Category: Travel

My actual travels, those I aspire to, and those of others

Trains and buses

Electric meter

Commenting on the possibility of Seattle installing a streetcar system, Dan Savage has argued: “People like trains. People hate buses.” Though public transportation policy is hardly his area of expertise, he does understand how people think and he is able to express himself forcefully and directly. On some level, it is definitely true. I like trains and subways. In London, I took the subway all the time; not once did I ever take a bus. Taking the train from Oxford to London feels like a luxury; taking the bus feels like a jerky, tedious chore.

In Heat, George Monbiot argues that the solution is to make buses nicer: cleaner, newer, and with attractive add-ons like wireless internet. He also argues that inter-city buses should avoid city centres, with all the nightmares of traffic and fiddly intersections they inevitably involve. While that would improve point-to-point travel in the UK, it doesn’t really reveal the reasons for which buses are treated with everything from moderate dislike to outright disdain. Is it a class issue? Lisa Simpson called the bus “”the chariot of the poor and very poor alike.” Is it a practical matter of comfort and efficiency, as Monbiot describes? If so, can it be overcome through practical measures like those he suggests. Are buses doomed to forever be an inferior good?

It is generally recognized that increasing bus services is the cheapest way of expanding public transport – both in terms of capital considerations and overall lifetime costs. That said, if transit use is significantly hampered by the dislike people feel for buses, perhaps alternatives should be more strongly considered. Arguably, this is especially true when it comes to people who have the financial means to use a car instead. If they get driven off the public transit system as soon as they hit that level of affluence, the system remains dominated by users without a great deal of political influence. In an argument akin to those about two-tier healthcare, it is possible that the self-exclusion of the wealthy from the public system perpetuates mediocrity.

One way or another, we need to hope that the private vehicle is reaching its apex in human history. Even with the eventual development of electric vehicles and other low or zero-emission options, the sheer amounts of space and resources devoted to producing and maintaining private transportation infrastructure are probably not sustainable. Given that it will be politically impossible to drag people from their cars kicking and screaming, we need to think seriously about how to encourage voluntary shifts to public or non-motorized transport. Better bike infrastructure and public transit seems crucial tot that campaign.

The efficiency of solar

Robert Rapier, petroleum expert, and Steve Heckeroth, writing for Mother Earth News, agree that solar power is the future.

Based on their calculations, the overall efficiency of biomass “from sun to wheel” is between 0.01% and 0.05%. By contrast, charging electric vehicles using solar power can produce efficiencies of 3% to 20% on the same metric. Electric drivetrains are also “5 to 10 times more efficient than internal combustion engines.” Even if power from conventional fuels is charging the vehicles, overall emissions are likely to be lower. It is also much easier to sequester greenhouse gas emissions from big power plants than to do the same thing with car exhaust.

If you insist on maintaining a car-based society, basing it around electric vehicles charged using renewable energy or fossil fuel generation with sequestration seems to be the way to go. Hybrids are only a minor improvement and hydrogen fuel cells are a non-starter.

Shipping and invasive species

Spiral staircase, Place de Portage, Gatineau

Globalization has been profoundly associated with massive sea freight shipments. Primary commodities flow from states with rich resource endowments to others with processing facilities. Labour intensive goods are shipped from where labour is cheap to where the goods are demanded. In the process of all this activity, a lot of oceanic species have been able to move into waters they would never otherwise have reached. This unintentional human-induced migration has occurred for two major reasons: the construction of canals and the transport of ballast water. This brief discussion will focus on the latter.

Each year, ships carry 3 – 5 billion tonnes of ballast water internationally. The water is taken on in port, once a ship has been loaded. This is necessary to make the ship balanced and stable at sea. The water taken on can easily include hundreds of marine species of which many of which are capable of surviving the journey. If they get expelled in a suitable environment, these creatures can alter ecosystems and crowd out local species. Sea urchins that have arrived in this way have been extinguishing kelp beds off the west coast of North America, destroying sea otter habitat in the process. Zebra mussels are another infamous example of a problematic invasive species.

Efforts to prevent the transmission of species through ballast water take a number of forms:

  1. Ejecting the water taken on in port in the open ocean: most of the species expelled should die, and the new waters taken on should be relatively free of living things
  2. Poisoning the creatures in the ballast water: this can be done with degradable biocides like peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide
  3. Transferring ballast water to a treatment facility at the arrival port
  4. De-oxygenating the water in ballast tanks: this kills most species, if the deoxygenated conditions are maintained for long enough

None of these approaches is completely effective. Each retains some possibility of unintentionally introducing invasive species. Several also have other environmentally relevant effects.

