Transportation Taxes, Expenditures and Fairness

Today, EcoGeek made a mistake by supporting a per-mile driving tax.  I’ve previously pointed out how bad this idea is.

I thought I’d add an additional comment in response to the thought that a per-mile tax would be more fair.  For those driving guzzlers (who would benefit), why not consider the destructive cost of your guzzler and how fair it is to pay absolutely nothing for that privilege.

If that’s not convincing, consider the billions of dollars that go into road construction above and beyond gasoline taxes.  In 2004, according to the Federal Highway Administration

“taken together, all levels of government spent $147.5 billion for highways“

yet,

“the total amount generated from motor-fuel taxes, motor-vehicle fees, and tolls imposed by Federal, State, and local governments—were $105.8″

Note, the emphasis that the expenditures do not even include local roads.  Where does the rest of that money come from?  Well for highways alone,

“bond proceeds of $15.8 billion (10.9 percent) and general fund appropriations of $23.6 billion (16.2 percent). Other sources such as property taxes, other taxes and fees, lottery proceeds, and interest income totaled $23.0 billion (15.8 percent).”

Give me back my $50+ billion dollars, please, and fund some public transit.

For more information:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/2006cpr/index.htm

Home efficiency ratings: LEED and HERS

For years, several good programs have rated the efficiency of homes and buildings.  The LEED rating system, and the HERS Index are two examples.  Both are good, but serve different purposes.  LEED is the program that has drawn more recent attention. 

LEED is excellent at highlighting good construction and remodeling practices, but it’s not much use in persuading consumers from a practical standpoint.  It might feel morally right to own a platinum of gold home, but if it’s difficult to balance that in the checkbook, and many consumers will be not be persuaded by those arguments. 

However, a HERS rating includes average annual estimates for “space heating, space cooling, domestic hot water, and all other energy use”.  Those estimates are a more powerful persuasion tool, more meaningful to the consumer, and ultimately, more likely to add to the long term value of a property.  But HERS hasn’t caught on in quite the same fashion as LEED.

The explanation is not difficult.  LEED is an award, but HERS is a comparative index.  That means that in a voluntary system, a LEED rating is a gold star, usable as an advertising tool, where HERS is a disclosure of estimated costs.  It may seem illogical, but when making comparisons consumers regularly judge a disclosed cost more negatively than an undisclosed cost.

LEED works as a voluntary program, but a comparative program like HERS works best when comparisons are possible between each and every home.  In other words, HERS would work best if mandated.

Every rental agreement, property contract, or mortgage agreement should disclose the HERS annual energy cost estimate, much like they include elements like property taxes, association fees.  This would ensure consumers consider those costs in their purchasing decisions, and enable them to make better choices that match their needs and means.

I suggest we initially ask our legislators to require developers to conduct a HERS evaluation and to include the energy cost portion on paperwork.  Later on, I’d suggest rental properties be required to conduct an evaluation and include the estimates of any non-covered costs on rental agreements.  Mortgages agreements should also include this information.  Lastly, private property sales would require this information.

For each stage of transition, there would be a window where those properties who have not had an evaluation would have a “out”.  They’d be required to list an estimate, but this estimate would be based the estimate from a “very poor” home with comparable square foot.

Roads and Transit

A common political occurrence today is the combination of road and mass transit packages into a single bill.  Erica Barnett writes about Seattle’s situation, and I’m familiar with the same situation in Chicago/Illinois.

At first it sounds like a good compromise, but it’s not.  Sure, one concern of transit supporters is that they use it every day and more money should give better service.  Thinking along this line, it then makes sense that you improve the roads to benefit the people who use them every day, right?

I’m all for compromise and fairness, but the question of roads and transit is not just about service.  More roads insure more pollution, and undermine a major part of the purpose of better transit service; the encouragement of higher ridership, and lower pollution.  In this concern, transit supporters lose through such a “compromise”.  Why?  If no new roads were built, and no new funding went to transit, ridership would still increase, which would itself provide additional funding.  Service quality would suffer, but one of two objectives would still be achieved.

In the compromise, the roadies get everything they want, and transit trades one objective for another, with no overall net progress.  That’s not fair as I see it.  Some compromise is necessary, that’s understandable, but roads and transit is not the right compromise.  What if instead of more roads, we did something for roadies that would benefit them, but also not counter to transit objectives?

Here’s one idea.  What about additional funding for more efficient cars and trucks?  Lowering the price of efficient vehicles will lower the amount of gas used, but also lower the amount of dollars roadies spend on their vehicles and gas.  Everyone gets something out of that proposal.

