Americans favor tougher fuel economy standards. This according to a poll of 1k voters performed by The [not entirely objective on the issue] Pew Campaign for Fuel Efficiency and the [equally industry antagonistic] National Environmental Trust. While failing to report the totals (86 percent in favor, 11 percent opposed, three percent couldn't be bothered), The Car Connection was happy to share the pollster's conclusion that the nationwide survey proves that U.S. voters consider their dependence on foreign oil to be the nation's top national security issue. So those polled want the feds to fix it by forcing the automakers to spend billions to engineer higher fuel mileage vehicles in fifteen years (that security-conscious consumers may or may not buy) instead of making any kind of personal sacrifice to cut oil consumption now. Heaven forbid they should have to give up their big pickup trucks, SUVs, motorhomes and powerboats or change their driving habits to help accomplish that goal.
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These people never give up do they?
The market will sort this problem out on its own as the big 3 are learning the hard way with rapidly declining truck and suv sales.
duh!
Reduce dependence on foreign oil… and replace it with what? America’s vast untapped oil reserves?
Drive less… not necessarily smaller, turn the heat and/or AC down, close the pool earlier and make sure the kids turn the TV and lights off!
You’d be surprised what else can be done to save a barrel of crude other than buy an econobox.
My favorite economic principle is “revealed preference.” People will lie to their friends and lie to themselves and they’ll certainly lie to pollsters. (When the happy day comes that some pollster calls me, I’ll be lying my sack off just for kicks).
BUT … when that person goes and actually spends $50,000 buying a Chevy Tahoe, then you know exactly where they really stand concerning the importance of fuel economy. I like this example because my sister (“oh why can’t we do anything about oil, we’re going to run out!) just swapped her previous Tahoe for a newer one.
The truth will set you free.
Let the market decide fuel efficiency.
When buyers demand more fuel efficient vehicles, manufacturers will build them.
No force required. Voluntary exchange. No threats of government violence necessary.
I think it was Gregg Easterbrook that said that if you torture numbers, they’ll confess to anything.
The real truth is that instead of figuring out how to size our lives correctly – we just want what we want without any compromises. Americans seem to be TERRIBLE at compromise. We could drive more slowly and save. We could combine our trips better and save. We could carpool and save. We could bike or take public transit in many cases and save. But no.
Legislation on CAFE is completely unnecessary here. The markets are doing their job without the government intervening. There are dozens of hybrids set to debut in the next couple year. And most companies are launching new engine lines and transmissions within the next year or two that all boast improved fuel economy. Most automotive groups are also looking at lighter materials, redesigned electrical systems and other technologies that, individually, may only contribute a little, but as a whole can really boost a car’s mileage.
If we want to consider anything, let’s consider a carbon tax or a gasoline tax (or both). Taxes efficiently cause shifts in our bundles as opposed to CAFE standards which leave us demanding certain vehicle properties but not being able to necessarily get them because of what automakers have to produce and the cost at which they produce them.
@Tommy Jefferson
Exactly right. Even without CAFE, Detroit was forced to build more economical cars after the 1973 oil shock. By the time government reacted to the fuel crisis in 1981, the low-teens MPG big block engines were on the endangered species list.
As a matter of fact, with Detroit unable to build larger sedans in sizable numbers in the 90s, it resorted to applying the bling to truck and SUVs, for which we are still paying the price today.
At least the Big 2.789234 is trying to catch up with 30+ MPG-mobiles. Whether they are worthy competitors or alternatives to the Camcord will be left up to the public to decide.
What we DON’T need are fuel or dubious carbon taxes. If, as some pundits argue, we are close to Hubbert’s peak, then this will take care of itself.
RobertSD: We could drive more slowly and save.
Actually, I’ve always wondered about that. Since most of us don’t want to drive more slowly, why not engineer cars that are more efficient at higher speeds? I want to say that most cars now are most efficient at something like 50-55 MPH, but since no one actually drives those speeds, why not make cars that are more efficient at the real average cruising speed, 75-80 MPH?
Let’s include the cost of the war in Iraq in the price of gasoline. And add a fat carbon tax. That will make people reconsider gas guzzlers.
It could be great for the car industry too: they would get to sell lots of new shiny fuel-efficient vehicles to replace all those old clunkers.
pfingst: There are tricks with gearing (6-speeds versus 4) and engine optimization (torque and hp curves) and then improvements to cd that help cars run very efficiently at higher speeds, but it’s not a simple combination of things.
