Category: energy

Ozone and CAFE

Coincidentally, two related-but-unrelated items came out today.

A new National Academy of Sciences report confirms (reconfirms?) the link between elevated ozone air pollution and increased risk of premature death was released. See, e.g. Panel Confirms That Ozone Kills, US News & World Report April 23, 2008. Ozone is an unavoidable byproduct any combustion, e.g. automobile use.

On the fuel-economy front, presumably to coincide with earth day, Bush Administration released accelerated CAFE standards. See e.g. Government to release proposed fuel economy rules, Associated Press April 22, 2008.

Holman Jenkins’ WSJ Business World column, A Volt out of the Red, gave his usual analysis of CAFE, which I believe is right, and I tend to agree with. My complain is his sin of omission — does he not know about toxic pollution? He continues to berate the Prius, as in this dig “…GM intends to beat Toyota at its own game of selling bogus green symbolism to Washington and Hollywood”.

Does toxic pollution not count? Since apparently Jenkins doesn’t “believe in” global warming, does that also mean he doesn’t believe in air pollution either?.

The Toyota Prius (note 1) puts out only about one-half the ozone-forming pollutants per mile of the average new car (average is defined as being bin 5). An absurd vehicle like the Hummer H2, bin 8, emits between two and ten TIMES as much ozone-forming pollutants (note 2). How much more are H2 drivers paying to pollute the air, say, compared to Prius driver? Nothing. Drivers pay nothing. And if you can believe it, the H2 situation now is much better than it was a few years ago, in 2004 model year the H2 emitted between five and 30 times the pollution of a Prius.

And it’s not like Toyota is “green” and Hummer (owned by GM) is dirty — Toyota produces their own dirty cars, e.g. in 2008 the Scion XD bin 8, just like the H2. Though it looks like Toyota never produces a bin 11 car.

What’s the point? I don’t own a Prius. The point isn’t for everyone to run out and buy a low-emissions vehicle — that actually wouldn’t work because the regulations work on a fleet average. A constructive start would be to price pollution appropriately. This simple market-based solution would reduce the total amounts of smog and result in better health for all. The polluter, that is to say the driver, should pay.

Notes:

1) See EPA GreenVehicle Guide, About Ratings. Pdfs for vehicle emissions standards, and summary/history (the glossary is particularly useful). This explains the Tier 1, and Tier 2 “bins”. This is all terribly confusing because the bin number (1 through 11) goes up as pollution goes up — whereas the EPA’s “Air Pollution Score” (10 downto 0) goes down.

2) Retrieved from the 2008 model year EPA Green Vehicle Guide.

-) Another explanation of Tiers and Bins at hybridcars.com

-) Excellent article at Edmunds: Untangling U.S. Vehicle Emissions Regulations

Who pays for ozone pollution?

If the WSJ (editors, of course. Red Tape Rising, March 21, 2008) is to be believed, the Bush administration has unleashed a last-minute flood of not only expensive but mis-guided regulations on America. Singled out for scrutiny is the modest reduction in allowable levels of man-made ozone pollution. Continue reading “Who pays for ozone pollution?”

One-man brown cloud

20,000 miles per year!? A heavy-duty pickup truck as personal transportation!? Diesel!? Loads of particulates, loads of air pollution. He is a one man brown cloud!

Eric Anderson, Title: Transportation director, Maricopa Association of Governments…His daily commute: South on Loop 101 to the Loop 202 and Interstate 10 into Phoenix. What he drives: A 1999 Ford F-250 diesel pickup so he can haul a horse trailer. It gets about 18 to 20 miles a gallon and has about 80,000 miles on it. Gas costs: Around $70 a week. He drives about 400 miles.

— FOR FREEWAY CHIEF, HIS WAY IS THE HIGHWAY, October 27, 2007, Glen Creno, The Arizona Republic

…

Carbon’s New Battleground

WSJ article Carbon’s New Battleground, Sept 12, 2007 describing the choice as basically between cap-and-trade scheme vs. a carbon tax. The carbon tax is virtually universally favored by economists as being superior. So we will end up with a cap-and-trade system that is susceptible to political nonsense. Continue reading “Carbon’s New Battleground”

High cost of free parking

A prominent “negative externality” of suburban living is the so-called free parking spot. Since the users, that is customers arriving in private automobiles, do not pay for its use economic inefficiencies inevitably result. It is normally supposed that the proprietor pays for parking facilities as a cost of business however that is often perverted by subsidies granted by government

 

Continue reading “High cost of free parking”

Book: “Future Energy”

I read the book Future Energy: How the new oil industry will change people, politics and portfolios. The author is Bill Paul.

It was ok. His idea was to explain various opportunities and identifies specific companies to “watch” (presumably, potential investments).

He believes that “well meaning but misguided people” should stop tring to get Americans to drive less. But then goes on to support the idea of TGR (Tradable Gasoline Rights) which is really just a a government imposed free-market solution to make gasoline more expensive. Which would, of course, lessen demand. He also fully supports the notion that imported oil carries hidden costs and is detrimental to our foreign policy. He quotes Milton Copulos’s testimony before the senate foreign relations committee at length in Appendix B: Primer on Why Gasoline’s True Cost in 2006 was more than $11 a gallon. I should point out that these figures only take into account the externalites surrounding the military, and makes no allowance for any of the many other social costs of gasoline consumption / automobile use (mayhem, pollution, free parking, etc.).

The whole TGR thing is very interesting, but logistically horrendously complex. It was laid out in a WSJ op-ed piece by Martin Feldstein who is a Harvard Economics prof.

Jevon’s Paradox

(also sometimes spelled / misspelled? Jeavon).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
In economics, the Jevons Paradox is an observation made by William Stanley Jevons, who stated that as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource may increase, rather than decrease…

Thus it is a dangerous folly to simply improve efficiency, think hybrid gasoline powered cars. Many, unfortunately including most policymakers, constantly harp on “technical improvements” as a way out of our energy problems. We know that this will likely increase demand. Chalk it up as another victory for the law of unintended consequences.

See also, Pigovian tax.

Engery Intensity of various automobiles

A gang called CNW Market Research released a report a couple of years ago, they call it “Dust to Dust”, that purports to measure the entire amount of energy consumed by cars broken down by type and specific models. They have reached the breathless result that: “Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet’s Tahoe SUV”. Continue reading “Engery Intensity of various automobiles”

Gas Taxes (again), or WSJ duplicity

This is fairly typical of the duplicty in WSJ editorials. They denounce the Democratic leadership for not calling for a large gas tax. But apparently Republicans get a pass, even though they were the leadership before 2006 for many years (12, was it?). They also don’t really endorse the gas tax, they merely assert (correctly) that higher priced fuel would lessen demand — so they can have it both ways it seems. Continue reading “Gas Taxes (again), or WSJ duplicity”

Pigovian tax

Definition from wikipedia

A pigovian tax is a tax levied to correct the negative externalities of a market activity. For instance, a Pigovian tax may be levied on producers who pollute the environment to encourage them to reduce pollution, and to provide revenue which may be used to counteract the negative effects of the pollution.

The best answer to America’s “problem” with energy, and with private automobiles in particular is to simply tax (mainly fuel) to compensate for the negative externalities. Pollution, mayhem, free parking, noise — all of these have a cost which is not being paid for by their users.

See Mankiw’s ( past chairman, Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush administration)  The Pigou Club Manifesto.

Money collected via such taxes would best be used to lower payroll taxes — or to lower taxes on wages and/or investment generally, as Holman Jenkins points out in his column…

Continue reading “Pigovian tax”