Global demand for coal falls in 2016 for second year in a row

[apdst]

Unlikely for quite some time.

That doesn't mean the driver can't be replaced.

A human can secure the load for quite a few vehicles in a given day. The robot can take the place of the actual driving. End result is still far fewer humans involved in the process, and significant money saved, because the drive time is still the time consuming, and therefore manpower consuming, activity.

Who's going to tie the load down and who's going to insure it's secirement between the shipper and receiver?

Straps and chains can and do get loose traveling down the road.

 

[apdst]

Unlikely for quite some time.

That doesn't mean the driver can't be replaced.

A human can secure the load for quite a few vehicles in a given day. The robot can take the place of the actual driving. End result is still far fewer humans involved in the process, and significant money saved, because the drive time is still the time consuming, and therefore manpower consuming, activity.

What if there's a wheel fire? What does the automated truck do?

In this photo you'll notice the driver was able to dolly down his trailer and pull away.

Edit: the second photograph. In the firsf one the driver able to extinguish the fire.

 

[Deuce]

Who's going to tie the load down and who's going to insure it's secirement between the shipper and receiver?

Straps and chains can and do get loose traveling down the road.

What if there's a wheel fire? What does the automated truck do?

In this photo you'll notice the driver was able to dolly down his trailer and pull away.

Edit: the second photograph. In the firsf one the driver able to extinguish the fire.

Potentially, the autotruck avoids the wheel fire entirely by continuously monitoring tire temperatures. Otherwise? Pulls over and stops. Worst case scenario is loss of some cargo. That's what insurance is for. So the autotruck can't jump out and apply a fire extinguisher to a burning wheel. How often does this happen, and how often would an unattended fire result in total loss of cargo? Compare the number of serious fires to the sheer expense of paying a million truck drivers their wage, health insurance, taxes, etc. In business terms, these are acceptable losses.

 

[apdst]

Potentially, the autotruck avoids the wheel fire entirely by continuously monitoring tire temperatures. Otherwise? Pulls over and stops. Worst case scenario is loss of some cargo. That's what insurance is for. So the autotruck can't jump out and apply a fire extinguisher to a burning wheel. How often does this happen, and how often would an unattended fire result in total loss of cargo? Compare the number of serious fires to the sheer expense of paying a million truck drivers their wage, health insurance, taxes, etc. In business terms, these are acceptable losses.

What if the cargo is 3,000 gallons of gasoline? Just let it burn? What if other motorists are killed? Is that also an acceptable loss?You didn't explain how load securement will be monitored and maintained. Who is responsible if a load falls off the trailer?Trucks are required to do an inspection every 150 miles or 3 hours. Who performs those?

 

[polgara]

What if there's a wheel fire? What does the automated truck do?

In this photo you'll notice the driver was able to dolly down his trailer and pull away.

Edit: the second photograph. In the firsf one the driver able to extinguish the fire.

WOW! :thumbs:

 

[Deuce]

What if the cargo is 3,000 gallons of gasoline? Just let it burn?

And what, exactly, is the human driver supposed to do about 3,000 gallons of burning gasoline? Your hand-held fire extinguisher is not up to this task.

What if other motorists are killed? Is that also an acceptable loss?

Handled the same way as current fatal car accidents, of which there are many. If Google's self-driving car is any indication, machines have lower accident rates than people. If you kill another motorist, is that an acceptable loss? If not, why do you have a job at all?

You didn't explain how load securement will be monitored and maintained. Who is responsible if a load falls off the trailer?

How is it monitored and maintained now? Who is responsible now?
It's not like there's some outrageous, insurmountable expense occurred by a load falling off a truck today.

Trucks are required to do an inspection every 150 miles or 3 hours. Who performs those?

You mean literally the most violated regulation on the planet after speed limits?

 

[MTAtech]

Well, one of the cheaper fuels IS a fossil fuel (natural gas), and is what is driving coal out of the market. The wind/solar also is, but it's mainly natural gas.

It means, well, coal is just obsolete as a source for electricity. The coal in Kentucky is also more expensive to mine than a coal mines out west. With those two factors, the jobs won't be going back to Kentucky , and the whole signing of the stripping of the environmental protections to bring back jobs was one big con game.

To add, and ignore 600,000 solar jobs to placate 50,000 coal jobs.

 

[beefheart]

What if the cargo is 3,000 gallons of gasoline? Just let it burn? What if other motorists are killed? Is that also an acceptable loss?You didn't explain how load securement will be monitored and maintained. Who is responsible if a load falls off the trailer?Trucks are required to do an inspection every 150 miles or 3 hours. Who performs those?

What if the human driver is hopped up on speed or has a hangover or is drunk, or is actually a werewolf?

