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But why bother thinking about the subject when you can just make stupid declarations like "efficiency is arbitrary.

Nice way to "respond" without actually "answering" the point.

most of the people in the world wouldn't die at such an early age if their local economies were more efficient

Dude! What are you smoking, and where can I get some? Seriously, I'm still trying to work out WTF point you're trying to make here...

Obviously the "efficiency" of any system depends on how you define the boundaries of that system, and those boundaries are necessarily arbitrary. (Where do you draw the line? ...your house? ...your town? ...your country? ...the earth? ...the solar system? ...the galaxy?) It seems to me that the Parent is defining "efficiency" as how much energy it takes (on average) to have a decent life in "my" country. And he claims a significant advantage over us 'Murcans in this regard.

But rather than stepping up to defend the home team, you launch into a totally irrelevant rant about markets? ...wait, what??

After reading through some of the comments here, I see a lot of people convinced that this is a terrible idea. Some argue, on ideological grounds, that the government simply shouldn't be involved in this sort of program. That's fine, but it won't convince me or other people who have different ideology. The most effective arguments against this would be explanations of why either this won't have the intended outcome, or why the intended outcome is undesirable.

It is clear that (no surprise) most of you have not read the article. If you had, you might have noticed that it references a report but does not link to it. Fortunately for you, I have saved you the 30 seconds of effort required to find it. The report is 18 pages long, 10 of which are tables listing eligible vehicles for purchase.

Now I will point out how many of the arguments posted here are addressed:

• My 11 year old Saturn still gets 40mpg.
  Fine, then this program isn't for you. It only applies to vehicles that, when new, had an EPA "combined, unadjusted" fuel efficiency rating of less than 18mpg. The report states that these are nearly all pickup trucks or SUVs.
• This should go to support public transit. Also, people with old clunkers won't be able to afford new cars.
  The plan calls for vouchers that, in addition to new vehicles, have the option to be spent on used vehicles or on public transit (although in the latter cases the voucher's value is slightly less).
• For newer cars, the voucher value won't be competitive with the used vehicle market.
  What, do you think the people who design these programs are stupid? This is taken into account in the report's projections. On page 5 of the report, there is a table stating "Estimated Percentages of Inefficient Vehicles with Trade-In Value less than Voucher Value".
• The construction of new cars will pollute more than the savings due to having more efficient cars.
  For this, I will quote from the report, page 8:

  The GREET model from Argonne National Laboratory calculates "vehicle cycle" energy consumption for a gasoline-powered
  vehicle with a conventional internal combustion engine to be approximately 10 percent of lifetime energy consumption. Hence, if a new vehicle uses half the fuel used by the vehicle it replaces, it will take only 3.3 of the fifteen years of (average) vehicle life to offset, through fuel savings, the energy costs of producing the new vehicle. Moreover, replacement of a vehicle under the program typically will delay the ownerâ(TM)s subsequent vehicle purchase, which in effect reduces the energy impacts of added vehicle production and disposal.

Now if there are any serious arguments against this program, please help me see why this is such a terrible idea.

"No, it doesn't. You're assuming a perfect "free market" with perfect competition. The oil market is nothing like that. There will always be a need for oil at ANY price. Just like some people will smoke at ANY price/cigarette."

Bul*cough*hit. There is people that will buy the same amount of oil at 50% higher prices and there is always someone who will still smoke at 50% higher prices, but the average consumption is society clearly goes down.

Europe has far higher petrol prices than the US and consequently "fuel economy" is one of the first things people ask about with regards to purchasing a car. We have grown so accustomed to high fuel prices that many would consider the US prices to be ludicrously cheap (3-3.5 USD per US gallon compared to ~ 8 USD per US gallon in the UK).

The European miles per gallon average for cars is consequently far, far higher than the US. The typical numbers given are 37 mpg for the EU and 25 mpg for the US.

Typically it costs more to make a car more efficient (4-6% price increase for 40-70% increase in MPG), but as the fuel prices increase, it becomes sensible to spend more on making the car more efficient.

Also, people clearly drive less on average with higher prices. Lots of people commute over 60 miles per day currently in Britain.

I personally commute about 70 miles per day in total. This costs me about £7 per day in diesel alone. At about 200 working days per year this costs me about £1400 per year in petrol alone (not to mention insurance, maintenance and car depreciation).

This takes a large chunk out of my wages, so I decided to look for car sharing, and consequently I save about £600 per year in fuel alone. If the diesel prices had been half of what they are, I probably wouldn't have bothered.

