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US To Require That New Cars Get 42 MPG By 2016
Hugh Pickens writes "New cars and trucks will have to get 30 percent better mileage starting in 2016 under an Obama administration move to curb emissions tied to smog and global warming. While the 30 percent increase would be an average for both cars and light trucks, the percentage increase in cars would be much greater, rising from the current 27.5 mpg standard to 42 mpg. Environmentalists praised the move. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, called it 'one of the most significant efforts undertaken by any president, ever, to end our addiction to oil and seriously slash our global warming emissions.' Obama's plan also would effectively end litigation between states and automakers that had opposed state-specific rules, arguing that having to meet several state standards would be much more expensive for them than just one federal rule. The Detroit News reported that automakers were on board with the new rule and had worked with the administration on creating a timeline for the transition." There's a case to be made that raising the CAFE won't save oil or reduce greenhouse gases.
It appears SUVs will continue to have pretty horrible gas mileage.
> They're now pawns of the government, just like the banks.
No way man! Their CEOs will fight back to keep the company viable! Oh wait... to quote Pete Hoekstra:
Some numbers and more analysis are on Planet Gore.
The Army reading list
As a past owner of both makes, I'll pick Toyota's quality and reliability over that of Volkswagen every time, thanks.
My last Toyota saw me through more than twice as many miles as the Volkswagen it replaced; and then went off to college for four more years with my son. Both were bought new, by me, so no possibility of neglect by previous owners or such.
The Prius isn't my first choice either. But I'll certianly not by a car again whose VIN doesn't start with a 'J'.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm
I understand that safety is now a major concern and safety drags down mileage. But the numbers are not far fetched.
from the article
"The CRX HF got an Environmental Protection Agency-estimated 57 mpg gallon in highway driving. Today, the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid Civic you can buy gets an EPA-estimated 34 mpg on the highway. Even today's Honda Civic Hybrid can't match it, achieving EPA-estimated highway mileage of just 45 mpg. The Toyota Prius, today's fuel mileage champ, gets 46 mpg on the highway."
some peoples moderation does not include weed
No, what made last summer's gas prices so painful was that they were sudden. Make the gas tax very small, incremental, and steady over many years, and at least people (& companies) will know what to expect. Maybe even have a summer gas tax holiday if it gets bad again, or other methods of evening out prices.
Yet, I don't think in this politically charged atmosphere we are going to find anything but politically patronized studies.
How about basic physics?
Visible solar energy - sunlight - comes down through the atmosphere, strikes and warms the surface of the earth, and then is released as infrared thermal radiation. The atmosphere is like a transparent window to visible light, but it is a partially-dark window in the infrared. The solar energy comes down and warms the earth, but the heat is partially blocked and has trouble escaping to cool the earth back down. The "greenhouse effect".
The normal greenhouse effect is already about 50 degrees F. Before pollution, before cars, before the industrial revolution, before anything, the normal earth greenhouse effect and the normal CO2 levels and other atmospheric greenhouse gases already keeping the earth about 50 degrees F warmer than it would be without the greenhouse effect. The non-greenhouse-effect state of the planet would be sub-freezing-point almost from pole to pole.
Venus is a bit closer to the sun and it gets a fair percentage stronger sunlight than the earth, but that's not why Venus is so hot. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt soft metal, because the planet has a thick atmosphere of mostly CO2. The atmosphere is a completely black closed window to infrared light.
The thicker the greenhouse blanket is, the more heat it traps. It is trivial provable directly testable fact that CO2 and methane and other greenhouse gases factually *do* let sunlight come in and then act to block infrared heat from escaping. The thicker the blanket, the warmer you get under that blanket.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that earth's CO2 levels were about 260ppm before the industrial revolution.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that earth's CO2 levels have now risen to over 380ppm.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that we are currently emitting about 27 GIGAtons of CO2 per year. (Note: All volcanoes combined release somewhere in the ballpark of 200 megatons of CO2 per year.)
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is due almost exclusively to man made causes, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes that methane levels (an even more powerful greenhouse gas) have also shot up due to man-made causes.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes that Chlorofluorocarbons and other artificial compounds are of exclusively man-made origins, and that they have a vastly more powerful greenhouse effect than CO2.
The simple physics that certain atmospheric gases *do* let in warming sunlight energy and then block the escape of heat, the simple physics that a thicker blanket of those gases traps more heat, and the undisputed fact that humans have increased the levels of those gases in the atmosphere and even introduced new more powerful ones, that leads to the absolute result that yes, the effect real, it is a warming effect, and that human activities are causing this effect.
The size of the effect is a complex issue. There are other effects operating in parallel with this effect, making things even more complex. Predicting the future impact this will have on the global climate is extremely difficult and extremely complex. Predicting the secondary impacts this effect will have on the planet and upon us is insanely difficult. Deciding what, if anything, we should do about it is an economic and political question, not a scientific issue.
However what is simple is that this effect is real. It exists. It is an indisputable scientific fact.
There can be rational discussion of the size of the effect, there absolutely is substantial uncertainty in trying to predicting the future growth of the effect and trying to model what impact it will have on the overall climate, there absolutely is substantial uncertainty in the secondary impacts it will cause, there absolutely is substa
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