Cascadia Scorecard Weblog

Power Roundup

There have been a couple of interesting energy stories in the news for the last few days.  First, from BC comes this story, about what happened when the provincial electric utility asked for proposals to ramp up generating capacity in the province:

Green power projects, including small hydro and wind facilities, comprise the overwhelming majority of private-sector bids submitted to BC Hydro in an ambitious call for new sources of electricity for British Columbia...more than twice the amount Hydro was expecting when it issued an open call for tenders last December, and equivalent to about 10 per cent of B.C.'s existing electricity supply.

Now, obviously, not all of that capacity will be built, at least not at first; but it's still a promising development that so many green-power proposals were tendered. The bigger news, perhaps, was that not a single new natural gas power plant was proposed.  Not one.  Apparently, the high and fluctuating price of natural gas is making it harder for such plants to pencil out.  What a change from a few years ago, when, in the wake of the 2001 power crisis -- and despite all the press attention that new wind farms got -- the Pacific NW added 17 times as much generating capacity from natural gas as from wind power.

And then (hat tip to Matt Leber) comes this news:  the Seattle Steam company, which generates heat for a number of the buildlings in the downtown core, is planning to switch from natural gas burners to wood. At some level this is troubling; burning wood for energy didn't do the forests of New England any good.  But Denmark has had good success with heat & power plants that run from biomass; so perhaps this isn't something to worry about yet.  To add to the good news, Seattle Steam is considering adding combined heat-power facility to its other downtown plant. They're massively efficient, since the residual heat that's left over after the electricity is generated is used warm local buildings.  If a combined heat-power plant designed right, less than 10 percent of the energy is wasted, compared with 40-65 percent for conventional plants.

Driving With Alcohol

Alcohol can lead to all kinds of unintended consequences, but who knew it could lead to energy independence? Apparently, the Brazilians did. Processing sugar cane into ethanol is expected to help Brazil meet its rising energy demands in a big way. According to an article in the New York Times, officials expect that within a year the country will become fully energy self-sufficient thanks largely to putting sugar in gas tanks.

Brazil's story is encouraging, but it's hard to know precisely what conclusions to draw for North Americans.

We can't buy Brazil's success by importing cane-based ethanol because our current policy regime all but disallows it. The US (and Europe too) slaps stiff duties on sugar imports--to the tune of 54 cents a gallon on cane-based ethanol imports, enough to render Brazilian ethanol at a competitive disadvantage.

We can't copy Brazil's success because our colder latitudes don't support sugar cane. Even Florida is considered only marginally productive for sugar cane and it comes at a horrific cost to ecological treasures like the Everglades. Hawaii produces sugar too, but its land base is far too small to meet American demand.

We can't imitate Brazil's success with northern crops like corn because producing corn-based ethanol is far too energy intensive.

Under the best conditions, corn ethanol yields only about 1.3 times as much energy as is required to produce it. Brazilian sugar cane, on the other hand, can yield 8 times as much energy; and producers think that efficiency can go to 10 times.

And even if we did somehow have access to Brazil's ethanol, our vehicle fleet couldn't take full advantage of it. But Brazil's can: more than 70 percent of cars sold in Brazil are "flex fuel" allowing drivers to alternate between ethanol and petroleum as price (or conscience) directs. Even better for Brazilian drivers, the flex fuel engines don't cost any more than conventional motors.

Sugar cane production is proving to be a boon to Brazil's economy, not to mention to its ecological footprint. (Nowadays, even the cane waste products are getting recycled back into various manufacturing processes.) But cane is not a free ride either: it's often grown on former pasture land and many fear that this will push livestock owners to clear more Amazon rainforest to make room. And cane growers are now pushing for genetically modified versions that will boost energy output and also resist disease and droughts. But GMO sugar cane may pose other unforeseen ecological problems down the road.

For me, the lesson from Brazil is two-fold. First, solving our biggest environmental problems (e.g. fossil fuel addiction and climate change) often forces us into other environmental compromises like deforestation and genetic crop modification. It's frustrating, of course, but real-world problems like energy consumption rarely offer no-downside solutions.

Second, there is not going to be any one-size-fits-all solution to the world's energy demands. Brazil can use sugar cane, but North Americans will have to figure out something else--something homegrown if independence is important. Conservation surely must be part of our effort to ratchet down reliance on oil, but we also must find local technologies and local resources for our energy needs.