Here’s another that’s already on the table, though mostly ignored.  In Illinois the suburban population wants more money for schools as part of the compromise.  No problem.  I’d give five times as much money to compromise on schools rather than roads.

Chicagoland Transit

One would think with rising gas prices and awareness of the dual needs of CO2 emission reductions and a lessening of dependence on oil that public transportation would be becoming more important to the State of Illinois.  But apparently that is wrong as the Illinois State Legislature has instead cut funding for CTA, Metra and Pace.

What’s more, the same event is happening in California.  This is ridiculous.  The budget cuts at CTA may completely eliminate my morning/evening route, which is generally full near capacity.

I could say a lot of things here.  I could show the economics of how little it costs per mile to use public transportation, how much less gasoline it consumes, but instead I’ll just go with indignation today. 

It’s ridiculous and I’m pissed.

"Locked" Systems

It seems everyday you hear about a locked system’s protections being circumvented.  Today there is the XBox 360, yesterday the Apple iPhone.  I used to think the process of locking up these systems was completely useless and a generally bad idea, but today I had a thought.  Maybe there is a silver lining to the thundercloud of proprietary lock in technology.

What could that be?  Well simple, you’re hearing about some useless proprietary barrier being broken, rather than a new virus or set of malware.  Hackers will hack, and it may just be that the combination of high flying press and the pseudo philanthropic respect given to proprietary barrier hackers can create a brain drain in the area of the really nasty stuff.  Maybe.  I’m sure there will still be virus and malware writers, but maybe they’ll be a little less smart, a little less numerous.

The problem is we let companies like Apple waste our law enforcement and legal system resources on chasing down the proprietary barrier hackers.  We shouldn’t let them do that.  There’s no excuse for chasing down some guy who let people use the phones they already paid for when there’s hackers out there destroying our email system, scaring grandparents around the world and wrecking peoples lives through identity theft.  Priorities.

Response from Representative Schakowsky

I tried to send a copy of the letter concerning a warning label for incandescent lightbulb packaging to my representative in the U.S. Congress.  Apparently it got misdirected to, Janice Schakowsky, representative for the 9th district which starts just across the street (actually I’m no longer certain, I know I voted in Rahm Emanuel’s district last election, and I know I went to the right place because the polls are in my buildings lobby, maybe I’ve been redistricted?).

Regardless, I received a reply, quoted below:

Dear Mr. Baker

Thank you for contacting me to let me know of your support for compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs).  I appreciate hearing your views on this critical issue, and I strongly agree with you.

As you know, there are numerous benefits to replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs.  CFLs are four times more efficient and last up to 10 times longer than incandescents.  In addition to supporting CFL use, I am working in Congress to pass legislation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and promote more efficient energy use.  For instance, I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1506, the Fuel Economy Reform Act, introduced by Representative Markey.  This bill would increase existing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards by 4 percent per year through 2018, saving 2.2 million barrels of oil per day and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over 370 million metric tons per year by 2022.  With fuel costs rising for all Americans and the dangers of global warming becoming more evident, Congress must act to increase CAFE standards.  I believe increasing fuel economy standards is one of the best ways we can promote conservation, reduce gasoline prices, achieve energy independence, and reduce carbon emissions.

During the first 100 hours of this Congress, I voted in favor of H.R. 6, the Clean Energy Act of 2007.  This bill would repeal many of the tax subsidies handed to major oil companies and collect long overdue unpaid royalties for oil exploration along the United States coastline.  H.R. 6 would place these funds, about $14 billion, in the new Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewable Reserve, to fund renewable research which is critical to lessoning our dependence on foreign oil and creating a more environment-friendly economy.

Rising energy prices and our changing climate demand a new energy vision that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels while limiting harmful emissions and environmental damage to precious natural resource.  I believe that we can accomplish those critical goals in a way that creates jobs and reduces energy cost, and I will do whatever I can to make that happen.

Again, thank you for sharing your views with me on this important subject.  Please feel free to contact me in the future if I may be of further assistance.

Sincerely

Jan Schakowsky

Member of Congress

H.R 1506 (summary) is a good step in the right direction, probably more important than my little warning label and H.R. 6 has many good points as well.  The message I received in the response seems to be that Representative Schakowsky agrees, but is spending her time on other issues. 

I suppose that’s a fair enough explanation.  Hopefully it remains in mind, as vice chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce: Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, it’s precisely the type of legislation she is responsible for.  If you live in District 9 and believe in this idea, contact Representative Schakowsky yourself.