Your resistance due to friction is still greater at 75-80 than it is at 60-65. And all those above improvements don’t help when you sprint impatiently from 0-45 on a 35 road – and not much could help that other than the car only allowing for “x” acceleration.
And I really don’t need a car to tell me how fast/slow to accelerate or cruise.
83% of statistics are made up.
Better yet, make that 91%.
I think a lot of people think that higher fuel economy standards won’t affect their (gas-guzzling) vehicle of choice. Their F-150 will magically get 25mpg without any other changes.
People want a 35 MPG Tahoe and they don’t want to pay a lot…Does the “poll” show this?
These people would probably also vote to ban dihydrogen monoxide. If they actually wanted better fuel economy, they’d buy vehicles with better fuel economy.
pfingst :
November 12th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Actually, I’ve always wondered about that. Since most of us don’t want to drive more slowly, why not engineer cars that are more efficient at higher speeds? I want to say that most cars now are most efficient at something like 50-55 MPH, but since no one actually drives those speeds, why not make cars that are more efficient at the real average cruising speed, 75-80 MPH?
We can’t change physics. The power needed to overcome aerodynamic drag, which dominates power consumption at higher speeds, is proportional to the cube of velocity. If you double your speed, the aerodynamic drag on your car is four times as high and requires eight times as much power to overcome it. You can improve fuel economy at higher speeds by using body shape to lower the drag coefficient. But once you’re past that point of optimum fuel efficiency (usually 30 to 40 mph) your fuel economy will suffer as you go faster.
Maybe I’m professing my ignorance of economics here, but it seems that a gas tax would equate to an increase in cost-of-goods-sold (raising my landed costs), since most consumer level items these days are delivered via “just-in-time” services via truck. This could be a highly efficient contributing factor toward a recession for the US economy.
What would be the offsetting benefit? More jobs created? If so, where? Where would this money go?
I’m asking this honestly, because I have yet to hear a really good argument for a gas tax.
jrlombard :
November 12th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Maybe I’m professing my ignorance of economics here, but it seems that a gas tax would equate to an increase in cost-of-goods-sold (raising my landed costs), since most consumer level items these days are delivered via “just-in-time” services via truck. This could be a highly efficient contributing factor toward a recession for the US economy.
What would be the offsetting benefit?
Less consumption. If peak oil theory is true, the current U.S. economy is not sustainable and it’s probably better to artificially reduce energy dependency to more reasonable levels than to wait and hope the economy doesn’t entirely collapse at some point.
I agree with RobertSD that we should have a carbon tax. That would let people determine through the market how best they want to use fossil fuels. I would also favor a consumption tax, to discourage people from trying to keep up with the joneses. (read luxury fever, by Robert Frank. He explains, and there are plenty of studies to back this kind of behavior, that a lot of buying of bigger cars, trucks and houses is a vicious circle of status-maintenance.)
We could drive more slowly and save. We could combine our trips better and save. We could carpool and save.
I have tested this dubious proposition many times. The latest was just last week. I was able to do a 70 mile segment of a 150 miles each way trip on open freeway where prevailing speed was over 80mph. Calm day, no wind, stable temperature, no difference in grade each direction.
I drove an average of 67mph one way, 82mph the other. At 67mph, my car turned in 24mpg. At 82mph, it sucked fuel at 27.5mpg. This is in a car with 443 hp and a 6 speed transmission.
Now, there are always variables in an uncontrolled test even when it seems there aren’t. I haven’t had the patience to sustain a freeway drive at 50 – 55mph for comparison (it might be life-threatening to try) but results like the above have been realized in many different informal trials and with multiple modern cars.
If we want to consider anything, let’s consider a carbon tax or a gasoline tax (or both). Taxes efficiently cause shifts in our bundles as opposed to CAFE standards which leave us demanding certain vehicle properties but not being able to necessarily get them because of what automakers have to produce and the cost at which they produce them.
And to what would you like to allocate these newfound dollars flowing into the government? Debt reduction? More efficient roads? Pay and benefits upgrade for our volunteer military? Pick something that has real social and / or economic benefit outweighing the cost of taking dollars out of consumers’ hands faster than the market would for the same commodity alone, and then make it stick. Otherwise, the tax will become another government dependency that will put the government in the interesting position of rooting for us all to burn more fuel while taxing to discourage it.