Rage Against the (Hybrid) Machine

Some California drivers are getting all steamed up that they have to share the carpool lanes with single-occupant hybrids, like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic, under a new state program.  Some of the complaints, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt.  Said one fumer in an online discussion group:  "These [drivers] barely go 65 mph and allow no one to pass them on the right... Talk about road rage!"  It's hard to feel much sympathy for someone whining about not being able to exceed the speed limit.

But I do think there's reason to be concerned that extra hybrids in the HOV lanes may be slowing down carpools & buses.  From the LA Times article:

"There's not enough excess capacity to absorb the hybrids," said James Moore, director of USC's transportation engineering program. "I think the foreseeable outcome here is that the congestion advantage we traditionally attribute to [carpool] lanes will disappear."

Promoting hybrids could help save fuel. But there's plenty of reason to believe that -- looking at overall efficiency of road transport -- filling the HOV lanes with hybrids could do more harm than good.  Seems to me that California was smart in limiting the number of hybrids allowed in the carpool lanes, and studying the effects before proceeding.

Sea Sick

As if global warming weren't bad enough: as this Oregonian story points out, rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are not only heating the climate, they're making seawater more acidic -- which in turn "could wreak profound changes on the diversity and productivity of oceans." 

It's an interesting bit of scientific detective work.  Some types of ocean plankton are apparently very sensitive to pH: their shells can't form when the water grows too acidic.  The oceans have been absorbing a lot of the CO2 that's been emitted by fossil fuel burning, and higher levels of dissolved CO2 have raised the ocean's acidity by 30 percent in the last century or so.  The result:  the plankton are getting squeezed out, especially from the cool northern Pacific waters that absorb the most CO2.  Scientists predict that if CO2 levels continue to rise, the higher acidity could eliminate these plankton, along with shelled sea creatures such as the sea urchin, from polar waters sometime in the next century.

This sort of thing is as fascinating as it is disturbing -- and it should serve as a reminder that, in  subtle and often unpredictable ways, our fossil fuel consumption may wind up fraying the earth's ecosystems over the coming century just as much as pollution and habitat loss did in the previous one.

Hybrid Whiplash

What to make of this news from the Eugene, OR Register-Guard?

In a report that's sure to be controversial, CNW Marketing Research of Bandon concludes... that, even though hybrid cars use less fuel, they require more energy - and are therefore worse for the environment - than conventional cars because their design and manufacture are more complex and the costs of disposal or recycling are higher for their batteries, electric motors and other specialized components. [Emphasis added.]

Hybrids use more energy than regular cars? Is this real, or just pro-SUV propaganda?

Now, just to be clear, I haven't reviewed the study myself. But the online materials that's CNW's made publicly available seem serious & fair-minded -- not like a cheap hit-job on hybrids, but rather a sober analysis that reaches some unexpected and counterintuitive conclusions.

That said, I think there's very good reason not to take the study too seriously. Not yet -- and not until the authors can answer some tough questions about what their study implies.

CNW does deserve credit for looking at energy costs over a vehicle's entire life cycle--not just what it consumes on the road, but also what it costs to manufacture, distribute, repair, and dispose of a car. But some of their numbers seem, to put it mildly, a little hard to believe.

According to the study's methods, a Honda Civic (not a hybrid, but a regular model) uses only about 30 percent of its life-cycle energy as gasoline. (See here for the chart.) About 10 percent each go to parts, manufacturing, repair, dissassembly, and replacement; and 20 percent go to other energy costs.

Let's say that's reasonably representative of other models -- that is, gasoline accounts for only about 30 percent or thereabouts of the life-cycle energy costs of owning and operating the average car or light truck. But according to the US Energy Information Administration, gasoline consumption accounts for 17 percent of total energy consumption in the US (see here for total consumption, and here for total gasoline). So that would imply that car manufacture, repair, recycling and other energy costs account about 40 percent of the total US energy supply.

Forty percent? That's just plain wrong. The entire US industrial sector only consumes 33 percent of the nation's energy. So the subset devoted to cars has to consume only a fraction of that.

Just so, it seems downright implausible that cars are responsible for some 57 percent of the nation's total energy use (17 percent for gasoline, 40 percent for manufacture, repair, recycling, etc.). Cars use a lot of energy, to be sure -- but I simply can't believe it's that much.

So that means either: the Honda Civic is a vastly atypical car, and uses substantially more manufacturing energy than most other cars; that I've misread the (limited) available data from CNW; or that the study's authors have some explaining to do if they're going to convince me that I should pay much attention to their results.

California Rolls its Own Kyoto?