Also, if you’re in District 1, write Representative Rush, who is chairman of the same committee.

Educating consumers on the benefits of a Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb through legal action

Update: I’ve created a petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/warning-label-for-incandescent-power-costs.

Not long ago I floated the idea of an incandescent bulb warning label as a way to encourage CFL usage. I’ve thought about it a bit more since then and the more I think, the better the idea sounds. In a political sense it’s a slam dunk, and I’m convinced it would have real and immediate benefits.

On the political side, I can only see one constituency that might object: Incandescent bulb manufacturers who aren’t also CFL manufacturers. I suspect that’s a pretty small group. GE, Sylvania and Phillips and their understandably excited about the opportunity to shift consumer power costs to CFL bulb revenues.

It should, rationally, be supported by those opposed to an outright ban too. An outright ban does admittedly have complications, because of odd-size fixtures or special needs. A warning label would reduce the need for an outright ban. The main justification for an outright ban is that consumers are making irrational decisions everyday and a ban seems a simple way to fix that.

For environmentalists it should be attractive too. Sure, it might take some of the wind of the ban movement, but the upside is every ban proposed or passed has a long adoption period of 5 to 10 years. During this period manufacturers and retailers will prepare, but consumers won’t be affected or influenced. A warning label regulation could realistically take full effect within a single year and return immediate benefits.

I expect to hear the anti-mercury argument, but that argument isn’t rational because the facts clearly show that a EPA CFL Fact Sheet.

I’m certain a label would be effective. There is a reason all CFL packaging highlights the lifetime savings, because it works. But it only works when the consumer first picks up the CFL package, reads it, and believes it. Put that same information on an incandescent package in a conspicuous manner and you’re assured consumer will see it even if they don’t know what a CFL is.

Lastly, if the label is on the incandescent packaging, it will be ten times more believable. If the “smoking kills” warning only appeared on gum wrappers would it be as believable as the one on a package of cigarettes?

So in the light of all of this, I’d like to formally begin a warning label movement.

Dear Representative/Senator,

CFLs contribute less CO2, mercury and other pollutants than comparable incandescent bulbs and save money, yet many consumers are not aware of CFLs or their benefits. CFL manufacturers attempt to educate consumers through packaging labels but consumers either don’t see the CFL products, or don’t believe these facts.

I therefore strongly feel regulations should require these facts to appear in a conspicuous location of incandescent bulb packaging. Additionally the same facts should appear in incandescent bulb product catalogues and advertisements either electronic or print.

While exact wording is an appropriate matter for debate, I offer the following starting point (for 100 watt bulbs).

“WARNING: Each bulb in this package will cost $12.00 more in energy bills per year than a Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb of equal or superior light output (based on average use of 4 hours per day). The EPA recommends against the installation of this bulb in fixtures used more than 15 minutes per day.”

Manufacturers would be allowed and encouraged to suffix this label with a list of suitable replacement bulbs. I would expect them to choose from their product line, and the only restriction would be that all listed bulbs must consume at least a 70% less energy.

I believe it is reasonable to ask all retailers to perform the necessary changes within a 9 month period following the approval of these regulations.
Thank you,

Take this letter and send it to your state representatives, as well as your U.S. congress representative and senator.

Of the two, I expect the state representatives are more important. If a regulation is passed in just a few states it is likely the major manufactures, like GE will place the warning label on all packaging in the United States. Even if some smaller manufacturers don’t follow suit, and comply only in the states with regulations, consumer visibility will be high enough as to be effectively the same.

All the same, let your U.S. representative know as well, although I fully expect results to take longer at this level it provides the benefit of publicity. If just one U.S. representative or senator publicly backs a regulation every state effort benefits significantly.

As well, this is a small site, so I strongly encourage you to spread the word.

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Warning: Incandescent light bulbs suck more than just power

In addition to consuming less power (and thus producing less pollution while not inflating future energy costs), modern CFL’s produce better light than incandescent.

Combine this with the information I posted the other day that shows CFL’s result in less mercury pollution than a incandescent and there really isn’t any reason not to choose them over incandescents.

It’s enough to make me think the idea of banning incandescents isn’t all that bad after all.

However, if you want a less extreme option, how about we put a warning label on every incandescent light bulb box. Something along the lines of:

WARNING: This product is known to create more pollution, cost more to operate, and produce lower quality light than a ## watt compact fluorescent lightbulb. Please consider this alternative

Basically a condensed version of Energy Star’s current CFL FAQ (PDF), which resolves the one other question, cost with the statement:

Replacing a 60-watt incandescent with a 13-watt
CFL can save you at least $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb.

