Destination Parks if oil gets scarce?
In a way, he's right- today's hybrid cars don't do anything to solve a problem, they just lengthen the amount of time between now and when the world has to make some very big changes. And it's tough to ignore studies that reveal hybrids do nothing to curb oil consumption because people will travel more because they're getting more miles to their dollar.
But I don't believe that society is ever going to return to small-town living. As much as it troubles me at times, this is a global economy and that isn't going to change. Also look at the population- overcrowding is what led most people to leave cities, and now that the population has grown exponentially since the days of the first suburban flight, there's no way all those people are suddenly going to fit into cities. In this case, I agree with Jeremy- necessity is the mother of invention and a solution will eventually be found. Or created.
It's not small town living vs city living. It's living smarter and realizing that the current suburban model of development doesn't make sense since it is not conducive to alternative transportation options and consumes too much land for "useless" things (giant parking lots, huge lawns, median strips, extra wide highways, retention ponds, assorted wastelands, etc.). Small towns and cities will gain new importance after 50 years of almost total abandonment of the traditional town/city planning model. You already see it happening with many successful "New Urbanist" developments.
Yes, the population has grown but the rate of suburban expansion has far exceeded the rate of population growth. We will have to learn to live in denser mixed-use communities where public transit is a viable option, where walking to the store is a viable option, where energy consumption is greatly reduced (because no combination of alternative fuels is realistically going to replace the vast amount of oil energy we currently use), and where the surrounding countryside can be used to support the population centers through locally based food systems.
But they will all require some rough adjustments because the status quo won't be an option much longer. And the solutions are not going to happen automatically as it seems you suggest.
What's funny is we tend to vacation in just these sorts of areas. We stash the car someplace and wander around "quaint" communities. Disney is a manifestation of that in a way, albeit in an artificial sense. But riding the monorail around instead of driving, strolling down a traditional town square (admittedly an overly romanticized version), and interacting with other humans instead of hiding within isolated suburban houses with "moats" (large lawns, fences, gated communities) is a pleasureable experience.
I highly recommend the documentary "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil". Cuba is an interesting case because it was forced to cope with "artificial peak oil" because of sanctions against oil imports. The documentary shows how they adjusted and found solutions to keep society running. Not all their solutions are applicable to every spot in the world, but it is a good example of some of the things one society was forced to do, and a model for solving a problem that the rest of us will face in the future.
Which studies are those? That's completely false. By that logic, people who drive gas guzzlers would drive less, and that's surely not the case.
Rob Ascough said:
And it's tough to ignore studies that reveal hybrids do nothing to curb oil consumption because people will travel more because they're getting more miles to their dollar.
I think millrace's mention of suburban sprawl is one of the key issues in this country. I'm a part of it, and people are expanding even further away from the city. This in itself wouldn't be a bad thing if the jobs moved out of town at the same rate (and there's evidence that this has happened to a small degree in some markets), but for the most part people are sleeping in one place and working 20+ miles away.
I work for a company in the 'burbs, but unfortunately the housing market is such that I can't cost effectively move closer to it. I might bet 40 mpg in my Corolla, but I know my fuel consumption is still way too high, at a rate of 10 gallons or so a week with other travel in between. It pains me to still be part of the problem, but I want to get my personal life in order before moving again.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
The second is that among those people who buy the new, improved vehicles, higher mileage requirements won't actually discourage driving. Just the opposite. A driver who trades in a car that gets 20 miles per gallon for one that gets 35 m.p.g. will suddenly be more inclined to use her wheels even more than before, since the cost of any given trip is drastically lower. A 2002 study by the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies found that if Congress raised the fuel mandate to 35 m.p.g, the average new light truck "would log about 1,080 more miles per year."
Please note that I'm not suggesting that fuel efficiency and hybrids are bad, but they are not a complete solution.
lata, jeremy
--tounge planted not-so-firmly in cheek....
