"New" Bush Energy Pronouncements Riddled With Contradictions - LA Times

[hatrack]

EDIT

Indeed, some aspects of the overall plan seemed to contradict each other. For one, Bush's proposal to save gasoline by increasing vehicle fuel economy standards could be undermined by his call for greater use of alternative fuels. Ethanol, for example, gets less mileage than gasoline and, without a major technological breakthrough, requiring more of it could make it harder to increase fuel efficiency. Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, said that the president's request for new legislation "letting him set standards basically model-by-model is something Detroit has pushed for years — as a way to poke more loopholes in the current weak standards."

Currently, automakers are required to have their fleets meet an average standard of 27.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars, and 21.6 miles per gallon for light trucks, which is due to increase to 24 mpg by 2011. Bush said mileage standards should be increased enough to reduce gasoline consumption by 5%, or 8.5 billion gallons, by 2017. Achieving that would require an average fuel economy improvement of 4% a year starting in the 2010 model year for cars, he said. Bill Prindle, acting executive director of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a Washington think tank, called Bush's fuel-economy proposal "pretty weak, plus it is totally noncommittal on substance and timing. It says, 'Congress, don't send us a standard, give us the power and we'll issue a rule.' "The 4% per year improvement is a nice hypothetical, but the last rule this administration issued, for light trucks in March 2006, achieved barely a 2% annual improvement. So I am not optimistic that DOT will come out with a stronger rule for cars, and especially not within two years."

On Capitol Hill, Democrats and their environmental allies assailed Bush for failing to endorse mandatory limits on emissions blamed for global warming, commit to stricter vehicle miles-per-gallon rules or reconsider his past opposition to requiring a percentage of the nation's electricity to be generated from alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) called the energy proposals "the latest in a string of disappointments from this administration." Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who has pushed for stricter miles-per-gallon rules, said the president's proposal "doesn't go nearly far enough."

"The president has had the ability to make real changes to fuel efficiency with regard to light trucks for six years — and he hasn't made substantial increases. Why should we trust him now?" she asked, contending the only secure substantial increases in fuel economy are through legislation.


EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-energy24jan24,0,6303323.story?coll=la-home-nation

[YankeyMCC]

1. Efficiency is a two edge sword of sorts

I absolutely support tougher mandatory fuel efficiency standards. However one of the problems with kommander kookoo's plan is the reliance on efficiency. If we did start producing significantly more efficient vehicles the cost of driving would go down and guess what - people will drive more. So any gains we think we're going to get in terms of reducing consumption of fossil fuels and the resulting co2 and other associated pollution needs to take that into account.

And the problem is that it is impossible for any rethug to talk about anything remotely sounding like conservation anything other than continued growth on the same lines that have gotten us into this pickle in the first place. And unfortunately to many dem leaders have the same limitation.

[greenman3610]

2. not sure I buy the "people will drive more" thing

I can only commute once to work and back.
Grocery trips will not increase.

overall, if cars were twice as efficient,
I believe fuel use would go down.
This has to be coupled with a push for
mass transit, and a carbon tax.

[YankeyMCC]

4. When gas was up around $3/gal

People seriously reduced long trips. The took vacations closer to home, they didn't go a long distance for a day trip, called grandma instead of visited etc...

Reduce the overall cost of driving and people will drive more, they'll do more of the discretionary driving for day trips and vacations. It's a basic fact of economics and human nature that was proven very recently with the high prices last summer.

But you're last statement "This has to be coupled with a push for mass transit, and a carbon tax." is dead on.

[GliderGuider]

3. And about those 30 billion gallons of biofuels...

Well, they won't be biodiesel (there are only 4.5 billion gallons of vegetable and animal fats produced every year in the USA), so they'll have to be ethanol. Since there is no commercial cellulosic production yet, they will have to be corn likker. Conveniently, the total US corn production is 12 billion bushels, that would produce - ta-daaaa - 30 billion gallons of C2H5OH. All it would cost the United States is all its corn.

And of course there's the eensy teensy problem that you need fossil fuels to grow the corn and distill the mash. Serious analysis suggests an EROEI of 1.1:1 for grain ethanol (1.3:1 if you count the feed byproduct as "energy"), and ethanol has only 3/4 the energy per gallon of gasoline. So that means to get 30 billion gallons of grain ethanol you need to burn 20 billion gallons of fossil fuels. You will wind up with the mileage equivalent of 22 billion gallons of gasoline, but the CO2 from only 20 billion gallons. What a deal!

OK, you've got ten years to get cellulosic ethanol from pilot plant status to 2 Mbpd, or twice the output of the Canadian tar sands. Better get cracking (so to speak).

It's things like this that keep me depressed when I think about our chances for mitigating Peak Oil and Global Heating.