Another blogger did a good explanation of these costs calculations.

The great thing is, I doubt you’d even have much legal objection to such a law. Most incandescent manufacturers are CFL manufacturers as well, and I don’t see how they could object to a government sponsored suggestion to consumers that they buy the product that generates more revenues.

Really the only company that would lose money on the deal is the power companies, and in general they’re struggling to meet demand so they’re not likely to object either.

So.. lets do it.

Why AT&T deserves a class action suit

As part of AT&T’s last merger that sucked up BellSouth, they made a deal with the government to sell DSL without “circuit switched void grade telephone service”. I’ve barely used my landline at all in the last couple years, so I figured that would be a fine opportunity to save a few bucks a month.

AT&T however despite the agreement seems intent on making the process as painful as they possibly can. The phone company has never been known for quality customer service, but the ordeal I’ve endured in going through this process is so bad that it’s hard not to imagine that there is some malevolent force behind it that is intentionally attempting to discourage customers from dropping the landline.

The saga begins with the call to AT&T account services, which was a relatively short hold of a few minutes. I didn’t time it but it was 5 at tops. The service representative at first didn’t seem to understand what I was asking for, but eventually told me that she couldn’t help me. Apparently the main customer account line has no ability to sell no-voice service, only the normal service. To order that service I would have to be transferred to the no-voice department.

Despite already having waited once, which in theory should have put me higher in the queue, the wait time for the no-voice department was 35 minutes. Thank god for Bluetooth, I’d hate to be holding a phone to my ear for that long. Eventually I am connected however. The new department however begins with a pitch for the 6MB/s DSL service, which it turns out is not offered with no-voice. After some more inquiries it turns out however that service isn’t available in my area no-voice or not. But if I was so lucky, I’d have to purchase voice to get it. Plus, why is the no voice dept able (and very willing) to sell voice service, while this other department acts as if it doesn’t exist?

Well, the worst is yet to come, as I’m informed that in order to switch to no voice, it’s not possible to simply disconnect my voice line. My entire DSL line needs to be disconnected. Worse yet, I’m informed that they need to disable it, wait 7 days, and then turn it back on! I argue about this for a while, but eventually agree because it turns out I have an out of town trip planned at the end of the month that lasts 8 days. I ask to schedule it for that period, but it turns out the start is on a weekend, and that’s an invalid day to start the 7 day window, so I’m assured of having one day of downtime when I return, unless I turn it off on the day I’m leaving. Thinking it’s a bad idea to turn it off when I might need to check flight times or other such amenities, I agree to the one day lag.

But, there is a solution! Apparently if I take down a number, take it with me on my trip, and then call 5 days later, I can beg and plead to get them to do the installation faster. I take the number, but I never did make the call because it just wasn’t worth ruining my trip.

I return, sans Internet, and wait a day. The next day I return home from work to find that yes, my DSL is still not working. A call to AT&T gives me a automated prompt telling me that they won’t turn it on till 8pm that night. 8pm comes and goes and it still doesn’t work, so another call is placed. After a fairly long wait, I get a tech who does all of the usual “it must be your fault” steps. Unplug modem, unplug router, plug modem directly into computer, remove filters, try another jack, all the time ignoring the fact that.. well everything worked before the service was disabled, and as far as I know, AT&T didn’t break into my house and mess up my computer equipment, or destroy my telephone jacks.

From here, they offer to send a tech out in 3 days. I plead that most likely the problem is at the CO office. I’m relatively certain that in that 7 days no one actually came to my apartment building and messed with the wires here. Most likely all that happened was someone in the CO office entered a new set of values into a database somewhere that reassigned the switching of my lines. And.. they did it wrong. My pleading does get me someone to check things at the CO office, but unfortunately all they do is check that yes, the lines that it says belong to me are connecting to something else outside the CO office. They don’t bother to check if the lines are actually the right ones or any of the other things that are probably wrong.

A tech shows up 3 days later, and I’ve been informed that there is no need for me to be at home, because it’s a big apartment building and they can get to the access panel without me. I get a call that day from the tech as he shows up asking where I am. I tell him what I was told, and he says okay, yeah that’s fine I can do this without you.

I get home later that night and DSL is still not working. Calling AT&T reveals that apparently the tech got to the access panel, decided it was very confusing and poorly labeled and left. If he had called and asked me to come, I would have, or at the least I would have known what was going on, but instead he just up and leaves.