2002 light truck averages: ~18mpg.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s06003.htm#highlight1
2002 overall fleet average: ~21mpg. (Same source).
Scaling up, a 35mpg CAFE fleet-wide average suggests a ~30mpg light truck average (assuming balance of light trucks/cars remains the same).
2002 average annual light truck mileage logged: 12,200
http://www.census.gov/prod/ec02/ec02tv-us.pdf
2002 light truck gallons consumed at 18mpg: ~678 gallons/year.
Annual mileage if study conclusion is true: 13,280. Gallons consumed at 30mpg: ~443 gallons.
In short, raising the CAFE standard would decrease fuel consumption by almost 35%, even if individual vehicles are driven more.
Jeff said:
Which studies are those? That's completely false. By that logic, people who drive gas guzzlers would drive less, and that's surely not the case.
False, my ass. I don't have the time to search the internet for various sources but I've read plenty of printed publications in the recent past featuring articles debunking many of the hybrid myths.
I don't want to take anything away from hybrids, and I will admit my statement about them doing nothing to curb fuel consumption was a little inaccurate, but as many have proven they are hardly the solution they're made out to be. Relatively cheap gas does inspire many hybrid owners to drive more, and that cancels out many of the advantages of owning a hybrid. Let's not forget that hybrids rarely deliver the kind of mileage they're advertised to deliver. And it can't be ignored that hybrids only work really well for a small part of the population. People driving in cities make out fine with them but highway drivers aren't so lucky.
Again, I think hybrids are a good idea, but it's foolish to think they're any kind of long-term solution. If anything, they're a compromise while auto makers come up with something better.
Joe: I realize that certain things are going to happen that force a change rather than merely suggesting one, but the laws of statistics cannot be ignored. People often live far from where they work and even if there is a huge push to correct that problem with a return to the small-town concept, it's not going to happen overnight. The sad truth is that this country has not been planning for a change- if anything, it has carelessly endorsed the kind of sh** that is getting us deeper and deeper into the hole. I won't disagree that a change is needed, but it's not going to happen immediately, even if it has to be that way.
Not surprising, as that's the level to which discourse in this country has sunk---making the same point over and over, and more loudly, without a shred of evidence to back it up.
It's not like it's hard. I found those sources I quoted above in a grand total of 10 minutes with google.
2Hostyl said:^Of course not. Any *complete* solution would include nuclear energy.
Is it me, or is this country totally HOOKED on the idea of finding ONE "magic bullet" to the energy problem? Seems like tackling the problem by addressing ALL of the issues: fuel efficiency deficienies, IMPLEMENTING the alternative sources we already have, utilizing mass-transit, telecommuting where appropriate, etc., will at least reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources (with the added bonus of increasing in national security).
This country, with our attention span reduced to milliseconds, has become hamstrung by the notion of finding one SIMPLE solution to a very complex problem that will ultimately require a unified and varied approach. Then again, with our educational system where it is, it might be too much to ask our citizens to consider a complex set of solutions...
I'm also not too knowledgable as far as nuclear energy goes but I know for one thing that E85 is not the answer. When we use E85 it takes more gas to run the farm machinery to plant hte corn than we save. The amount of corn it takes to make a gallon of gas is ridiculous when it comes to E85. That's bad too considering it takes up a large percentage of sweet corn we can use to export or eat ourselves. Field corn is a totally different story.
There are current substitutes for oil in transportation--natural gas is one. If we (the country) stopped using our natural gas for electric generation (use coal or nuclear) and instead converted some heavy users of oil fuel(truck fleets, buses) to use natural gas you could reduce our oil use substantially. (I think I saw an article that said doing this could eliminate our oil imports from the middle east.)
If a plug-in hybrid becomes reality soon, this would also shift our energy use to the electric grid from oil. Sure, updating the electric grid and building more power plants would have a cost, but nowhere near the scale of the cost of rebuilding the country where we all have to live in a tiny space in huge cities.