On the other hand, if the prices increase by 50% I would still keep my car, but overall I would change jobs to live closer to home. The extra money I would get after deducting travelling expenses simply wouldn't be worth spending 1.5 hours per day travelling for. I actually think we are approaching this stage now. Consequently I would drive considerably less.

Do I bitch about the fuel prices sometimes? Yes, now and then.

Do I curse the government for "stealing my hard earned money"? No. I think higher fuel prices are inevitable given the situation we have put ourselves in with regards to the environment.

I got to sit in on a lecture by a high ranking official from the US DOE. His opinion was that paper production was the fifth largest consumer of electricity in the United States. One of his pet projects could turn it around into a net producer of electricity but the mills were not interested and considered the equipment dangerous. Here's a reputable source of information that pegs paper production at 12% of US electricity consumption.

Whats better than a hybrid?
Building a better hybrid.

In particular a plugin hybrid electric vehicle.
Or in this case a prius with a bigger battery.
(Although a fully electric car, with the bare minimum for a gasoline generator is more ideal)

This study found that in regions where electricity comes primarily from natural gas, a plugin hybrid puts up 3x less CO2 emmisions.
And in the least green region of the United States powered almost entirely by coal.
They found that the CO2 emmisions per mile were practically idential to a normal hybrid.
http://www.aceee.org/pubs/t061.htm

Whats more, we could replace 84% of the US fleet of cars with electric, and not need to build even 1 new power plant by leveraging downtime grid usage. (More fuel use, but no new infrastructure needed)
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2006/12/plu gin_nation_g.html

Whats more, by having the distributed battery network stabalize the grid capacity.
We could actually make the grid far more reliable than it is today.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17930/
http://news.com.com/2100-11392_3-6174672.html

And there's some pretty sexy electric cars on the way.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/electriccars.png

_

Cool part about all this?
You can get electricity from the grid at a cost similar to 50 cents a gallon.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins

And it's the perfect, "flexible fuel", since electricity can come from practically anything.
Unlike Ethanol for instance, which might be even worse than gasoline in pollution.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol3
And biodiesel, which could potentially make Indonesia/Malaysia put up more CO2 than China.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/biofuel

Best part about this from an environmental perspective, is that combines two big problems into one.
So all you have to do is green the grid, to green everything.

And that can readily be provided by printable solar panels
http://www.greyfalcon.net/pv

And geothermal using inexpensive super powered electric drilling motors
http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=1206
http://www.rasertech.com/media/movies/html/well_to _wheels.html
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/1088

A Prius starts at around $22K. What kind of new car can you buy for ~$7500? Will it have all the features that are in the $22K Prius? Will it be a deathtrap compared to a Prius? You do realize that there still is a tax credit for Priuses of $787.50 per http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=157557,0 0.html and http://www.aceee.org/transportation/hybtaxcred.htm #table. It was $1575 before 3/31/07 and before that it was $3150.

As for "35 mpg" cheap city car, what mileage #s are you quoting? The current EPA mileage estimates are quite overinflated, esp. city. For example, when Consumer Reports tested an 06 Civic EX w/1.8L 4 and 5 speed auto, they got 18 city, 43 highway for an overall mileage of 28 mpg. They hybrid version got 26 city, 47 highway, 37 overall. You can see a list of vehicles w/top gas mileage at http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/buyingleas ing/most-fuelefficient-cars-206/index.htm. The only one that even gets 35 city is the Prius. The next best get 28 or 26 mpg city. The Yaris is a crap car and the Honda Fit is very slow (even slower than a Prius).

Consumer Reports found a shortfall in mileage for 90% of the vehicles they tested http://autos.msn.com/advice/CRArt.aspx?contentid=4 023460.

The regenerative braking really cuts down on brake wear. If you're light on the brakes, you're doing regen almost the whole time until you're down below ~5 mph when the Prius switches to friction brakes. There are documented cases where Prius owners are still on the original pads after 100K miles. That's a pretty significant cost savings in itself.

The LEDs also produced more lumens per watt power consumption as well as used the lest amount of energy to turn on, whereas the traditional florescents had a 7x power spike for turn on, and the traditionals had a 1.5x spike, even the CFL's had a power spike. Everything says to use LED lights now.


Unfortunately we live in a market economy. The cost is a real factor. My average lamp is 900 Lumens. My 1 watt flashlight is only 32 lumens.

If I live another 30 years in my present home, what is the cost to outfit a 6 bedroom 3 bedroom home with LED lamps and will I have any savings over CF bulbs I now have installed?