After more begging and pleading I get a tech back out the next day. They give me the standard 24 hour window, but promise I’ll get a call so I can leave work and race home to meet the tech. Unfortunately my cell number gets copied down wrong, so I don’t get the call. But just before I leave for work I take my dog out for a quick walk, and see an AT&T guy walking down the street. On a hunch I approach him, give him my apartment number, and find out that yes he is here for my line. I ask why he didn’t call, and he shows me the mis-recorded phone number and things are a bit clearer. So I bring the dog back in, and he goes to the access panel, then comes upstairs plugs one of those feedback devices so he can find my line downstairs, and not much longer my DSL is finally working.

We check things out and find out that they’ve misconfigured my line for the slower service. He makes a call and gets that fixed, and I naively think the whole ordeal is over.

That is until yesterday when I receive an email from AT&T informing me that they are going to shutdown my account because there is no phone number associated with it. I need to log in and associate my new DSL number with the account to avoid losing my email address and other services. They don’t tell me how long I have or anything useful, and it turns out after logging in that I need this 3 digit code which will appear on my bill… which I haven’t received yet.

It takes about an hour and three transfers to convince someone to give me this number (though turns out they are not sure what the code is, it might be this number.. or maybe this one). It doesn’t work because I naively tried the code from my old number before calling them and it turns out it locked me out for 24 hours.

So today, I go back and try again and ..

Technical Difficulties

The AT&T Account Manager^SM service is temporarily unavailable.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.

Go to att.com

A couple hours later (long enough to eat, and write this whole thing) the same situation persists.

In my case, I’m not sure why they are concerned. I was paying about $14/month for the land line, about $7 of which was taxes. Considering that that getting rid of voice ends up causing me to lose a $5 discount I end paying AT&T $9 less per month, of which $2 they would have kept after FCC, 911, etc. taxes.

So why the pain! Why!

Maybe I’m an isolated case, but alot of the process and procedures here seem to be discriminating against no-voice customers in a very intentional way. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of others with the same experiences. If there out there, I’d say AT&T is deserving of some legal action for some blatantly violating the spirit of their anti-trust agreement, and providing such generally poor service.

Energy Policy

U.S. Energy Policy, as it stands today, is broken because it is not sustainable in the long term, and provides far too little foresight to ever become sustainable. A lot of people agree, but they are split into groups that prevent enough action from being taken. The largest group agrees with the problem, but is concerned that the necessary action will disrupt their lives through economic impacts. This is understandable, since it’s true, but the disruption is exaggerated due to factors of uncertainty.

Another group would advocate every possible action, all at once. While their concern is justifiable, the view is not realistic. It might be economically feasible to enact all or most of those changes at once, but it would require sacrifices beyond what the public will support. I doubt most people in this group believe they’re unreasonable because they rarely put all those actions together into one set. But if you ask them about any specific action, their response will undoubtedly be “right here, right now”. There is ground between these two groups, but it’s relatively unpopulated.

There are also people who stubbornly believe that because the current system is functioning today it’s not broken. Only when they can divide the other two groups, as they have done, do these people have power. In order to maintain the confidence of the pragmatic first group, there needs to be a plan stating what’s in, what’s out, and when. Today, it seems, we leave this up to our elected officials to create through compromises. This is a mistake as these efforts become heavily influenced by powerful interests. This prevents the taking of enough action to produce a sustainable plan.

If, however, a plan had solid support from pragmatists and idealists, it could deliver a message strong enough and clear enough that our elected officials would not need to make compromises with those hostile influences. While I hardly consider myself qualified to draft such a plan, I did think I’d try and write something up that might at least be heading in the right direction.

The energy situation in the U.S. requires more than quick fixes. The demand for energy continues to increase for good and bad reasons, and almost assuredly will continue to. On the other hand, it would be irresponsible to not take action today to put into use the most practical advances available to us today. Many of the most promising long term options still require additional research and refinement. Many others require infrastructure changes that will take time to enact even with sufficient consumer and political support.

Oil and Vehicles

The current situation with oil is orders of magnitude larger than we can sustain long term. In fact, due to worldwide consumption our long term plans should not be to reduce petroleum consumption, but to almost entirely eliminate it. There is, however, no short term method to entirely eliminate oil consumption compatible with the technological, economic and political limitations of today. However, there are still short term motivations for reducing petroleum consumption and methods available to accomplish this less ambitious goal.