That said, simply making an active effort to prevent species transmission between ecosystems marks a big change in human thinking. Not long ago, species were often introduced willy-nilly into entirely new environments: for aesthetic, practical, or whimsical reasons. Infamous cases include those of Eugene Schieffelin – the man who introduced starlings to North America because he wanted to continent to contain all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare – and Thomas Austin – the British landowner who introduced rabbits to Australia because he missed hunting them. Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of such introduced species.

Today’s best biofuel: Brazilian ethanol

Montreal graffiti

Many people see biofuels as a promising replacement for oil in transportation applications. Indeed, being able to replace the oil that contributes to climate change and must often be imported from nasty regimes with carbon-neutral fuels from domestic crops has a great deal of intuitive appeal. For this process to be worthwhile, however, there is a need to consider both life-cycle energy usage and net carbon emissions.

A study conducted in 2004 by Isaias de Carvalho Macedo at the University of Brazil focused on the production of ethanol from Brazilian sugarcane. This is considered by the majority of commentators to be the most energy efficient source of biofuel currently available. This is because most Brazilian sugarcane requires no irrigation and must only be ploughed up and replanted once every five years. The Macedo study found that producing a tonne of sugarcane requires 250,000 kilojoules of energy. This represents the need for tractors, fertilizers, and other elements of modern mechanical farming. The ethanol from one tonne of sugarcane contained 2,000,000 kilojoules of energy. Furthermore, the plants that produce it burn bagasse (the pulp left over when sugarcane has the sugar squeezed out) and can contribute net electricity to the grid. Corn ethanol (the kind being heavily subsidized in the United States) takes about as much energy to grow as is ultimately contained in the fuel.

In terms of net carbon emissions, cane ethanol is also fairly good. Using one tonne of ethanol instead of the amount of gasoline with the same energy content produces 220.5 fewer kilograms of carbon dioxide, when all aspects of production and usage are considered. Burning one litre of gasoline produces about 640 grams of carbon dioxide. Since ethanol has about 25% less energy than gasoline, the relevant comparison is between 1,000 kilograms of ethanol and 750 kilos of gasoline. The gasoline would emit 460 kilos of carbon dioxide, while the ethanol would emit 259.5 kilos.

This is an improvement over the direct use of fossil fuels, but not a massive one. The Macedo study concludes that widespread ethanol use reduces Brazilian emissions by 25.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Their total carbon emissions from fossil fuels are about 92 million tonnes per year – a figure that increases substantially if deforestation is included.

The conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that ethanol – even when produced in the most efficient way – is not a long-term solution. Producing 259.5 kilos of carbon is more sustainable than producing 460, but it isn’t an adequate reduction in a world that has to cut from about 27 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to five. Bioethanol may become more viable with the development of cellulosic technology (a subject for another post), but is certainly no panacea at this time.

References:

[Update: 8:54am] The above numbers on carbon dioxide emissions produced by gasoline per kilometre are disputed. If someone has an authoritative source on the matter, please pipe up.

Montreal Sous Bois Hostel: WiFi and bedbugs included

The Sous Bois hostel in Montreal is quite a lively place. In some ways, it is an unusually good establishment. The atmosphere is positive, there is free wireless internet, the location is good, and the facilities are fairly well maintained. One nice touch is providing a big bowl of earplugs (a necessity in almost any hostel).

The biggest problem with the Sous Bois, in my experience, is the bedding. The bunks consist of squeaky air mattresses and the sheets they provide are awfully scanty for Montreal in winter. It is a good thing I ended up sleeping in my shoes, trousers, and jacket, since I woke up with my hands and ankles covered in small, itchy insect bites. All told, I have about 100 of them, after two nights in the place. Lots of other ex-guests mention the bugs, which demonstrates the importance of researching low-cost accommodations, rather than choosing one that appears high on Google and has a nice webpage. The lack of secure storage facilities is also a problem.

This definitely wasn’t the worst hostel I have stayed in (the Hosteling International places across from St. Mark’s Square in Venice and on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City share that dishonour), but it isn’t one I would be quick to stay in again.

[Update: 29 October 2007] This afternoon I spoke with Fred Bouchard, a manager at the Sous Bois Hostel. He seemed suspiciously familiar with bedbugs: asking me whether the bites were clustered in lines (as bedbug bites are) and then telling me that the hostel policy was to refund the cost of your stay (within two weeks) and to pay for any bite-related medications prescribed by a doctor. He told me to see a doctor immediately and that I need to either immerse everything I had with me in boiling water or put it through the dryer on high for at least half an hour. Once it gets cold enough, I will freeze the suit-carrying luggage that is presently in garbage bag quarantine for at least three days.

