Fuel economy mandates to save gas? That’s like fighting obesity by requiring clothing manufacturers to make only slender sizes.
Hardly. The drive to effeciency pervades industry and society – as long as incentive exists to have such effeciencies.
That incentive has to exist in perceived benefit to society as a whole or to individual consumers.
When we have the true cost of goods and services masked by hidden subsidies, inefficiencies persist. In the case of oil, we “hide”, as the Left has accurately stated, all the military costs of keeping secure access to overseas oil which we spend in peacetime and war. We fail, in our free trade regime, to relate the cost of cheap overseas oil to terrorism expenses the US has that should also be added to each barrel we consume rather than put into China debt or on taxpayers as a whole.
We also fail to do an adequate assessment of the cost-benefit of free trade in commodities that may be cheaper on the surface price, but cost us more in terms of GNP growth, prosperity, and the economic multiplier of each dollar spent than getting oil or making oil synthetically from domestic feedstocks. True in oil and many economists now in great doubt about global free trade in materials, capital, labor, and native expertise being anything but a race to the bottom for the US citizen.
In short, paying 70 dollars a barrel for domestic oil or oil substitute will create far more GNP growth, create more jobs..than going with foreign oil with all the hidden subsidies priced on the surface, say at 50 bucks a barrel.
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To the extent that imposed efficiencies reduce net consumption and reduce foreign oil consumption and give consumers dollars they hopefully will not spend on ChinaMart stuff, that is a good thing.
They were very successful in reducing net oil demand per consumer in the USA in the 70s (our net use per person is still lower than in 1972). And even more successful in Europe and Asia where they kept going getting new effociencies rather than take the US political theory up that the quintessence of Freedom Lovers!! enjoying their God-given Freedoms!! was SUVs and a range of new debt-financed gas swilling consumer items like new boats, ATVs, snowmobiles and frequent air travel with cheap, subsidized gas.
But US net demand went up because of Open Borders and high-breeding poor people adding new consumers, and consumers that preferred even auto ride in cities vs walk or take mass transit. 160 million in 1952 became 220 in 1972 after immigration was opened up. Then 300 million in 2005, will be 340 million in 2030 and 420 million in 2050.
Improved efficiency is only part of the solution.
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melissa K – Oh.. but that’s what the Dems want…total govt. dependency. How ’bout nuclear even the French lefties get that.?
Actually the French lefties and greenies are about as bad or worse than the ones in NYC, San Francisco or the rest of Europe.
What the French do is recognize that the masses are stupid and some decisions are best left to professionals in the Ministries. And the masses are best denied pursuing their stupidities in courts that paralyze decisions for decades. China and Japan and Singapore do the same thing. They decide nuke plants must be built, they get built. They decide that lines of rail and broadband and new roads constructed – environmentalists and private property worshipping libertarians are out of luck – for the good of society as a whole – the necessary stuff is built with a minimum of delay.
Something the US may have to bite the bullet on and decide that we cannot afford “Kelo-type” lawsuits blocking needed energy, transportation development anymore. Or environmental lawsuits that have tied up energy production or even finishing highways or electric grid projects started and then lawyer-stopped since the late 70s.
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Sherry – If all gasoline cars, trucks, and SUV’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota.
Be very, very wary of extravagent claims by wind and solar advocates of “the solar energy falling on Arizona would drive the Saudis to their knees” or “the wind in N Dakota if made into electricity would replace all gas use and save the polar bear.”
No they won’t. These are claims made by non-engineer. non-scientists or by people claiming to be “techologically trained” but way out of the mainstream. And crank advocates for projects that have been out there for 50 years but somehow never adequate to pass cost-benefit analysis by venture capitalists and firms that would be delighted to have billions come their way from “MIRACLE CHEAP ABUNDANT NON-POLLUTING SOLAR AND WIND SNAKE OIL ELIXIR!!”
Or people unfamiliar with technological or medical breakthroughs convinced that anything from aging to cheap solar to anti-gravity machines to miracle fuel cells to easy cancer cures is possible simply by throwing “government people and money” at them.
The wind of N Dakota? Mainly available in the spring and fall – with summer and winter being light or dead calm. Peaking only in certain hours. Faced with an electric grid that does not reach the sites proposed, nor with any practical, cost effective battery or other storage system (H2 gen and giant caverns carved out to store compressed air have been mentioned and laughed off). And transmission lines still have I2R losses and expensive voltage and AC/DC, frequency conversion equipment real 24/7 power plants and substations currently do cheaply and well with far less.
To use, it would have to be with full capacity backup power gen infrastructure for the months that the wind really isn’t blowing hard anywhere in the USA.
Also the advocates are EXCEPTIONALLY quiet about the cost of plug-ins using present “Earth-saving Miracle Wind and Solar Energy Solutions”. Which without taxpayer subsidies are in a range of 16 dollars (for cheapest wind power rates) to almost 60 dollars (for solar power electric) for a gallon of gasoline equivalent.
That is, when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing..