Ethanol

Short term considerations are why I support ethanol usage. In the long term there are more efficient means of powering transportation devices, but presently we have a very large quantity of cars designed to run on gasoline. Likely, these cars will be on the road for another 10 to 20 years, and will not be retrofitted to be more efficient. However, ethanol can reduce the gasoline consumption of these vehicles by 10 to 15 percent when used as an additive to gasoline. This is a tried and tested practice, yet of the 140 billion barrels of gasoline consumed in 2006, less than 3.8 billion gallons of ethanol were used. That comes out to about 2.7%.

Even if today’s cars could use 100% ethanol, it would be difficult to produce that much ethanol. However producing 14-20 billion barrels of ethanol yearly is possible. That won’t solve all the problems but it will reduce pollution and reduce dependence on the volatile world producers of oil for the next 20-30 years that gasoline only vehicles remain in service.

People often put down ethanol by pointing out the factors that make it unsuitable as a long term fix. They’ll point out the difficulties of producing enough ethanol to meet the national demand, much less the international demand. They’ll point out the stress that diverting farmland toward the production of ethanol producing crops will place upon food supplies. These are valid points, but not when applied to a much less aggressive goal of 100% E10 (a mix of 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline) usage. The US currently has a surplus of the crops used to produce ethanol, and has difficulty economically exporting these crops to the places in the world where they are needed because of the high transportation and distribution costs.

Another argument against ethanol is the erroneous claim that ethanol requires more energy to produce than it generates. This claim is untrue and is based upon old surveys of facilities using old methods and not benefitting from economies of scale. Admittedly the raw number of a 10% positive gain is marginal, but this number is not a fair comparison. The production of ethanol produces byproducts which, if not producing ethanol, would directly consume production energy. Also, the production of gasoline itself requires the use of energy.

Also, ethanol use in E10 has energy benefits beyond the pure energy value of the ethanol added. E10 burns cleaner and more completely than regular gasoline because ethanol enhances the octane of fuel. The result is burning 10 gallons of E10 produces more energy than burning 1 gallons of ethanol and 9 gallons of gasoline separately. Fuels like E85 don’t have this advantage, but E10 does. Lastly, energy input is not the same as petroleum consumption. Ethanol production (and use) consumes a great deal less petroleum (or petroleum substitute) than the use (and production) of petroleum.

In terms of energy production per acre, ethanol will never come close to the efficiency of solar power, but that’s not the point because we have no method to directly power the cars already in service through solar power and almost certainly do not have the political will to gather up all the existing cars and replace or retrofit them. The purpose of batteries or hydrogen is not the production of power, but as a vehicular energy delivery device. Ethanol is less efficient than solar as a renewable energy source and less efficient than batteries and hydrogen as a vehicular energy delivery device, but it does have the advantage of doing both in a way that is compatible with today’s vehicles.

Electric

In the long term the gasoline powered car must be replaced, and we need to start the process today, or very soon. The best long term replacements are electric powered cars because they are readily adaptable to whatever clean power generation technology we employ in the future. Electric cars have challenges, such as range for which technological solutions need to continue being pursued. Despite these challenges, it is entirely possible to build electric cars today that meet the needs of many. It is also possible to enhance the support infrastructure to mitigate the impact of these challenges. The car linked above can be charged in 10 minutes through an off board charger, which if as ubiquitous as gas stations would make the charge process almost the same as a fill up. Or, battery packs could just be “swapped” out for fully charged packs if that infrastructure existed.

It would be nice to steer consumers toward electric cars today, but public sentiment is not yet mature enough for this step. What we can do is to take the “early adopter” edge off the technology through incentives to consumers, manufacturers and researchers. In addition we can place more research money into the challenging areas in the hope that solutions will develop to mitigate the remaining consumer objections, or at least broaden the customer base.

Efficiency

Beyond the question of what powers a vehicle, there is the question of efficiency. For conventional car engines the efficiency of converting gasoline into mechanical energy varies substantially. Beyond this, the weight, and thus amount of mechanical energy required to move different vehicles varies dramatically. The result is that some vehicles have mileage ratings of 10mpg and others have ratings of 60mpg. The 60mpg vehicles are not generally impractical, or even expensive, yet quite often the small differences in practicality or price, or other even less important characteristics cause consumers to purchase the 10mpg vehicle instead.

The problem is not what can we do, but what are we doing? It’s not just the choice of vehicle; many other decisions result in less efficient energy use. Buying a home an extra 10, 20 or 30 miles away from your job, to get an extra 100sq ft; or avoiding public transportation, because it makes you feel safer. Driving a car most definitely is not safer, by the way, but the perception is that it is.