I don't know much about this, really, but the headline alone seems pretty auspicious:

Breakthrough plan to cut greenhouse gases
Goal is to reduce carbon dioxide 25% by 2020

Apparently, advisors to Governor Schwarzenegger--with the backing of California legislators--just came out with a 1,300 page report that details more than 50 strategies for reducing the state's climate-warming emissions.  Included among the strategies is a CO2 cap-and-trade system, similar to the European Union's carbon market. 

It's hard to overstate how huge a step that would be:  without a hard cap, any individual steps to reduce emissions might be offset by increases somewhere else in the state.  Plus, tradeable credits help ensure that the least expensive greenhouse gas reductions come first--which is the smartest way to sequence those kinds of investments, since the early steps wind up saving money in short order, which in turn helps finance deeper cuts later on.  Of course, if neighboring states don't follow suit, some major CO2 emissions -- particularly for generating electricity -- may just be pushed into a state with no such caps. Still, it's a start.

This is still just a proposal, obviously -- there's a lot of work left to be done before any of it becomes reality.  But it's definitely good news.

Lipstick on a Pig?

The President famously said in his State of the Union address that the United States is "addicted to oil." We couldn't agree more. Today, his administration issued its treatment plan: abuse oil a tiny bit more slowly, eventually, as the New York Times reports.

The "treatment plan" I'm refering to is the US Department of Transportation's new CAFE standards for light trucks. The department heralded the new standards as the largest boost in efficiency in decades, which is true -- because the standards have been stagnant for decades.

So an 11 percent increase over the next five years, is something. It's more than lipstick on a pig.

But how much more?

The plan covers somewhat larger SUVs than before, which is good, but it still excludes the largest SUVs, such as the Hummer H1. It bases the fuel-economy standard on vehicles' footprint, which is also good. But the plan ignores new technologies sweeping the market that make an 11 percent increase an extremely low bar. Light trucks might well improve by more than that anyway, thanks to high fuel prices and the popularity of hybrid-electric drives.

In a time of soaring oil prices, national insecurity by the barrel, worsening hurricanes and other signs of climate change, I had hoped for better.

The new standards are certainly more than lipstick on a pig. They're lipstick and an evening gown.

(A real treatment plan starts with feebates.)

Car-less in Seattle

(Editor's note: Also see "A Mile From Home" and "Dead Man Walking.")

Six weeks ago, my 18-year-old son slammed our 19-year-old Volvo stationwagon into the rear of a high-clearance pickup. All the people were fine. So was the pickup.

But the Volvo wasn't, as you can see in this photo. Repairing It would have cost many times the Blue Book value. So we accepted the insurance company's check for $594 and bid farewell to the family car.

Happenstance thus made us car free. But we decided to stay that way . . . at least for a little while. OK, actually, it's more of an experiment, to see whether a middle-class family of five can live a contented life in Cascadia's largest city without owning their own car.

Why are we doing this? Cost, conscience, and capability.

Cost: Owning a car is expensive. Replacing our car with another old Volvo would cost us, well, several thousand dollars up front plus at least $400 a month in fuel, taxes, insurance, and depreciation. Buying a new Prius would cost about $650 a month, including the same things (and more than $1,000 a month during the first year!). (There's an automatic cost calculator at Edmunds.com, a manual one at Seattle's One Less Car Challenge, and a guidebook about car costs--if you want to understand the data--at Todd Litman's invaluable website for Victoria Transport Policy Institute.)

Conscience: As Al Gore said the other day, climate change is not a political issue. It's a moral issue. If I won't give car-less living a try, who will? (And I've ratified Kyoto in my own life, so I was looking for ways to further trim emissions.)

Capability--in other words, because we can. Thanks to past choices plus some good fortune, car-free living is a smaller disruption for us than for most people. Our kids are old enough (the youngest is now 11) to walk or bike unaccompanied to a lot of places. We live in a compact city neighborhood with an abundance of nearby amenities. We've got respectable local transit service and five FlexCars stationed within a mile of our home.

We're only six weeks into this new lifestyle, so I don't want to make too many conclusions. But so far, what's surprised me haven't been the moments of inconvenience (I expected those). It's been two unexpected pleasures: more little adventures every week and fewer backseat arguments to referee.

We're walking more, biking more, planning our activities more thoughtfully, and appreciating the FlexCar when we use it. My 12-year-old daughter said to me the other day, laughing at herself as she said it, "I'm noticing that cars go fast, really, really fast."

It's all very new, so this feeling may dissipate with familiarity. But so far, the biggest bonus of car-free living has been an added increment of mindfulness. Who'd have thought that wrecking the family car would be good for our souls?

