What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 1, 2024 20:54 UTC (Sat) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459)
In reply to: What about the gas guzzlers? by Wol
Parent article: Opt Green: KDE Eco's New Sustainable Software Project

Of course saying "you have to throw away your car because it pollutes too much" is a stupid reasoning. In this instance as in many others, ecology is just an opportunity to force something onto people "for a good cause". In this case boosting sales of new cars.

For computers (including smartphones and other computing/connected devices), as for cars, production is a large portion of the footprint. The rationale here is exactly the opposite of what you describe: reduce your footprint by NOT changing your device thanks to less bloated/more older hardware compatible software. This makes much more sense than ULEZ.

Whether this can actually move the needle significantly and whether KDE's contribution is important is another question (and I don't have the answer). My personal laptop is a 15 years old notebook running i3 and it mostly works but what became painful is browsing the Internet. I fear that's the big problem here. I also equipped my two children with old second hand laptops running xfce and they can do many interesting things but for them too, Internet is a slow experience (but I was quite hardcore in the privoxy config so they have a very limited access anyway).

This situation makes me sad. We've managed to build an ecosystem that requires gigabytes if RAM and the most recent CPUs to display a bunch if text and a couple of pictures (and of course, execute dozens of MiB of JavaScript that you'd prefer would not exist)

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 1, 2024 22:32 UTC (Sat) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link] (1 responses)

I have a desktop that's at least 10 years old, and browsing the Internet on it isn't painful at all. Maybe check to see if you're swap thrashing. If you are, perhaps give Pale Moon a try. Its RAM requirements tend to be lower than the mainstream browsers.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 14, 2024 9:40 UTC (Fri) by mrugiero (guest, #153040) [Link]

Sometimes it's about specs. If you have a 10 years old system that was top of the line (even mid-range might do the trick) back then you'll be fine today. If you have a more average/budget/third world setup, you may experience the bloat more strongly.
It also may have to do with expectations (for some people waiting a minute is an opportunity to go fetch water and for other an insult) or what specifically you browse. Social networks, for example, are big offenders. In my case the worst ones tends to be newspapers that won't let you see anything without tons of JS. One in particular would fire up the fans of my then-new-high-end laptop. It's cooler to run Unity than it is to read the news, not exaggerating. Some people choose to or are mandated to use heavy sites for work as well. For example, a friend of mine appreciates the functionality of Notion, while at my job it's the official documentation platform, and at a previous job it used to be Jira. I certainly don't appreciate the bloat/functionality ratio of Jira. Notion is heavy, but I haven't seen anything as flexible before, so I guess it's not _pointless_ JS, though I don't really use it as more than a markdown platform in practice.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 1, 2024 22:50 UTC (Sat) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (20 responses)

ULEZ is a London thing. It is mainly about reducing NOx and diesel particulates. The point of it is that Londoners should be able to breathe clean(ish) air.

This is unlike concerns about global warming where it does not matter where the greenhouse-gases are produced.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 1, 2024 23:18 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (10 responses)

Except - one - it's not (just) a London thing, it's quite common in other towns too, now, and - two - it doesn't even achieve what it sets out to do very efficiently at all.

When it was originally introduced, there were a lot of "dirty" cars, in a small area, which was (still is) heavily congested, and congestion makes the problem much worse. Ten years later they expanded it, when the number of "dirty cars" was much lower as a starting point, and the areas are much less congested so a properly maintained car is much cleaner anyway.

And then we have the mayor accusing people of being anti-Science when they turn round and say the results of the initial zone are useless for predicting how effective the expansion will be! Engines are at their polluting worst when the vehicle is stationary and the engine is idling. I used to be a delivery driver in London for a while, and a considerable chunk of my working day was spent being the ONLY vehicle waiting at a red light! Fix *that* problem, and the resulting improved efficiency of delivery vehicles at 4 or 5am would probably have a far bigger knock-on effect than getting rid of those few "polluting" vehicles left.

The one thing they DID do which made sense, was to change the emission test rules, re-introducing the old rule that when you rev the engine, it mustn't smoke. That always used to be an MOT fail, then they changed it so it was just the "emissions measuring box" (and the vehicle could spew all the smoke it liked, so long as the box didn't notice it), and now thank heaven emitting smoke is an MOT fail again.