While not all such decisions are so illogical, usually there are at least some advantages, from the point of view of those making them, that encourage them to consume more energy and create pollution. Personally, I’m not sure they’re worth what others think, but if they really are, they’ll withstand an increase in gas prices. But if they aren’t, an increase in gas prices will show they aren’t even worth an extra $500 per year, per person. If they aren’t worth an extra $500 per year, how can they be worth the destruction of our planet?

The simplest way to address all the decisions that result in inefficient usage of gasoline is to raise the price. The economy demonstrated last year that despite all of the gloom and doom, it can handle $3.50 gas. To encourage consumer driven change I feel we ought to institute a much larger federal gasoline tax. I’m not sure of the exact amount, but my general feeling is a $1.00 increase to $1.50 per gallon.

Consumer driven change is critical to both short term and long term change, and is the only method by which to cause short term change.

For long term change it’s also important to invest heavily in research, but it’s important to remember that additional capabilities developed through research will always still require adoption. Without consumer demand for efficiency improvements, not only does all research need to be centrally funded by the government, which is inefficient, but it often goes to waste as business continues as normal.

Hydrogen

The purpose of hydrogen is often confused. Hydrogen is better compared to battery technology than to gasoline or ethanol. Though often not employed today, hydrogen production is possible with just water and energy. Hydrogen has long term promise since it is not dependent on limited resources of petroleum or farmland. The energy for hydrogen production could come from the same sources as electric power for batteries.

Also, like electric cars, hydrogen requires a completely new vehicle. The engine has more similarities to a gasoline engine than an electric engine, but this has little real world value as it still requires a new car.

As far as cars go, I don’t think hydrogen is as promising as batteries, but that’s only a guess since it’s really all a numbers game, and the numbers aren’t yet written in stone. Even the numbers we have so far are very confusing. Batteries are supposedly somewhere around 90% efficient as short term storage devices energy drawn from the power grid. Hydrogen is 40% efficient for this same purpose. However, over long periods of time, hydrogen is more stable, and economic. This advantage may have validity in some applications (such as remote areas that aren’t connected to a power grid), but it isn’t exceptionally pertinent to vehicles.

Therefore, while hydrogen research is important, I’d prefer adoption to head toward the electric car, which has a simpler and more efficient support infrastructure.

Electricity

As visible as cars are, they still account for less than 20% of U.S energy consumption (61% of transportation’s 28%). You could fairly add another 5% to that to account for the energy spent on petroleum refining, but still, there is more than 75% left.

Conservation

After cars, the largest use of energy is in heating and air conditioning. Better insulation and personal conservation (running air conditioning at 72 rather than 68) can help, but the real culprit for the rise in use in this sector is the increase in average home size. While I feel the obsession with bigger and bigger homes is lamentable, it’s not something I’ve really put much thought into preventing. For one, I think the vast majority of people have no problem with this trend, and as such there is likely to be little public support for it. Secondly, in the area of electricity I feel a more important goal is in the pursuit of sustainable clean method of production.

Production

Today, the U.S. and the world rely mostly upon fossil fuels for the production of electricity. This is despite the technical knowhow to produce electricity through other non-polluting and sustainable methods. It’s important to make changes to cars so that they can rely upon this infrastructure, but it is just as or more important to reform this infrastructure itself.

Solar power in the long term is probably our most solid hope. With the exception of nuclear, all other power sources are really just a byproduct of solar energy. Wind and weather is a result of the solar energy heating our atmosphere, our oceans and our land. Virtually everything else that affects weather is merely a conduit or resistive force that shapes, rather than creates weather. Petroleum products are the decayed remains of animals which ate plants which gained their energy from the sun. So why not just go to the source?

Even in the short term solar power is very attractive, but wind is very attractive as well. Hydroelectric power has proven to be fairly economic, but the good opportunities are mostly already in use, leaving fewer opportunities for improvement.

Also, in the short term, cleaning up the existing infrastructure of mostly coal burning power plants is important.

Accounting

Amazingly, one of the largest obstacles to renewable electricity generation is accounting. The most visible example of this is consumer credits for excess power from sources like rooftop solar panels. Even among and inside power companies however there are sometimes issues. I’ve heard of wind turbines being stopped because the billable price to the power company was higher than non-renewable sources. Power companies also worry a great deal about the impact on profitability of existing power plants if demand for their services becomes more variable due to variations in sources like solar or wind.

