Worth city budget but I give up; why is it so complicated?)

-Russ
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Matthias McCready

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #74 on: June 12, 2021, 07:51:54 PM »


To the OT:  The 10KW solar panels on my roof more-than-likely wouldn't be there if it wasn't for our state's alt-energy incentive program.  I'll admit I was torn in my decision to purchase them, well knowing how it penciled out and who's paying the substantial portion that otherwise wouldn't have penciled out in the open market, while also knowing that I'd be a chump to not jump on the bandwagon.

To be fair, while you were helped out by other tax payers is that inherently bad?  ;)

Right now purchasing US sourced solar is much more expensive than from other sources. The US is getting behind in the R&D department and does not currently have the infrastructure to build solar at scale (low-cost). It is my understanding that the incentives are in place to help jump-start this section of the national economy; an investment which should theoretically pay dividends down the road (without going fully down the keynesian economic rabbit hole).

Solar has improved over the years, and it will improve yet. The cost has come down a lot, and it will drop further.

Electric vehicles are coming (I will miss my diesel some). Automated vehicles are coming (I don't yet like this... I love driving). The way we collect energy is changing (Wind, Solar, Hydro, Nuclear, etc). Of course all of these sources of energy would probably be moot points if we can wrangle fusion power.

Each of these elements is going to have gigantic economic impacts, I think it would behoove the US (or any other country) to be prepared.

--

One could argue that much of American culture as it is known, and the current economy is based off of the highway system; this was originally a public works project. What will be the next such project which will change life as we know it?
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #75 on: June 12, 2021, 09:33:12 PM »


One could argue that much of American culture as it is known, and the current economy is based off of the highway system; this was originally a public works project. What will be the next such project which will change life as we know it?
One could argue almost anything...

The US interstate highway system was promoted by President Eisenhower  because of lessons learned during WWII (He liked that autobahn). Serviceable roads are useful for military readiness. Its hard to think like that so many decades later, but it was a valid concern at one time. The unintended side effect of promoting commerce was icing on the cake.

JR

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Matthias McCready

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #76 on: June 12, 2021, 11:06:19 PM »

One could argue almost anything...

The US interstate highway system was promoted by President Eisenhower  because of lessons learned during WWII (He liked that autobahn). Serviceable roads are useful for military readiness. Its hard to think like that so many decades later, but it was a valid concern at one time. The unintended side effect of promoting commerce was icing on the cake.

JR

Correct on both counts  ;D

And still strategically useful today.
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Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #77 on: June 13, 2021, 12:47:23 AM »

I was thinking more about this:

Let's say our municipality needs one teacher and one classroom for every 25 students. Well, obviously, these costs increase directly with the number of students, which will (roughly) track total population. Of course, now you have to get those students to and from school, and suddenly cost-per-acre rears its head (heck, if an acre has 1000 students on it, you just build the school there and the kids can walk). Garbage is an even more glaring example: the cost of garbage collection is primarily in the salaries of the people doing the collecting, and it takes them almost as long to collect the garbage for my one house as it does for them to collect the garbage for the whole 12-story apartment building I used to live in. Heck, even policing cost, while mostly population-driven, has an area component, since it costs more officer time (and vehicle wear-and-tear) if all the crime scenes are spread further apart.

(Just to see, I tried to take a look at the Fort Worth city budget but I give up; why is it so complicated?)

-Russ

Why is it so complicated?  Simple answer - they want it that way.  Very smart property tax planning scam they pulled at city hall.  We have the highest rates in the state.  When they slipped the harness on, nobody noticed.  How did they pull that one off?  By very clever design.  Simply undervalue the properties.  The tax hikes are already hard-wired into the system.  They just re-value the properties and the money flows...

Crime begets crime.  The high density areas are also crime hotspots.  How?  Simple, any given criminal has more opportunity for virtually any type of crime - robbery, burglary, drug sales.  Don't have to go far to peddle their goods, or prey upon the victims.
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Russell Ault

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #78 on: June 13, 2021, 05:50:25 PM »

Why is it so complicated?  Simple answer - they want it that way. {...}

Honestly, I believe it. Edmonton and Fort Worth are eerily similar cities (Fort Worth is a bit bigger by total area, but the populations are basically the same), but the budget documents are totally different. I really got the sense that the Fort Worth budget has been designed to discourage people from trying to understand it (which is a bit scary, frankly).

{...} The high density areas are also crime hotspots.  How?  Simple, any given criminal has more opportunity for virtually any type of crime - robbery, burglary, drug sales.  Don't have to go far to peddle their goods, or prey upon the victims.

I can't speak for Fort Worth, but I just spent about an hours crunching the numbers and, in Edmonton, this is demonstrably not the case. The most densely-populated neighbourhoods of Edmonton have crime rates (in this case the total number of crimes reported in the past 60 days per thousand residents) that are ~20% higher than the neighbourhood I live in (which I'm using as a control) despite having ~4 times the density. Conversely, the highest-crime neighbourhoods (with between 4 and 5 times the crime rate of my neighbourhood) and the lowest-crime neighbourhoods (with between one fourth and one fifth the crime rate of my neighbourhood) both have roughly twice the population density which, on its own, basically precludes any statistical correlation (let alone the attribution of causality) between density and crime.

In fact, looking over the results, a more contextual interpretation of the numbers suggests that the real drivers of crime are two things. First, neighbourhoods that are designed to support large non-resident populations (e.g. workers commuting to Downtown, or revellers heading to the bar district on a Friday night) can easily see their crime rates double as compared to surrounding neighbourhoods. As my wife points out, these are areas where a significant proportion of the people in them at any given time have no real investment (social or economic) in the area, and this lack of investment encourages carelessness (or worse).

Second (and no great surprise), crime rates pretty clearly track the prevalence of human desperation: the greater the proportion of residents in a neighbourhood who aren't getting the social supports they need, the more per capita criminal activity the neighbourhood is likely to see. Based on this, we can add an interesting twist to your original supposition: anywhere an increase in population density does correlate with an increase in crime is almost certainly a place where higher-density development is being done to such a poor standard that only people with no alternatives would ever choose to live there. Conversely, this also means that a correlation between density and crime isn't an inevitability (Edmonton provides a good example: our densest neighbourhood consistently ranks as one of our most desirable, and its crime rates are basically par for the course).

-Russ
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Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #79 on: June 13, 2021, 06:16:49 PM »

^^^ Unfortunately, how it should be or how it could be doesn't track with how it really is.
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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #79 on: June 13, 2021, 06:16:49 PM »


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