There's much more to say about this experiment, but I'll save it for another installment. In the meanwhile, I know there are lots of car-free readers of this blog. I'd welcome your advice, especially if you've got kids.

Alan (Heart) This Report

A year ago, Seattle Mayor Gregg Nickels assembled a “Green Ribbon Commission” to advise him on how to keep his trend-setting Kyoto pledge.

Last week, the commission released its report.

The global significance and political symbolism of the event have drawn much well-earned comment. The report itself has not.

How is it? Superb. I’m in love.

It’s well researched, innovative, and (mostly) courageous.

(Full disclosure: the commission is also full of friends and even funders of Northwest Environment Watch. Click through the break, and you'll see I’m not just sucking up.)

It recommends many of the policy solutions that we've become convinced are smart and systemic. A sampling of the 18 highly praiseworthy recommendations:

Lead a regional partnership to develop and implement a road pricing system (about which we’ve written much). Road pricing is the only way to solve congestion, and it’s a potent stimulant for alternatives to driving.

Implement a commercial parking tax (ditto). Taxing parking is a great way to pay for alternatives.

Expand efforts to create compact, green, urban neighborhoods (double ditto). Ultimately, compact neighborhoods are the real alternative to driving.

What’s left to say? I’ll stifle a long list of wonkish addenda that I scribbled in the margins (ideas for refrigerator bounties and lightbulb brigades), and limit myself to three things: a curiosity, an observation, and a regret.

My curiosity: The report mentions that 25 percent of Portland’s arterial streets have striped bike lanes, while only 1.5 percent of Seattle’s do. Could those numbers be right?! Wow.

My observation: The report calls for a regional road pricing system – right on! When reading Clark’s post about Stockholm, it occurred to me that the ideal opportunity for a downtown (London-style) tolling anywhere in Cascadia would be when the Alaskan Way Viaduct is torn down. Whatever it’s ultimately replaced with, construction will take years. And during that period, local leaders will have an unusual degree of political cover to implement ambitious steps such as congestion pricing.

My regret: In a report that’s courageous enough to suggest parking taxes and regionwide tolls, it’s disappointing to see the veil of politeness descend in one case that’s critically important—the case of highways reconstruction.

Early in the report, the commissioners plead for a measly $57-73 million a year extra to fund transit improvements that they call “the keystone for other actions.” Then, on page 21, buried in a discussion of “leveraging state and regional action” the Green Ribboners finally refer to the elephants in the living room—the huge highway rebuilding projects planned for the city:

"For example, decisions on major transportation infrastructure improvements, such as the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the two Lake Washington bridges, must closely consider the climate impacts of investment alternatives."

That statement is true, of course, but it’s awfully mild. It’s a bit like a report on global disarmament only mentioning thermonuclear weapons in a footnote. Here’s what I (the impolitic dreamer) wish the commissioners had said,

"The mere fact that city leaders are seriously considering rebuilding multibillion dollar freeways through our city—while the ice sheets are melting, our snowpack is dwindling, our transit system is starved, our bike lanes are few and glass-strewn, and a quarter of our streets lack even sidewalks—is proof that we still have terribly far to go. Freeways are giant emissions generators. They’re the antithesis of climate leadership. We should never build another one in this or any other city. We should begin to tear them down."

Sigh.

Well, anyway, I’m still in love with this report.

Giant Power Sucking Sound

Here's one problem that should be relatively easy to fix:  appliances that use power even when they're not in use.  The Economist has a nice summary of the problem:

Strange though it seems, a typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food. For while heating food requires more than 100 times as much power as running the clock, most microwave ovens stand idle—in “standby” mode—more than 99% of the time.

Apparently, somewhere between 5 and 13 percent of residential power is consumed by appliances that nobody is actually using.  Hmph.

Now, the most interesting thing here is that different brands and models of the same kinds of appliance use wildly different amounts of power in standby mode.  One compact disc player may draw 1 watt while idling; another might draw 30.  Manufacturers have little incentive to improve the situation on their own, since they don't pay the power bills; and while energy wonks are well aware of the problem, few consumers pay much attention.

The solution here -- dare I even say it -- seems to be government intervention.  In 2004, California passed a law that imposed limits on standby power consumption. It took effect in January, so that (according to the Economist) "it is now illegal in California to sell a television or DVD player that consumes more than three watts in standby mode." Seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me -- I'll be very interested to see if it works.

(Hat tip to Maarten.)