Phil
To be honest, the most terrifying aspect of our current “oil shortage/global warming” fears lies in all of the “energy saving tips,” such as the one in the photo caption. Fight OPEC by staying at home?
Combine this with other now-conventional wisdom — telecommute, move to cramped urban apartments and “the best trip is the one not taken,” — and suddenly life doesn’t seem very enjoyable. You toil for your entire life only to live in a 300 sq. ft. studio with five other people and never get to leave?
I recognize that I’m using considerable hyperbole here, but I shudder whenever the solution to the supposed energy crisis is posited as a simple matter of not enjoying life fully. Visiting relatives, road tripping across America — I consider these to be integral parts of enjoying life. Heck, even going in to work every day breaks up the monotony of life and exposes you to new and interesting people.
If peak oil theory is true, the current U.S. economy is not sustainable and it’s probably better to artificially reduce energy dependency to more reasonable levels than to wait and hope the economy doesn’t entirely collapse at some point.
It probably isn’t. Cambridge Energy Research estimates recoverable reserves in the planet at about 3X all the oil pumped out of the ground to date. Then there is a vast shale oil reserve in a relatively compact area of the US Rocky Mountain states that becomes economically recoverable as conventional oil prices rise. Oil may get more expensive, but it’s our ability to pay for it and to recover new forms of oil at those higher prices that matters. Peak Oil isn’t a threat to us.
http://www.cera.com/aspx/cda/public1/news/pressReleases/pressReleaseDetails.aspx?CID=8444
Liquid fuels are essential to personal transportation, and personal mobility is essential to prosperity and economic flexibility. There are good reasons to burn oil more frugally having nothing to do with planetary supply, however. But those reasons aren’t worth rolling back the benefits of a highly mobile society.
read luxury fever, by Robert Frank. He explains, and there are plenty of studies to back this kind of behavior, that a lot of buying of bigger cars, trucks and houses is a vicious circle of status-maintenance
Yup, but this isn’t going to change. If it’s not bigger cars and houses it will be something else. In the grand scheme of status behavior, cars are relatively benign. Unless we’re all going the Calvinist or Amish route, you have to rewire the human being to get away from that.
Phil
Regarding physics:
–Aerodynamic friction losses goes with the square of vehicle speed, not the cube. Specifically the drag is air density * cross_sectional_area * coefficient_of_drag * velocity^2. Reducing the area (not a pickup)or the Cd (Honda insight) can make the effect less steep, but you can’t get rid of the velocity^2 term. Slower is generally better.
–Other losses can sometimes come into play. For instance engine friction is lowest at low engine speeds, so it is best to be in top gear, with a locked torque converter. Most vehicles reach top gear – locked up at about 40-45 MPH. This is usually where peak MPG occurs.
–The absolute best fuel economy is at zero speed, in the garage while you walk to the store:)
–I can’t explain the person who got better MPG at higher speed. It is most liklely experimental noise. Try repreating the test, mixing up the direction, for several days.
–I often advocate gas taxes on this site, but only as an economically efficient alternative to CAFE laws. I personally favor letting the marketplace regulate the auto industry and I’m glad to see so many others say that in this blog. If we had gas taxes they would be because the voters had convinced their representatives that the market price of gas was too low, perhaps because it does not properly price for the public good – like global warming. If this was the reason then the public good would further be advanced by allocating the tax to subsidize other means of lowering global warming like giving Beano to cows. Note, this is not meant to start a global warming discussion.
–Polls like the one at the top of this blog often are biased because people think they can get something for nothing out of Detroit. If you asked people “would you pay $2000 a car to get 10% better fuel economy, everything else being the same”, you would get a radically different answer. But this is roughly the cost of better fuel economy. CAFE laws will simply make the decision for the consumer.
mike_i_n_mich :
November 12th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Regarding physics:
–Aerodynamic friction losses goes with the square of vehicle speed, not the cube.
It’s certainly true that the effect of velocity on the aerodynamic drag component of fuel economy is a square relationship. Using “power” in my post may have been misleading. Force due to drag increases with the square of velocity, but power has a cubic relationship. P = F x v
I’d like to see the EPA provide numbers on the fuel economy of a few vehicles for a range of steady state speeds. I don’t think it would be hard for them to do that while they’re doing the fuel economy test.
