Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:44:29 GMT | 1 comment
The price we pay for a gallon of gas at the pump doesn’t include all the costs associated with it, like environmental costs and tax subsidies. One older study found that if we included all of these, we would be paying and extra $5 to $14 per gallon!
However, if we look at just the cost spent on military defense of oil in the Persian Gulf, it would be less than this.
One rough estimate would be to assume that 15% of the $430 billion DoD budget was spent on defending our oil interests in the Persian Gulf. Spread over the 142 billion gallons of gas we use each year, it works out to $0.46 per gallon.
Of course the hard number to determine is how much of the military budget goes to just protecting oil in the Persian Gulf. The $65 billion seems to fall in the middle range of what is spent on that region, but there is a lot of differences in opinion over how much spending would be reduced if we didn’t need to protect the oil there.
Here are some of the studies and what they determined we would need to add to the price of a gallon of gas to cover the cost of protecting oil in the Persian Gulf:
So don’t assume the price you pay at the pump is the true cost of gasoline. There are a lot more costs hidden away in making that gasoline available and in the environmental problems it causes that you pay for elsewhere.
Posted in Peak Oil, Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:25:41 GMT | no comments
Here is an interesting article written by Michael W. Foley, a former professor in the social sciences, that looks at various examples around the world where there was social breakdown, what the factors led to ensuing violence, and how the US might react given a similar crisis situation:
Coming Chaos? Maybe Not
He found that while there were many cases where economic and ecological collapse led to violence, there were also many cases where it didn’t. The major determining factors were:
- Political motivation
- Police
- Leadership
- Community
His conclusion is that prospects for violence in the US following a “hard landing” are very small, except in some isolated locations where police and community support break down.
Posted in Global Warming, Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:07:43 GMT | 1 comment
There are some questions about whether electric vehicles (EVs) actually reduce the amount of CO2 emitted, especially when electricity is produced by coal. However, we have seen that EVs in clean energy states produce only 1/6 as much CO2, and even in the worst case, produce no more than a regular gas car.
Providing more evidence of this, a new study by Boston Consulting Group not only shows how much less CO2 electric vehicles produce, but also puts a figure on how much this costs:
While this report shows that the cost of reducing CO2 with electric vehicles is not cheap, costing between $7,000 and $14,000 to reduce CO2 in half, the CO2 savings far surpass anything possible with advanced gas (ICE) engines. And the CO2 emissions caused by electric vehicles is only going to get lower as electric power generation becomes cleaner and the premium for electric cars will continue to fall as batteries become cheaper.
(Reference: The Comeback of the Electric Car)
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:45:00 GMT | no comments
On January 16th, the Long Now Foundation sponsored a very interesting talk at Fort Mason by Saul Griffith entitled “Climate Change Recalculated”.
Saul first went through a calculation of his energy usage. However, he did it in a different way – instead of using energy (kilo-watt-hours or kWh) he used continuous power expended (kilo-watts or kW) because this made it easier to add up and compare.
After adding up all his plane trips, driving, food, energy usage and embodied energy in the stuff he buys (which accounts for 1/4 of his energy use), he calculated that he used 18kW. By comparison, a person in Qatar uses 27kW but the average person in the US uses 11kW and the global average is 2.2kW. So he uses a lot more than the average American and way more than the global average. So he decided to shoot for 2.2kW and see how he would have to change his life.
First, he would be able to fly to the East Coast only once per year, and fly to Australia only once every 5 years. He would need to have a car that got 100 MPG, and then could only drive 20 miles per day. He could eat meat only once a week and would need to buy 1/10 of the stuff he does now and make it last 10 times longer. He isn’t quite there yet but has cut down on his travel and the stuff he buys and now is using only 12kW. Interestingly, this has also increased his quality of life. For instance, he isn’t traveling as much so is spending more time with his family.
Next he talked about climate change and what would be necessary to hold CO2 to 450 ppm. Humanity currently uses 16TW (tera-watts or 10^12 watts or a million-million watts) and in order to hold the CO2 limit, we can only burn 3TW of fossil fuels. Since 1.5TW already comes from renewable resources we would need an additional 11.5TW from new renewable sources. To meet this, we would need to produce 2TW of power each year for the next 25 years (not sure how he got this from the 11.5TW figure?), and this would require installing:
- Photovoltaic: 100 m2 per second
- Solar thermal: 50 m2 per second
- Wind: one every 5 or 6 seconds
- Nuclear: one new plant every 3 weeks
This is a lot! However, if GM and Ford stopped making cars and started making just wind turbines, they could meet the goal of creating a wind turbine every 5 seconds.