I'm Lovins It

Bad pun, but do read what energy guru Amory Lovins had to say to the Senate Energy Committee yesterday.  The upshot:  saving energy is far cheaper than importing it; and there are novel policy tools that (at least in theory) could break the current gridlock over energy conservation.  To wit:

Size- and revenue-neutral feebates  could speed the adoption of superefficient cars far more effectively than gasoline taxes or efficiency standards, and would make money for both consumers and automakers.

We like feebates.  A lot.  And we're always delighted when Lovins gets a chance to tout them to a high-profile audience.

Drivers Wanted

There's been a bunch of comment in the blogosphere today about hiking gas taxes -- with the rough consensus that it's ok environmental policy, tough on the poor, and politically risky (though perhaps not quite as unthinkable as it once was). 

So it's interesting to note that Oregon -- often considered a policy innovator among US states -- is in the middle of an experiment that could eventually lead to a repeal of the state gas tax.

Oregon's transportation department is recruiting volunteers to test a system that would charge people based on how far they drive, not on how much gas they use. The trial will test two rate structures -- some participants will pay a flat rate of 1.2 cents per mile, while others will pay a variable rate depending on whether they're driving during rush hour; a control group would continue to pay normal gas taxes. (See here for details, or if you're interested in volunteering.)

The state is interested in this sort of approach for a bunch of reasons, but if I read things correctly, they're mostly worried that gas tax revenues are poised to fall, perhaps significantly, over the upcoming years.

Here's the issue: if gas prices remain relatively high, or keep rising over time, economists project a gradual per-capita decline in gas consumption, as people replace their cars with more efficient ones. And if cars keep getting more and more fuel efficient, then total gas revenues could actually fall, even as the demands on the road network increase. Ultimately, states may be forced to choose between continual gas tax hikes and persistent funding shortfalls for roads -- both of which are bound to make lots of people unhappy. Under a pay-by-the-mile system, however, transportation funding would be keyed to how much people actually drive -- so the state would still keep up its funding no matter how efficient the cars get.

Obviously, shifting from gas taxes to mileage-based taxes has some signficant downsides. First, the gas tax does create a slight incentive for fuel-efficient cars; getting rid of it could put Hummers on a more even footing with hybrids. And second, it's not entirely clear that a falloff in highway funding would be a bad thing. Obviously, most drivers want the roads maintained in good working order; but, in my mind at least, a lot of highway spending seems like it's pretty wasteful.

That said, we've been pretty interested in the pay by the mile idea, despite the potential downsides. Fully developed, the technology could facilitate two innovations that could be far more powerful at promoting fuel conservation than the exisiting gas tax. First, the same technology used to track mileage for taxing purposes could also be used for a more comprehensive congestion pricing system -- which could simultaneously clear up congestion, reduce driving, and promote bus ridership by keeping streets and highways flowing. And second, it could pave the way for Pay-As-You-Drive car insurance, which would have the same effect on driving overall as roughly doubling the cost of gas. 

If you want to get really fancy, you could even fine tune the pay-by-the-mile taxes, to increase fees for cars with the worst pollution or CO2 emissions, the most road space (SUVs require longer stopping distances, and tend to use up a little more space on streets and highways), or the worst safety records.

Of course, pay-by-the-mile taxes suffer from one huge drawback: they're much more complicated than gas taxes, not just because they require special technology but also because a properly "fine tuned" system -- one that accounts for all the different externalities of driving, ranging from pollution to congestion -- could be pretty incomprehensible to the average driver. And mileage-based taxes would be vulnerable to all sorts of political shenanigans, as car manufacturers would jockey for special exemptions or rates for certain kinds of vehicles. All of which means that, even though I'm very excited by the tests, I'm not yet ready to support the idea -- and certainly not until we see how drivers really react to the system.

The Odd Decouple

This is good news: according to NW Current, more and more utilities are becoming interested in "decoupling" -- which could be the single most cost-effective step I've heard of for encouraging conservation.

Here's how decoupling works.  Utility rates are pretty tightly regulated:  rate structures are dictated by utility commissions and the like.  Traditionally, rate structures link a utility's profits to its sales:  the more a utility sells, the greater its profits.  But that creates a huge disincentive for conservation: if utilities get people to cut their consumption, they cut into their own earnings.  In fact, a private utility that tries to get its customers to use gas more efficiently could actually run the risk of a shareholder lawsuit.