Cheers,
Wol

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 1, 2024 23:40 UTC (Sat) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (9 responses)

ULEZ(Ultra Low Emission Zone) is London specifically. Other cities also have clean air rules, but none as stringent as London(as far as I am aware).

The issue they are trying to fix is the concentration. So delivery drivers at 4am are not actually much of a problem, the gases will have time to disperse.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 7:28 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (7 responses)

But by making those deliveries take much longer ...

(a) those vans will still be there in rush hour, and

(b) BECAUSE those vans are there, rush hour will start earlier and last longer.

One of the best ways to reduce pollution, is to keep traffic moving. By keeping the 4am traffic moving, you can get rid of it quicker and the later traffic will keep moving longer. Unfortunately, so much logic is along the lines of "the obvious way to improve matters is to reduce the speed limit from 30 to 20, so traffic stuck doing 0 won't be able pollute as much". Seriously, I've seen that argument in a newspaper. Doesn't say much for either the writer, or the editor who thought it was worth publishing!

Much as people hate it, strict enforcement of box junctions would also help matters. Traffic flow (or lack of it) is one of the biggest problems.

Cheers,
Wol

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 10:33 UTC (Sun) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link]

Not true. You're being ridiculous. Don't make up random "facts" just because you were personally inconvenienced.

I'll stop here. It has very little to do with KDE anyway.

> Doesn't say much for either the writer, or the editor who thought it was worth publishing!

Pot, kettle.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 15:49 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (5 responses)

There's a reason why traffic light intersections in the Netherlands are some of the most expensive in the world. Because they do everything: networking with other intersections to coordinate timings, changing the timings based on actual traffic flow, switching to flashing orange when traffic is low (my favourite), cameras to detect cyclists and pedestrians before they actually reach the intersection, countdown timers so you know how long you have to wait, full redundancy, support for separate tram, pedestrian & cyclist lights, all the smarts. You can have them too. They make a big difference in air quality.

Except they're apparently around €1 million per intersection, so most countries just go for simple timed lights. Worth every penny though in my opinion.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 16:06 UTC (Sun) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (2 responses)

Interesting, do you have a link for that?

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 17:31 UTC (Sun) by rschroev (subscriber, #4164) [Link] (1 responses)

This video talks about some aspects of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbVWXzL4-4

It doesn't go into things like the cost or the engineering involved, though.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 21:14 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Somehow I guessed the maker of that video before opening it. He does great videos on traffic in the Netherlands.

He does touch on several important aspects. The traffic lights themselves are more complex and so more expensive, but that's not where the money goes. Just the planning of an intersection can cost quite a bit. It's much more than laying some asphalt, drawing some lines and calling it a day. Roads need foundations too (yay subsiding ground and rising water levels), there's dividers and colours, trams and drainage are also a consideration. Also, urban planning to remove through traffic from city centres is super important.

The reason why it works so well now is because the Netherlands started prioritising cyclists in the 70's. Since roads/intersections generally need major maintenance every 20 years or so, roads/intersections were simply upgraded when the maintainance period came round. So now many roads have already been through two upgrade cycles since then. These 3rd generation smart lights have been around for nearly 20 years which means nearly all intersections have them now.

All the cities going "oh, it's too expensive" are short sighted. Sure, it costs a bit more now and the first 10 years you won't see much benefit. But after 20 years the magic adds up and everything just starts going much smoother. It's not going to get any cheaper by waiting.

And yes, traffic light debugger is a real job :)

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 19:26 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Except they're apparently around €1 million per intersection, so most countries just go for simple timed lights. Worth every penny though in my opinion.

My feelings eggsackerly !!!

Even if they just switched off at night (flashing orange) when traffic is low, that would save so much in wasted fuel and unnecessary pollution.

And they don't even need to be at every junction - there's plenty of places in London where there's more than enough traffic at silly-o-clock to warrant them being on 24/7.

Cheers,
Wol

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 4, 2024 10:33 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Light that detect cyclists.... cry.

Here in the Celtic Isles our lights are typically modulated by pressure sensors embedded in the road, to lengthen or shorten green cycles according to whether there are cars going through a car or not and whether there are cars waiting at red on other sides. These typically sensors need at least 150 kg to trigger, according to a technician I spoke to a while ago, while waiting at lights (this was Ireland, DCC).