Cambridge Energy Research is a notorious shill for the oil industry. Their reports are paid for by the very folks who say we’ll never run out of crude. I’d trust the Army Corp of Engineers, the GAO, the I.E.A., or US Dept of Energy over CERA/Daniel Yergin any day of the week.
Cambridge Energy Research is a notorious shill for the oil industry. Their reports are paid for by the very folks who say we’ll never run out of crude.
Daniel Yergin has been publishing oil resource reports in excess of what’s been funded by energy companies. Moreover, he hasn’t been wrong about oil availability projections over the past 35 years. He’s internationally recognized for his foresight. No federal agency has a more sophisticated global view than Yergin and CERA so far.
Even if Yergin is wrong by half, Peak Oil isn’t close and shouldn’t be either the informing driver of policy.
Phil
CERA is wildly optimistic about oil availability.
Here are some choice quotes:
Putting a cap on oil supply worries.
Subscription – Dallas Morning News – HighBeam Research – Jun 22, 2005
“The growth in oil supplies could force prices well below $40 a barrel as early as 2007, The CERA report said.”
“In a June report, CERA said it believed that between now and 2010 there will be a substantial increase in worldwide oil production capacity, providing a supply cushion of 6 million to 7.5 million barrels per day that could cause oil prices to “slip well below $40 a barrel as 2007-08 nears.”Peter Enav, “Uncertain Saudi Supplies Hold Key to China’s Growing Thirst for Oil,” Pittsburgh’s Post-Gazette, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05236/558766.stm
“ISTANBUL, June 27 (Reuters) – World oil prices will drop to the low $60 range by the beginning of next year as long as the security premium in the world oil market does not rise, said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. ” http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL2727647820070627?pageNumber=2
Oil will always be available, you are just going to pay for it. All the easy to pump stuff is gone. The new extraction tech isn’t cheap.
CERA is wildly optimistic about oil availability.
And they always have been. And frequently dead wrong.
“Open letter to Daniel Yergin on optimism and addressing Peak Oil seriously”
http://www.energybulletin.net/9335.html
“Happy Daniel Yergin Day!”
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2006/07/daniel-yergin-day-july-13-2006.html
“The Sad Record of Daniel Yergin and Cambridge Energy Research Associates” –
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cera.htm
CERA is wildly optimistic about oil availability.
Here are some choice quotes:
Yergin has a great track record on supply prognistication. On pricing, a little less so. One of the reasons is that pricing includes the hidden insecurity tax due to the amount of oil in the unstable middle east, or controlled by regimes hostile to mainstream commercial and political interests. We also still have Iraq largely offline. And only now are prices in real dollars comparable to the previous high set in 1981. Pricing of oil doesn’t strictly reflect its availability in natural supply terms. It factors in the uncertain political factors that affect perception of availability.
Oil prices still do have the potential to drop. If spikes cause reductions in demand, if China’s growth slows due to basic unsustainability, if the US slips into a mild recession of a few quarters of no-to-low growth, the producing countries which are highly oil-revenue-dependent may compete. It used to be that the Saudis had the most need to keep their oil-subsidized social benefits at home going. But now the Iranians, Venezuelans and Russians are hooked on maintaining the cash torrent from oil. One thing about oil: today’s circumstances don’t historically tend to tell you what oil will cost in three years.
But let’s suppose the general trend will be up, even if there are reductions within the general trend’s fluctuations. Still, compared to other energy importers, the US’ dependency is mitigated by domestic production and reserves of alternate oil supplies that become extactable as costs rise. The price of oil by itself doesn’t matter so much as our ability to pay for it.
Phil
CERA is wildly optimistic about oil availability.
And they always have been. And frequently dead wrong.
“Open letter to Daniel Yergin on optimism and addressing Peak Oil seriously”
http://www.energybulletin.net/9335.html
This first of your links is an article that is pretty much nothing more than a dispute in belief systems: “Those concerned with Peak Oil vs. Yergin.” There is really nothing substantive in the rejoinder to Yergin, just a series of objections to his optimism about technology improvements which have in fact historically materialized. It’s an interesting rebuttal but not a refutation.
“Happy Daniel Yergin Day!”