Under decoupling, though, utility rates are structured so that a utility's profit margins can rise when consumption falls.  (In other words, a utility's earnings are "decoupled" from its gross sales.)  This simple change can make it profitable for utilities to promote conservation.  And as a result, decoupling aligns the utility's incentives with the incentives of its customers:  everyone has an incentive to use energy more efficiently.  Northwest Natural, an Oregon gas company, has been operating under a decoupled rate structure since 2002.  One result -- it's shifted staff from marketing (trying to get people to buy more gas) to customer service.  Whee!

Decoupling is one of those nifty little ideas with a huge potential payoff for a seemingly insignificant change.  It doesn't take much to make decoupling a reality -- it relies on a simple alteration to the rules, rather than regulatory strictures or costly upgrades to technology.  So it's nice to see it catching on. 

Do Mess With Taxes

The basic point here (NY Times, registration required) is pretty good: the idea of coupling a gasoline tax increase with a cut in payroll taxes deserves a much closer look.  It makes sense as a policy -- gas taxes should be higher, and a payroll tax cut could help soften the blow.  Plus, pairing a tax increase with a tax cut seems to draw far broader political support than a straight-out hike in gas taxes:

The gasoline tax-cum-rebate proposal enjoys extremely broad support. Liberals favor it. Environmentalists favor it. The conservative Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker has endorsed it, as has the antitax crusader Grover Norquist. President Bush's former chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, has advanced it repeatedly.

Ok, so it's a good idea.  But I can't help myself -- I'm going to pick some nits.

First, I think it's going too far to claim, as the article seems to, that it will be easy to sell this kind of thing to the public. Voters seem to forget about tax cuts: for example, in the runup to the 2004 election -- and despite the administration's efforts to tout their income tax cuts -- US voters were more likely to say that their taxes had gone up over the previous 4 years than down.  On the other hand, everyone knows when gas prices go up -- it's emblazoned over every filling station.  So people will be reminded of the tax increase every day, but notice the tax cut they only see if they look carefully at their payroll records.  That's a pretty good recipe for outrage, unless you work really, really hard to explain to people what's happening.

Second, there are still some regressive effects here.  If you're a retired senior, you don't pay payroll taxes -- so you'll see no benefit from the payroll tax cut.  But you'll still be hit by higher gas taxes.  Same thing if you're unemployed.  (Undoubtedly the AARP, among others, will have a few things to say about this.) 

Third -- why just gas?  I know, I know, oil makes us vulnerable to foreign political shocks, sucks money out of the economy, yada yada.  But gas represents only 43 percent of total US petroleum consumption (see here for details); so we should be taxing all petroleum consumption, not just gas.  And more broadly, natural gas and coal are both major greenhouse gas sources -- coal even moreso than gasoline.  Coal-fired power plants are also bad news for air quality, and put mercury in our fish.  And natural gas production within the US is headed in the same direction as oil--down--which means that soon enough our natural gas imports will start sucking serious money from the economy, just as oil imports do now.  All of which suggests to me that a broader tax on carbon, or natural resource use, would be better than just a tax on gas -- and might even allow for steeper payroll tax cuts.

And finally -- gas taxes are all well and good.  But they're not the be-all-end-all when it comes to promoting fuel efficiency.  Pay by the mile car insurance and feebates get even less air time in policy circles than tax shifting -- but arguably would be just as effective, if not moreso, at promoting fuel conservation. Obviously, I'm always glad to see gas taxes discussed in a public forum.  But it would be even niftier to see other worthwhile ideas get some attention.

Pipe bombs

Another plot to cripple the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was foiled recently, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Reuters). A Montana judge gets credit for apprehending the plotter, in Idaho, although Oregon and Washington are the main consumers of oil from Alaskan oil.

A year ago, we released the 2005 Cascadia Scorecard, which detailed the profound vulnerability of Cascadia's energy infrastructure (pdf), including the Trans-Alaska pipe.

The latest plot--which involved blowing up propane trucks along the pipeline, among other acts of sabotage elsewhere--doesn't seem to have been as far along as one in 1999 or one in late 2003. (Both described here (pdf), on pages 30-31.)

The larger story, of course, is that Cascadian officials have done little to secure its energy system in the past year. Pending energy security measures in Washington and Oregon may be bright spots on the horizon.

Futility Revisited

Apparently I didn't do such a good job in this post explaining why I found this New York Times article on higher-mileage, gas-electric hybrid SUVs so troubling.  So I'll try again.

To recap -- the Times article claims that, under the system governing vehicle fuel economy in the U.S., selling a hybrid Escape lets Ford sell an additional Lincoln Navigator without running afoul of federal standards.  In other words, while buying an Escape may mean that you're driving a more efficient vehicle, it doesn't mean that the average fuel economy of all the Fords on the road will change one whit. 