Its inevitable...your job is being outsourced to robots.

 

[apdst]

What if the human driver is hopped up on speed or has a hangover or is drunk, or is actually a werewolf?

Its inevitable...your job is being outsourced to robots.

I'll be long gone before that happens and even wjen it does, it won't be total.

There's more to driving trucks than most of you realize.

 

[apdst]

And what, exactly, is the human driver supposed to do about 3,000 gallons of burning gasoline? Your hand-held fire extinguisher is not up to this task.

Put it out before it gets that far.

Handled the same way as current fatal car accidents, of which there are many. If Google's self-driving car is any indication, machines have lower accident rates than people. If you kill another motorist, is that an acceptable loss? If not, why do you have a job at all?

There's a big difference between a big truck and a compact sedan.

Of course it isn't acceptable. That's why I strive to keep my spotless record spotless.

How is it monitored and maintained now? Who is responsible now?

By the driver.

It's not like there's some outrageous, insurmountable expense occurred by a load falling off a truck today.

Ok.

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.fox9.com/news/investigators/23387416-story

You mean literally the most violated regulation on the planet after speed limits?

How does that justify it?

 

[beefheart]

I'll be long gone before that happens and even wjen it does, it won't be total.

There's more to driving trucks than most of you realize.

The speed of technology is gonna blind you.

 

[poweRob]

I'll be long gone before that happens and even wjen it does, it won't be total.

There's more to driving trucks than most of you realize.

Then you must be old as hell. They are coming and they will come fast when the floodgates open. Uber already has them.

 

[Deuce]

Put it out before it gets that far.

This doesn't put a fire out.

There's a big difference between a big truck and a compact sedan.

As far as the insurance company and the law are concerned, not that big.

Of course it isn't acceptable. That's why I strive to keep my spotless record spotless.

You strive, as does every driver. Commercial or otherwise. And yet, car crashes entirely attributable to human error are a major cause of death and destruction.

By the driver.

And the company. Who would be responsible for a driverless car they owned.

Ok.

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.fox9.com/news/investigators/23387416-story

Somehow, this cost has been absorbed by the trucking industry. Why did those loads come free? You mean the human drivers failed to prevent it?

How does that justify it?

If your suggestion is there's no possible regulatory framework that can handle driverless cars, I guess you're going to demand big government step in and make them illegal.

Autopilots make fewer mistakes than human pilots. Eventually that will be true of autodrivers. Sorry.

 

[beefheart]

Then you must be old as hell. They are coming and they will come fast when the floodgates open. Uber already has them.

I just saw a self driving Uber about 10 minutes ago, they are all over this town.

 

[apdst]

The speed of technology is gonna blind you.

So far, technology in the trucking business has done more harm than good. Having to pay $2.65 a gallon to put piss in my truck is the stupidest idea, ever.

 

[beefheart]

So far, technology in the trucking business has done more harm than good. Having to pay $2.65 a gallon to put piss in my truck is the stupidest idea, ever.

Truckers are a dying breed, I have a good friend that is a trucker, he knows which way the wind blows, he accepts it, he understands technology.

 

[Bergslagstroll]

In Sweden, we had an interesting documentary about the end of fossil fuel dominance. There Texas and Middle eastern countries try to adapt by investing a lot in renewable energy. While Wyoming is putting taxes on wind power and even have plans for banning wind power.

Also, how important economy of scale is to get lower costs. That Germany’s subsidies helped renewable energy to get the necessary economy of scale. While the demand for mobile phones, laptops and other mobile devices helped getting more and more viable cost for batteries to electric cars. There also batteries for storing electricity from renewable energy is getting more and more viable in cost.

 

[longview]

Again, that was my point. The person I was responding to seemed to think it was significant that bigger, more efficient wind generators cost more than previous versions. My argument was that the cost of the generator tells us nothing of significance in and of itself - we have to know output, etc., etc. etc......... to see what is happening over time to the cost per unit of energy produced by wind.

I can agree with that!

 

[longview]

OK, but to compare wind to, say, nuclear, we also have to remove the huge subsidies of nuclear energy, starting with the massive transfer of technology to the nuclear power industry for free, knowledge that cost taxpayers $billions to acquire. What price do you put on the fact that our U.S. military effectively protects the oil fields of Exxon and others worldwide? What price do you put on the diseases and other effects from air pollution caused by extracting oil from the ground, refining it, then burning it? Those costs are offloaded onto the public - over 300 million of us pay part of that cost by breathing dirty air. Keystone and others were granted the power of eminent domain to force landowners to sell right of ways for pipelines across their property. What's that subsidy worth?