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2006/07/daniel-yergin-day-july-13-2006.html
Oh, good. A polemic from a blogger. Oil prices include fears of disruption due to political factors — a hidden insecurity tax. Plus Iraq is largely offline. Oil prices and actual inventory of oil in the planet aren’t purely correlated due to the political factors.
“The Sad Record of Daniel Yergin and Cambridge Energy Research Associates” –
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cera.htm
Another clash of belief systems. But more to the point, the author’s polemic attacks Yergin on something different — prices and production — rather than supply. On price predictions, Yergin’s record is spottier than on supply, though he has been wrong on short term predictions more than on long-term. And production isn’t the same as supply. Many artificial factors affect production year to year which are unrelated to how much oil remains in the planet for recovery by various means at varying expense levels.
Phil
Yes, clearly a difference of opinion exists.
* CERA conflates reserves with resources
* CERA conflates productive capacity with productive flows
* CERA misrepresents what King Hubbert modeled, and how subsequent modelers use linearization methods.
* Approximately 50 countries have already peaked, more are peaking or about to peak (China, Mexico)
* So far the discovery forecast that CERA uses from the USGS is 77% too optimistic (see here)
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/25/22361/503
* CERA’s track record on individual countries is poor because its been too optimistic (see here)
http://europe.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/25/125137/18
* CERA needs to publish production intervals (i.e. a lower bound + a higher bound) not just production capacity.
* The Hubbert high forecast was spot on for the lower-48 (1% error on the 2005 cumulative production after 40 years)
* Unconventional sources are slow sources of oil (low flow rates)
* The Super-giant fields with high flow rates are dying (Ghawar, Cantarell, Burgan etc.)
* Reserve growth remains unproven at the world level and is based on observed reserve growth for the US (Attanasi et al.) which is likely biased due to the inclusion of censored statistics
* CERA fails to acknowledge (or realize) that the long list of ‘above ground factors’ exist precisely because of increased geologic constraints on ‘below ground resources’
* The best technology in the world and higher prices did little to change the production profile of the United States, which peaked in production in 1970.
Final point: Consider the motivation.
How does CERA makes money for its clients?
CERA is a profit-making business that sells its consulting services and specialized reports to a narrow, well-heeled audience. Why would it care about the pronouncements of a relatively small band of peak oil Internet vigilantes, some mostly retired oil company geologists, a few energy analysts and some concerned citizens who still constitute only the tiniest fraction of the public? The answer could lie in the accessibility, credibility and packaging of their message.
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
March 11th, 2008 follow-up, as oil passes $108/barrel:
‘Holding Daniel Yergin and CERA Accountable’
This is a guest post by Glenn Morton, a geophysicist in the oil industry. For Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Corp., Glenn served as Geophysical Mgr Gulf of Mexico, Geophysical Mgr for the North Sea, Dir. of Technology and as Exploration Director of China. Currently he is an independent consulting geophysicist, and he is known here at The Oil Drum affectionately as seismobob.
Read it and weep.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3487
Yergin and CERA have been wrong, and in the wrong direction, every year this century.
Click for chart:
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cera.h2.jpg
It would seem to me that CERA’s numerous predictions of the fall of the price of oil have been false every time. The chart above speaks volumes about their inability to foresee even the near-term future. Maybe their view of the world energy situation is flawed, leading them to be overly optimistic about the future price of oil.[sarcastic mode on] nah that couldn’t be! They are the CNBC oil analysts![sarcastic mode off] Like many in the peak oil community, I use Yergin and CERA as a contra-indicator for how I should invest. So far, it is working quite well.
Regarding CERA: Price and availability are related but different things. Daniel Yergin hasn’t always been right about oil pricing, but he’s been so far right more than wrong about oil availability. Part of the price of oil is the “insecurity” tax layered on the real costs, and on the futures pricing. Oil is affected by *perceived* availability more than actual availability.
And unconventional oils aren’t represented. Two-hundred dollar oil brings the US’ vast shale oil deposits into play and with no change in tax structure leaves gasoline still cheaper than it is in Europe today.
Phil
Extracting shale oil requires almost as much energy as is successfully extracted, as it has the energy density of baked potatoes. Thus, it will never be economically viable, same as it never has been.
I can remember claims that it would be viable at $40/barrel. Didn’t happen then, either.