LED lamps are about 20 cents / Lumen.
Refrence PDF alert. http://www.aceee.org/pubs/a042_l11.pdf

At 5 lamps in the kitchen overhead, 2 under the microwave, 5 in the dining room, 4 in the living room, 15 in bathrooms, 12 in bedrooms, 6 in porch and drive, 4 in the laundry, 2 in the hallway, and 5 in the rec room. Average size 60 watt equivelant. Total numbers of lamps is 60 for a total of 54,000 lumens needed.

To make matters of finding a proper replacement, many LED's are not rated in Lumens but intensity. I don't need a spot of light on the celing above the light. I want the room lit up. Remember there are aproximately 1,000 Mcd to a Lumen. Using that compare this bulb to a typical 14 watt CF lamp.

http://item.express.ebay.com/Home-Garden_Lighting- Ceiling-Fans__16000-MCD-P60-48-White-LED-110-V-Edi son-Type-Light-Bulb_W0QQitemZ220015435889QQihZ012Q QddnZHomeQ20Q26Q20GardenQQadnZLightingQ20Q26Q20Cei lingQ20FansQQcmdZExpressItem

I don't think a 16 lumen lamp is a direct replacement for a 14 watt CF lamp of nearly 900 lumens.

The LEDs also produced more lumens per watt power consumption

http://members.misty.com/don/lede.html
"The better usual modern white LEDs (as of September 2006) produce about 29-45 lumens of light per watt of electricity

http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/makingithappen/no_regrets/l ighting.html

"while the fluorescent produces over 50 lumens per watt"

The high effeciency LED's just are not on the market yet for most white LED's.

I'll stick with CF's as the additional cost of LED's don't yet produce a measurable savings. I have been watching the lumens/watt and cost race for some time. It's getting close, but the average modern white LED is still not as effecient as a typical CF lamp.

A laboratory prototype of a white LED achieving 150 lumens/watt has been announced on 12/20/2006.

Wake me when these are on the shelf at a competitive price.

Buying a new fridge somewhat sooner than you would have otherwise can be a pretty good idea. Especially if the old one had been around for more than 10 years.

http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/topfridge.htm

If fuel energy bills are a big factor, why not take a look at energy-efficient heat-pumping solutions as described here?

Granted, the installation costs are generally higher, to secure lower running costs, but you could find that the balance works out ok in timescales in which you are interested.

-wb-

Pre-1992 central air conditioners may have SEER ratings of only 6 or 7. The national efficiency standard for central air conditioners in 2005 requires a minimum SEER of 10, but it will rise to SEER 13 for products manufactured after January 22, 2006.

And, yes, despite the ridiculous metric (Btu/Wh), that is nearly 2x as efficient.

I've got a small window unit that costs $40/mo to run continuously. This keeps my room cool and the rest of a 1000 sq ft house bearable. It cost $120 a couple of years ago, but they've gone down in price since then. The South Korean company that made it seems to have done a nice job, too, because it's been dropped before and still runs like a champ.

90% chemical-to-heat efficiency
30-40% internal-combustion engine efficiency
60-70% large scale turbine efficiency
70% lead-acid battery efficiency
Another reference for gasoline energy density

Which numbers were out to lunch in the real world, and what are the correct numbers?

It may interest you to know that only about 4% of American oil comes from the Gulf, let alone Iraq. 80% is produced domestically and most of the remaining comes from South America and Africa. Hence it's ludicrous to suggest that an American attack on Iraq will raise local oil prices.

Hmmm.....

This is from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy

Darn treehuggers? Well, this link is even more interesting they are the EIA (Energy Information Administration), their Website is even labeled "Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government" coool!

Check out figure 51, a little more than 20% imports...

A simple Google search seems to indicate that most people seem to quote between 50 and 60% net oil import for the US and not 20%. Domestic US supply is on the decline and imports are on the rise. I also think that a little more than a quarter of the US imported oil comes from the Gulf Region or other middle eastern sources.

If you don't think we're behind you might want to look at some Japanese cell phones http://www.nokia.co.jp or some of those incredibly fuel efficient cars from Europe. I don't have a link for those, but just a normal Fiat is more fuel efficient than an SUV. Gas prices go down! Especially a good idea now with our middle east action.

There was recently a push by some Democrats in the Senate to mandate that by 2016, I believe, the minimum fuel economy of a company's fleet must be at least 36 MPG.

The proposal died because "soccer moms won't feel safe in a car that gets 36 mpg," a reference to the super-scaled-down design of super-efficient cars. It is this mentality -- not to mention the unending faith in the US Auto companies -- that caused the Republicans to force an uber-lame version of the bill, which simply says "in the future, make cars better than they are now" without setting any specific fuel economy ratings. With reps like these, who needs terrorists?

http://www.aceee.org/press/0203cafe.htm has a bit of info, CNN probably does too.