I could keep going but the point is we as a country have long subsidized EVERY major source of energy, and it's a bit much to only now be concerned that renewables are getting their own subsidies like fossil fuels have enjoyed for many, many decades.

There are quantifiable subsidies and unquantifiable subsidies, I am speaking of actual payments to companies to encourage some action.

 

[year2late]

Frankly Trump's entire presidency and life strike me as a con game.

Perhaps if you go to Trump University you would learn that it is not.

Oh wait......:lamo

 

[longview]

Which is something humans **** up constantly anyway. Computers will get better and better at it as time progresses. I don't forsee human beings becoming fundamentally better at any of these tasks.

Your comment does not address how the insurance companies will assign risk to an unknown, and almost unlimited liability.

 

[Bergslagstroll]

There are quantifiable subsidies and unquantifiable subsidies, I am speaking of actual payments to companies to encourage some action.

That is one of the problem with having a society that focus to much of economic theories and neoliberal policies. That factors that can’t be easily measured and evaluated by those economic theories will get lower priority or be ignored. Like for example the effects and costs of pollution from a power plant. That this can both lead to suboptimal decisions making and negative effects for society as a whole.

 

[natsb]

No, what they're trying to do is give an idea of the unsubsidized cost of generation per mwh over the lifespan of the installation. It is necessarily complex, given the different methods, and variations within those methods.

What, specifically, do you take issue with? What indicates that they unjustifiably exclude costs from one form of generation, and then unjustifiably attribute it to another?

Okay, here is a specific. The Lazard report is using a figure of $2.75-$4.50 for off shore wind. The actual number is $15.79. That is a difference of 500%; hardly a rounding error. If we look at Government reports on LCOE, we see that Off shore is more expensive than coal. For that matter, the only thing more expensive than off shore wind is solar thermal.

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf

Here we go



sigh

1) Wind is represented as a range, which means it's not all going to be at the rock bottom of that range in every instance

Never claimed otherwise

2) Marine wind farms are much more expensive than terrestrial wind farms, and it's not made cheaper by the requirement to build as far off shore as possible (17-24 miles)

Never claimed otherwise. I hope you understand that the topic of my post was off shore wind farms; not on shore.

3) $1.40/mo is the maximum; $1 is more likely

I thing hitting the $1.50 cap is much more likely.

3a) The average MD electric bill is around $129/month; so at the most, that's a whopping 1% increase for cleaner energy sources that are closer to the consumers

Average is not an appropriate indicator here. Have you ever heard the result that the average person has one breast and one testicle. In Maryland there is a huge disparity between high income and low income. In other words, those with very low incomes and utility bills will get hit hard. The $1.50 increase is for the entire State, not just those near the wind farm.

4) Apparently, the legislature is throwing in a bunch of gimmes -- $76 million for a steel plant; $40 million for port upgrades etc

Yes, they are. And the predictions from the officials at Ocean City, are showing equal or larger decreases in tax revenue for the State, jobs, and local taxes.

5) Pointing to one or two examples -- which are likely still within the range identified -- does not refute the research that develops a national estimate of the range of costs per mwh for a specific type of power generation. That just doesn't make sense.

There are only one or two examples to point to. Are there more off shore wind farms that we are not aware of?

 

[Bergslagstroll]

You also have the World Economic Forum that says that renewable are now at the same or lower price than fossil fuel.

Just ten years ago, generating electricity through solar cost about $600 per MWh, and it cost only $100 to generate the same amount of power through coal and natural gas. But the price of renewable sources of power plunged quickly – today it only costs around $100 the generate the same amount of electricity through solar and $50 through wind.

Solar and wind power cheaper than fossil fuels for the first time | The Independent

Even if financial subsidies for fossil fuel are many times more than for renewable.

https://www.ft.com/content/fb264f96-5088-11e6-8172-e39ecd3b86fc

You can also question if the coal companies CEOs and Donald Trump cares about coal workers?

Because you have many example of CEO that don't care about the safety and well being of the workers. While Donald Trump give coal workers falls hope by promises drastic increases in demand for coal workers even if coal companies CEO admit that it will be no big increase even with Trump as president. While at the same time Trump cut back on programs that will help get coal workes new jobs.



Text about the clip:
John Oliver Picks a Fight with Coal on '''Last Week Tonight''' | Time.com

That all the talk about saving coal jobs and leaving the Paris agreement can just be a way for the big investors to be able to get there money out of the fossil fuel industry whith a profit. While leaving small investors, communities and workers with the cost of the decline of the industries. While at the same time either CEOs or Trump have no interst in helping workers and community to adapt to new types of industries and jobs.

 

[Tahuyaman]

The free market has a way of taking care of things.