All of these problems are solvable. For each megawatt a coal, oil, natural gas or biomass power plant operates below capacity for which they produce a matching megawatt of clean renewable power positive variation, electric companies should receive a credit. Pricing and accounting practices should insure that the billable price for no production cost clean renewable power sources always remains 5% below the next lowest price. If necessary, credits should also be given to the producers to insure these pricing practices don’t ruin the economics of clean power generation. For each kilowatt of excess clean renewable power a consumer produces, electric companies should pay them market rates. In addition the consumer and electric company should receive credits to insure that it never is in an electric company’s best interest to discourage consumer production.

Credits for these policies could come from traditional local, state and federal taxes, but it would be most logical to instead tax the power producers, and distribute the credits from this pool. This will keep average prices relatively unchanged because credits and taxes will cancel each other out, but the internal economics will shift to insure that accounting practices are never the obstacle.

Conclusions

To sum up, here is a list of actions I would like to see taken:

• Target 100% replacement of pure gasoline with E10 in all US states within 5 years.
• 100% sales tax rebate for electric cars from local and state governments.
• Free vehicle registration for electric cars from local and state governments.
• Federal tax incentive, similar to the fuel cell credit, for electric cars. For cars this would be a $12,000 tax credit. Electric is better than hydrogen, so reward it as well or better.
• The subsidization of construction and maintenance of electric charging stations, especially in urban environments and along interstate highway routes.
• Increase federal gas tax to $1.50 per gallon to target a price of at least $3.50 per gallon.
• Rewrite the CAFE regulations to average efficiency ratings based upon gallons per mile, rather than miles per gallon.
• Raise CAFE standards to 5% per year as per ACEEE recommendation. Under gpkm (gallons per thousand miles) ratings this would target 23.4 gpkm (42.6 mpg) for cars, and 27.4 gpkm (36.5 mpg) for light trucks.
• Include large SUVs in CAFE regulations. Use a 2008 target of 20mpg, rising to 30.7 gpkm (32.6 mpg)
• Consider consolidating CAFE classes should be one class fits all.
• Dramatically increase research funding for the key technologies of Solar Cells and Electric Vehicles. Continue or increase funding for Ethanol Production, Wind Power, Hydrogen Production and Nuclear Power.
• Increase incentives for construction of Solar and Wind Power Generation facilities.
• Reform consumer and producer excess capacity accounting practices to insure economic viability of both clean renewable power and less consistent and lower usage of existing power plants.
• Continue to encourage existing power generation plants to modernize their clean up processes. I realize the importance of this, but unfortunately I don’t know enough about the current day laws to say whether we’re doing a good or bad job, and if bad, how to appropriately improve it.

If all of these actions were taken, there would be certain other initiatives I’d be willing to sacrifice:

• There is not a strong need for E85 development or infrastructure. As long as battery development is vigorously pursued, and E10 universally replaces non-reformulated gasoline, E85 conversions would be unnecessary. I wouldn’t take any action to discourage E85 development, but I wouldn’t press for any action to be taken to encourage it either.
• The development of a hydrogen infrastructure likewise feels unnecessary, although more promising than E85.
• Other than the gas tax, which might reduce suburban sprawl as a side effect, I would leave the concerns of America’s growing home size and suburban sprawl to be dealt with on their other merits and demerits. It’s tempting to try and address this area, but the forces are simply too complex, and involve too much public emotion. The thing to do here is to continue attempts to change public opinion. Illogical misconceptions should be clarified, and education and development of alternatives that are palatable to the public are necessary.
• In the short term, I’m not very concerned with whether solar power utilizes some harmful chemicals. The benefit of reducing demand for other types of power, in the short term outweighs those concerns. I’m not saying anything goes, but if the chemicals are only as bad as what goes into gasoline, at it significantly lowers the cost of solar power, that’s a reasonable sacrifice. There will always be environmental impacts to any development. If an initiative saves 5 environmental “dollars”, but costs 1, it’s a good thing.
• Other than the gas tax, which might convince some people to retire some of the most harmful vehicles a bit earlier, it wouldn’t be appropriate to force vehicles to be replaced. If progress is made in the types of new vehicles purchased soon, then this won’t be necessary.
• Forcing existing power plants to close is not possible, nor desirable. Reducing their overall usage, and insuring that sufficient new clean capacity is created to reduce the need for new coal, oil or natural gas plants should be the short and midterm goal. With sufficient clean capacity and proper accounting practices existing plants will eventually close without being forced to do so.