It seems pretty clear that this hostel is well aware of their infestation. That probably explains the minimal sheets and the air mattresses, as well as the ease with which the staff recall their bedbug policies. Once I find the right phone number within the City of Montreal bureaucracy, I will file a report with the public health authorities. In some cases, bedbugs can carry hepatitis; also, infestations that people bring home could easily cost thousands of dollars to clear up. As such, it seems reasonable that the city authorities would be concerned that this place is still operating in such a dodgy manner.

[Update: 31 October 2007] The hostel refunded me for my stay. One person contacted me through one of the hosteling webpages to tell me that they gave her a refund too, after she found their non-paying guests snacking on her.

Francophone drizzle

So far, Montreal is proving disappointingly soggy – so much so that I fear for my laptop whenever I venture out of cafes. All of today has been marked with persistent drizzle and punctuated by proper downpours at regular intervals. Last night involved some good fireworks, scores of people tramping around the Old Town in Halloween costumes, extensive conversation with people in the hostel, and a very late night introduction to the actual game of dominoes (rather than the practice of knocking them down sequentially).

For now, I am off to seek something both non-inundative and interesting to do for the evening. Quite possibly, I will make my way over to the Plateau, near Mont Royal itself.

Post-conference

I have made my Montreal transition from ‘official business’ to ‘touristic exploration.’ Having traded a suit and tie for cargo pants and a microfibre shirt – and a hotel bed for a hostel air mattress – I am off to explore the city a bit.

My earlier request for information about any good plays, art shows, concerts, or other entertainments is re-affirmed with added urgency.

Three city tour

Vancouver skyline

During the next three weeks, I am doing a bit of a tour of eastern Canadian cities. From tonight until Sunday, I will be in Montreal. I will be busy with work until Friday, but should have the weekend to appreciate the city. Montreal is definitely one of the most interesting places in Canada. It always seems more culturally vibrant than Toronto or Vancouver, particularly in the summer. If anybody knows of interesting events happening in Montreal during the upcoming weekend (concerts, art shows, plays, etc), I would really appreciate knowing about it.

From the evening of November 9th until the evening of the 12th, I am going to be in Toronto. While that is mostly for purposes of visiting family, I would also be keen to meet up with friends who will be around then. Six weeks after that, I will be in Vancouver.

Getting a bit of such travel in before this whole region becomes an ice cube seems like a good idea. That said, it has apparently been an unusually warm fall (bad news for the pine trees). Right now, it is 20°C outside, and it has been uncomfortably warm to bicycle uphill in a jacket recently, even in the middle of the night. I haven’t found it problematic to be walking to and from work in a dress shirt and no jacket, except where sudden downpours or puddle-splashing trucks have left me sopping. My historical chart suggests that temperatures at this time of year should be about 9°C. The fourteen day trend suggests that they will be getting closer to that vicinity pretty soon.

Soggy runways

While they only represent a relatively small fraction of total emissions now, greenhouse gasses from air travel are growing rapidly. That said, one largely unanticipated check against their long-term rise may exist, if the potential sea rise effects of the disintegration of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets become manifest.

This clever Google Maps mashup will show you what I mean:

Adding 7m to global sea levels (consistent with the melting of all of Greenland, all of West Antarctica, or half of each) would definitely drown a lot of runways. The Tokyo and London airports seem likely to be high and dry, though the cities themselves would be far from it.

Language training

Meaghan Beattie and giant pumpkin

My command of French has been in long-term decline since I graduated from elementary school and left the immersion program – with upticks in facility corresponding to some university courses and the Summer Language Bursary Program. Now, I am considering options to get back in stride a bit. I considered taking courses at Oxford, but lacked the time, money, and immediate reason for doing so.

One possibility I am considering is Rosetta Stone: interactive language software used by a number of branches of the American government and military. Buying the software is quite expensive but, due to an odd quirk, you can get access for $30 a year by getting a library card in Chattanooga. Has anyone used this software? I have seen mixed reviews, and am not sure if it is the best choice to resurrect my lumbering zombie French. I hear that the software is quite engaging, but also that it lacks cultural sensitivity and sometimes teaches words that are technically correct but rare in popular usage. Also, it is presumably focused on Parisian French rather than the Quebecois variety – though I might be forgiven for seeing the appeal of the former type of pronounciation, if only because it might be more easily understood when visiting other French-speaking parts of the world.

Other ideas would be appreciated. I really dislike listening to the radio, so French language news is largely out as a refresher possibility.