Heck, oil isn't even scarce yet--we're just running out of the very cheap stuff and what's left is more expensive. The estimates I've seen are that oil sands around the world contain an amount of oil that dwarfs what the middle east has. But this oil isn't cheap (it can be had for much less that the $80 current price, though). People are afraid to develop this oil, as they have no guarantee that the price of oil won't drop to $20 and run them out of business.
We can also make a liquid fuel from coal, but everyone would need earplugs to avoid the screams of the "environmentalists."
What's the best and quickest way to reduce our dependence on middle east oil? As any economist would say--tax the heck out of it. If you put a floor on the price of a barrel of oil, ($40, $50, $60, whatever) and raised the floor every year, (maybe $1?) it would give those in the alternative energy business assurance they wouldn't be run out of business because the shieks decided to open the oil spigots.
As to Michael Moore and others who want to look to Cuba for our answers, you can count me out.
Bottom line: Be Green. Go Nuclear! ;)
lata, jeremy
zacharyt.shutterfly.com
PlaceHolder for Castor & Pollux
Look here. And here. But this is the best one.
And not only does one of the articles prove what I was saying but the others show that attitudes towards hybrids inspire more widespread use. The stuff about the allowing of hybrids in carpool lanes with only one passenger is pretty disturbing.
*** Edited 9/20/2007 8:31:29 PM UTC by Rob Ascough***
*** Edited 9/20/2007 8:55:18 PM UTC by SLFAKE***
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
The Reason Foundation article cites a study (the dust-to-dust one) performed by a marketing research group. Here's the bio for the guy who authored the study, Art Spinella:
Art was named President of CNW Marketing Research, Inc. on January 12, 2001, but he still reports to the all-knowing yet unseen CEO and Managing Director Stephanie Yanez. He spent 20 something years as a newspaper and magazine editor and learned the market research craft from none other than J. D. Power (the person, not the company). His resume is too long and too boring to detail here, but those in the know consider it to be impressive.
In other words, more bluster. The first article is garbage.
The second article, the Washington Post story on HOV lanes, I'm completely down with. It's got good data for the problem it deals with.
The third article is an opinion piece that tries to argue that increased mileage driven from the 70s on is caused by increase in fuel efficiency. That's a coincidence, not a causal relationship. The disintegration of the central city during that period, and increased suburban sprawl also contributed. Improved fuel efficiency is only one contributor---decrease in city safety, etc. may also contribute. It's an interesting opinion piece, but more hypothesis than fact. For a very accessible treatment on the distinction between correlation and causality, I suggest Freakonomics.
So for sources, you're batting .333---pretty good by major league baseball terms, and pretty poor for debate.
You've still got Jeff beat, though, who is resorting to "I know more than you do." While that may be true, an actual citation would help the skeptical among us believe it. ;)
Brian Noble said:For a very accessible treatment on the distinction between correlation and causality, I suggest Freakonomics.
:)
Changed the way I view "the 3Cs of life"...causality, correlation, and coincidence. Truly, one of the great books of our time...
Like I said, I take back part of what I said- lower gas prices and increased mileage isn't going to completely cancel out any fuel savings resulting from the widespread use of hybrids, but it's not like they are the solution to the problem, or are even close to being a solution. They still use gas. Better efficency will lead some owners to drive more than they normally would. Highway mileage isn't as exponentially better as city mileage, meaning hybrids will inevitably cater to only some drivers. Current hybrids- at least the truly effective ones- are smaller cars and SUVs and not larger vehicles that many people want/need. And if you look at the hybrids that auto makers are planning, many of them are merely higher-performance variants of regular cars, focusing on more power from the same amount of gas, rather than more miles from the same amount of gas.
Of course, there's my personal issues with the Prius- a typical bulletproof-but-boring Toyota product that's a trendy accessory for every Hollywood poseur that wants a little good press and attention- but that's pretty much all I have to say about that ;)
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