Comments on: White House rolls out details of fuel economy, emissions standard — The biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2

By: Leif

Leif — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:45:24 +0000

Welcome #9: Even though you are obviously an Anti-Science Sink Hole, there is more than enough science to awaken even you should you care to read. Oh, did you know that those hacked e-mails appeared to have originated from Russia. So now it is clear that Rush and Beck are in cahoots with the Russian Oil industry to maximize Russian oil profits and you are a willing participant that gets the reward of higher oil prices and those profits are sent over seas to boot. Talk of brain dead!

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:11:27 +0000

2016 is a little late, isn’t it, considering the sea ice at the arctic is so thin you can’t even walk on it! It seems like he could have made it more in tune with WW2 efforts.

By: I

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:46:04 +0000

There is no climate change you bunch of brain dead lemmings!

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:10:29 +0000

I was reading about this on some of the local Minnesota newspaper websites and the comments are jammed full with tales of woe – how this amounts to the socialists taking their freedom away, how you can’t tow a boat with a smart car, and more pearl-clutching and teeth-gnashing.

I don’t know how they can simultaneously believe that “America is the greatest country EVAR” and at the same time believe we can’t produce a pickup that gets 35 MPG.

By: Lou

Lou — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:15:09 +0000

I read what seemed to be a fairly good analysis about the new fuel economy standards on a rather obscure blog a while back. I think this is the link:

http://bastionofreason.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 06/ plugging-tail-pipe-reducing-emissions.html

By: Ken Johnson

Ken Johnson — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:58:57 +0000

“…the proposal was expected to … reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons …” That’s 950 million allowances that fuel refiners will not have to use to cover vehicle emissions under ACES. What will become of those allowances?

By: Jeff Huggins

Jeff Huggins — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:21:48 +0000

BBHY (Comment 4)

BBHY, I said “when used”, and I was trying to convey how much a person actually generates in her/his car when the gasoline is burned. That’s a very easy and concrete number — and something that people should know. It doesn’t depend on estimates from the producers/refiners, so it can at least be considered “solid” from the standpoint of what it is.

That said, I agree with you that much energy is used in the whole process, not only in logistics and transportation, and refining, but also in the exploration process and etc. — throughout the whole process. I agree with you that the “all in” number must be somewhat — probably considerably — greater than the 19 to 20.

Yet, that extra component of the number depends on estimates. Where can credible estimates be found? The oil companies probably aren’t offering them. May I ask, what is the source of your 23 to 24 pound figure? Is it on the web, in a report, or in IPCC documents? I’d love to understand the number, but I like to understand sources and bases and so forth.

Any info you can provide regarding the basis of your 23-24 number would be appreciated. Thanks.

Cheers,

Jeff

By: BBHY

BBHY — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:20:47 +0000

Sorry Jeff, but your number is too low. It’s really more like 23 to 24 pounds of CO2 per gallon.

To produce a gallon of gasoline you have to refine crude oil, which has to be pumped out and transported. You have to add in the CO2 generated in the pumping, transport and refining processes to get an full CO2 footprint for gasoline.

As crude oil become more scarce, an ever larger portion of our gasoline is produced from oil shale and oil sands and tar sands. Producing gasoline from those sources increases the CO2 footprint tremendously, probably to 40 pounds or more.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:44:55 +0000

I wonder how plug-in hybrids should figure into this?

Take the Volt for example: it officially gets 260mpg, so it doesn’t seem like GM will have to do much more than make sure that the Volts sell well, and it won’t need to do a whole lot more with the other models to bring the fleet average up to 35mpg.

Let’s say Company X sells 1 million SUVs that get 20mpg. They’d just need to sell 67,000 hybrids that officially get 260mpg to bring the combined 1.067 million-car fleet up to 35mpg.

Of course, getting 67k plug-in hybrids on the road is a pretty good thing, so maybe this isn’t really a problem. Just that there’s going to be a lot of sensitivity to how the EPA defines the tests that determine the official mpg numbers for plug-in hybrids.

By: Bob Wallace

Bob Wallace — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:01:31 +0000

Project Get Ready has released a handy on line calculator which lets you compare the overall cost and carbon emission for various vehicle choices.

It let’s you pick two cars and compare them based on your annual driving mileage and style, what you expect gas and electricity to cost, how long you’ll own the vehicle, etc.

(Hit the Advanced Options to get more input options.)

Interesting outcomes when you look at how paying more up front can save a lot in the long term.

http://projectgetready.com/js/tco.html