This is _infuriating_ if you're on a bicycle. And it means I end up ignoring red and just using common sense if there's no car behind me.

According to that technician, they can use sensors that trigger at a much lower pressure and detect cyclists, but they generally never use them.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 3, 2024 6:30 UTC (Mon) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link]

Sweden municipalities have the same. It's all about keeping the poor (often brown) people with older cars hidden away from the city centre.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 8:05 UTC (Sun) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link] (8 responses)

> It is mainly about reducing NOx and diesel particulates.

I'm not sure about London's one but in France instead of banning vehicles based on real emissions they are banned based on year of manufacturing. So some old low emission vehicles are banned whereas more recent SUVs with twice the emissions are allowed.

And VW proved how much you can trust manufacturers about their own figures for emissions.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 8:25 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link]

>So some old low emission vehicles are banned whereas more recent SUVs with twice the emissions are allowed.

"emissions allowed today" is orders of magnitude less than what old vehicles actually emitted decades ago.

Look at the numbers. The particulate and NOx numbers are constantly going down since decades.

Here's one example from Germany, but other cities' data look similar:
https://www.stadtklima-stuttgart.de/index.php?luft_messda...

On average, the replacement of old vehicles and industries with newer technologies clearly show a big improvement.

This has nothing to do with KDE, though :)

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 2, 2024 9:24 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> I'm not sure about London's one but in France instead of banning vehicles based on real emissions they are banned based on year of manufacturing.

London's is basically the same thing. Diesels must meet Euro-6 compliance, so basically 2015 on (our car was 64-plate - 2nd half 2014 ...). If you've got Ad-blue you're okay. Petrols are Euro-5, basically 2004.

Cheers,
Wol

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 16, 2024 23:03 UTC (Sun) by sammythesnake (guest, #17693) [Link] (5 responses)

Sadly, based on my experience making deliveries in a variety of vans, the Euro 6 engines universally suck to drive compared to their Euro 5 predecessors, and they don't even get better mpg... :-(

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 16, 2024 23:20 UTC (Sun) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link] (4 responses)

> the Euro 6 engines universally suck to drive compared to their Euro 5 predecessors, and they don't even get better mpg... :-(

The Euro 0...6 standards are _emission_ standards: they regulate how much a car is allowed to pollute, not how much it will consume. Pollution and consumption are strongly connected, but are not the same thing.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Jun 17, 2024 7:59 UTC (Mon) by atnot (subscriber, #124910) [Link]

Specifically mostly PM and NOx emissions. If you haven't heard the term "acid rain" in a decade, this is why. Or even smog in most cities, outside of the growing numbers caused by wildfires.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Dec 20, 2024 23:41 UTC (Fri) by sammythesnake (guest, #17693) [Link] (2 responses)

True, but they're also *newer* engines, and that's meant better efficiency almost every person of the development cycle so far, so I get the impression that the euro 6 emissions requirements might be deleterious to the efficiency of the engines.

Remember the "diesel gate" kerfuffle? The amount of effort that went into fooling the tests suggests that *some* unpalatable compromise was being avoided, and one that could be avoided without removing the whole AdBlue mechanism altogether - efficiency and power (which are related anyway) would be the obvious guesses. I'd be curious to see some careful measurements of engines before vs. after the recall to see what changed other than emissions. I'd wager a shiny penny that they lost a handful of ponies...

I did recently have a conversation with my garage, though, as they're fighting with the exhaust treatment stuff on my euro5 engine that the euro 6 engines are more *reliable* in their experience. I'm also curious about what's behind that...

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Dec 21, 2024 19:20 UTC (Sat) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

My engine was affected by the recall; like most engines in its family, it gets a little bit over its rated power, and is a little more efficient than promised when on the drive cycle, but the recall letter warned me that, while I would still meet the power and efficiency levels Škoda promised when I bought it, I would lose both power and efficiency compared to pre-recall.

What about the gas guzzlers?

Posted Dec 22, 2024 7:37 UTC (Sun) by joib (subscriber, #8541) [Link]

As the sibling comment says, it's about NOx formation. Higher combustion temperature leads to higher efficiency, but higher temperature also leads to increased NOx. Hence the latest generation diesels tend to have worse BSFC than the previous generation, in order to meet the emissions regulations.