Summary: We need to reduce the power we all use – which we can do but is not easy. We also need to dramatically increase the amount of renewable power production – which we can do but it won’t be easy.
(For more details, see Climate Change Recalculated)
The next by the Long Now Foundation is Social Collapse Best Practices on February 13th and features Dmitry Orlov who witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and how it survived and applies these insights into how the US might not be able to cope as well with a similar collapse. Should be interesting too!
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:37:16 GMT | no comments
The prices that people are paying for RAV4-EVs are a little crazy. Last year, several sold on eBay for over $45,000.
Today there was an auction for a 2003 RAV4-EV with 97,000 miles – which means the battery pack will need to be replaced at a cost of about $15,000. Nevertheless, the sale price was $32,600, so the total cost will be over $47,000 – crazy!
I mean the RAV4-EV is a great car, but it makes more sense to wait for another year or so when the new electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt will be available and will likely be less than $40,000.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:58:50 GMT | no comments
Interested in what it really costs to operate an electric vehicle? Here is what one RAV4-EV owner estimated his costs to be, including replacing the battery pack:
First 115,000 miles:
- $30,000: Original price minus $20,000 rebate
- $5,000: Charger, solar panels, some grid power
- $4,000: Tires, brake pads, minor dent removals, AAA, rear glass, seat covers, registration
- $6,000: Insurance
- $45,000: Total, or $0.39 per mile
Next 120,000 miles:
- $15,000 battery pack replacement
- $3,000 electricity
- $5,500 tires, registration and others
- $4,000 insurance
- $27,500 total, or $0.23 per mile
The takeaway from this is not just that the total per mile cost of an electric vehicle will be lower than a regular car, but also that replacing the battery pack can be done economically.
Source: RAV4-EV Archives (registration required)
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:46:24 GMT | no comments
With all the talk about global warming, we sometimes forget that man is damaging the planet in far worse ways. Take for instance, polar bears. They have become a cover issue for global warming and are prominent in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. One study found a decline of 15 bears per year in the western coast of Hudson Bay and there was a sighting of 4 drowned bears after an abrupt windstorm. Both of these have been attributed to global warming.
However, in Baffin Bay the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board will allow 105 bears to be killed this year, even though biologist feel that the quota should be 64 or less to avoid overhunting.
Whatever the number, whether 64 or 105, it is obvious that man is responsible for directly killing more polar bears than are harmed by global warming.
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:38:16 GMT | no comments
Here is a little humor to brighten your day. (I don’t know where it originally came from because it has been floating around the Internet for a while.) And while its barbs are aimed at the scoundrel of the moment, all businesses are sometimes guilty of this too.
—-—-—
Toyota and GM decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River.
Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
BUT on the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So American management hired a consulting company referred to them by the US Government and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
The consultants advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized into 3 steering supervisors, 1 area steering superintendents, 1 publicity manager, 1 HR diversity coordinator, 1 union rep, and a rower.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program”, with a lunch and a free company pen for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and performance-tied bonuses but that decision was held up in committee.
BUT the next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment.
The money from all sales and all forecasted moneys saved from further competition was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was out-sourced to India.
Posted in Attempts at Humor
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:56:34 GMT | no comments
It is well known that a large part of our military expenses goes to protecting the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. What has not been as clear is the actual cost of this protection. However a recent study sheds some light on this hidden expense.
In this study, Mark Delucchi of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis estimates that American taxpayers spent between $27 billion and $73 billion in 2004 (which was the most recent year data was available) for military protection of US oil interests in the Persian Gulf region.
While this is a huge number by itself, it works out to only $0.03 to $0.15 cents per gallon of gas for motor vehicle use.
Posted in Peak Oil, Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:53:30 GMT | no comments
One of the arguments against electric vehicles (EVs) is that the batteries won’t last very long and are expensive to replace. However, even the 10-year old NiMH batteries in RAV4 EVs can last up to 150,000 miles and we now we have test results showing that Li-ion batteries can last over 180,000 miles.
Since batteries can now last longer than the car itself, this argument can finally be put to rest.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