A couple commentors said this is bunk.  But I think the article is onto something.  Take a look at the fleetwide fuel economy for Ford's light truck fleet over the last few years for which I could get data:

2000:  21.0 mpg

2001:  20.5 mpg

2002:  20.7 mpg

2003:  21.3 mpg

Now, remember, the CAFE standard for light trucks over this period was 20.7 mpg -- that is, the average mpg for all the light trucks that Ford sold had to be 20.7 or more, or the federal government would levy a fee on each vehicle.  From the numbers, it's pretty clear that Ford has been doing its level best to keep its light truck fleet at or near 20.7 each year -- maybe a little above or below, but not enough to incur any penalties (under CAFE rules, exceeding the standards in one year lets you dip below them in subsequent years).

So how does the company fine-tune its vehicle sales to fall right at the CAFE standard?  By tweaking its pricing, offering deeper discounts to ramp up sales of higher-mileage pickups and SUVs, while still selling as many hulking SUVs--vehicles with terrible gas mileage but huge profit margins--as it can without running afoul of the standards.

My point here is that the introduction of the 35 mpg Escape, by itself, probably doesn't change this dynamic.  Ford is legally required to maximize its profit -- otherwise it faces the threat of a shareholder lawsuit.  So it's got an incentive to use whatever means it can to keep the high-profit SUVs moving off the car lots.  And that means that selling more Escapes won't necessarily boost the overall efficiency of the vehicles Ford sells.  Higher gas prices might boost fuel economy; stricter standards might as well.  But as nifty as the high-tech hybrid Escape may be, buying one won't guarantee that Ford's overall mileage is moving in the right direction.

Obviously, the existence of the Escape has spinoff benefits.  Among them, it undercuts the car-makers arguments that major improvements in vehicle efficiency are technically impossible.  Hybrid SUVs show that the feds could probably lift CAFE standards for light trucks above 30 mpg without forcing automakers to do much, if any, R&D.  True, the big auto manufacturers could always say that they can't afford to make trucks more efficient.  But they can't say that they don't know how.

But there's yet another perverse market effect hidden in the Escape.  CAFE has two tiers, with a higher mileage standard for cars than light trucks.  To the extent that the Escape (a light truck) attracts buyers who'd otherwise go for a Taurus (classified as a car), it could tilt Ford's overall mix away from cars and towards trucks -- which, paradoxically, could lower the average fuel economy for Ford's entire vehicle fleet.  (Sheesh, this stuff is weird.)

So, all this goes to say that a system can have unpredictable results that undermine the best intentions of any one individual.  That's not a reason to throw up one's hands in despair -- but it is a reason to think that changing the system is even more important than making the right kinds of purchases.

One Less Car = One Less Parking Spot

At the risk of making this blog too Seattle-centric, I thought I'd point out this nifty article in today's Post-Intelligencer about the city's efforts to promote alternatives to the car -- everything from walking to biking to transit to ride sharing to van pools.  And there's ample reason to be concerned about rising car traffic, particularly downtown--not just on environmental grounds, but on financial ones.  Cars, you see, take up lots of space in a crowded city; and storing them all is expensive, and takes up real estate that could be put to far better uses.  From the article:

In the next 19 years, the city expects 22,000 new housing units and 50,000 new jobs.

Assuming the same percentage of people continued driving alone to work, the city estimates it would have to build 20 city blocks of 10-story parking garages downtown.

That's a lot of parking.

Also note the upside-down state of transportation finances. Funding for the bus system is nowhere near where it needs to be to accomodate all the new riders the city is hoping for.  And meanwhile, city officials still seem hell-bent on spending billions for roads, some of which will just make downtown's car problems worse. Obviously, the city deserves a lot of credit for its low-cost efforts to promote alternatives to the car; but in the bigger picture, you have to wonder if they've got their priorities straight.

Futility Vehicles

Oy.  I used to think that the introduction of hybrid SUVs was generally a good thing -- with even greater potential for saving fuel than hybrid cars.  But this New York Times article brings up a point I simply hadn't considered: buying a fuel-efficient SUV makes it possible for car companies to sell big gas guzzlers without incurring any penalties under federal CAFE (i.e., corporate average fuel economy) standards.  From the article:

[E]very Toyota Highlander hybrid S.U.V. begets a hulking Lexus S.U.V., and every Ford Escape — the hybrid S.U.V. that Kermit the Frog hawked during the Super Bowl — makes room for a Lincoln Navigator, which gets all of 12 miles a gallon. Instead of simply saving gas when you buy a hybrid, you're giving somebody else the right to use it.

This is vexing, to say the least.  And it underscores a point that's hard to overstress:  when it comes to saving energy, a broken system can trump individual virtue.  That is, any time a conscientious and enlightened consumer decides to do something selfless, our energy system pushes back a bit. Use a little less gas, and the oil market responds by letting someone else tank up a little more cheaply.  Buy an efficient vehicle, and you make room under CAFE standards for someone else to buy a wheeled behemoth.  And so it goes.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest that it's completely futile to make efficient buys -- not by a long shot.  But particularly when it comes to energy, the collective good done by environmentally conscious consumers is typically less than one might hope.  To me, this underscores a simple point:  changing your own behavior is a good idea, but changing the system is far, far more important.

The Church, Sweden, and Tom Friedman

In the US, January 2006 was the warmest January on record--and the records extend back to 1895. So it's apropos that today also heralded an unusual alignment of actors, all striving to address climate change (and accomplish some other things too).

Sweden vows to one-up President Bush's pledge to break America's addiction to oil. The Scandinavian country of 9 million pledged to end its dependency on oil by 2020, for economic as well as environmental reasons. Ambitious, to say the least.

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues strongly for a high federal gas tax--as a matter of national security. [Pay subscription required.] Friedman quotes a foreign policy expert saying, "We have a Marshall Plan. It's our energy policy. It's a Marshall plan for terrorists and dictators."

And perhaps most importantly, a group of 86 major US evangelical leaders signs onto an initiative to combat global warming. Among the supporters are such influential leaders as Rick Warren (megachurch pastor and author of The Purpose-Driven Life), Ted Haggard, (pastor of New Life Church and president of the National Association of Evangelicals), and Duane Litfin (president of Wheaton College).

The group's statement is worth reading. It argues that, "Love of God, love of neighbor, and the demands of stewardship are more than enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate change problem with moral passion and concrete action."

The Cascadian leaders joining the pledge are...

• Dr. Jay A. Barber, Jr., President, Warner Pacific College, Portland, OR
• H. David Brandt, Ph.D., President, George Fox University, Newberg, OR
• Brent Hample, Executive Director, India Partners, Eugene OR
• Jennifer Jukanovich, Founder, The Vine, Seattle, WA
• Brian O'Connell, President, REACT Services; Founder and Former Executive Director, Religious Liberty Commission, World Evangelical Alliance; Mill Creek, WA
• William P. Robinson, Ph.D., President, Whitworth College, Spokane, WA
• Richard Stearns, President, World Vision, Federal Way, WA
• John Warton, President, Business Professional Network, Portland, OR

Ever closer to PAYD

Pay-as-you-drive auto insurance keeps coming closer. There are now at least three different technology companies in the market with pay-as-you-drive systems. These are not yet insurance plans available to Cascadian consumers. They're products--little electronic gizmos that connect to GPS and/or wireless networks and/or the USB port on your home computer--that insurance companies can adopt to collect data for PAYD insurance plans.

Each product is a bit different and each has its own answer to privacy concerns. I'm not endorsing any of them.

My point here is the same one I made before: information technology, not lane-by-lane HOT lanes, is likely the shortest road to prices that tell the truth about driving.

A Waterloo, Ontario company is launching a pilot soon for its iPAID system.

An Atlanta, Georgia company is aggressively promoting its product called DriverScore.

And a third firm called Sensomatix reportedly has a product on the market, too, though its website doesn't yet describe it.

Getting the policy details right--protecting privacy and incentives for fuel-conserving vehicles--will be the giant issues in this space. Not whether the technology sweeps into the market.

State transportation and insurance agencies, are you listening?

Not Going the Extra Mile

A promising new development for pay-as-you-drive auto insurance (PAYD): a nascent pilot project in Washington state.

King County--leading a coalition of local governments, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations--has won a grant of up to $616,000 from the Washington State Department of Transportation for PAYD. And the county is seeking an additional $1.5 million from the federal Department of Transportation to underwrite a 5,000-car demonstration project.

First step: select an insurance company willing to not go the extra mile, or at least, to reward its customers not to.

The county and its partners are issuing an invitation to insurers to indicate their interest in the project, which will help its insurance partner pay the up-front costs of developing a PAYD system. Let your friends in the insurance business know!

This effort is on a tight timeline. Insurers must indicate their interest in writing by February 15. For more information, inquire with Bill.Roach (at) metrokc.gov.

(Full disclosure: NEW is a participant in this project, though not a financial beneficiary of it.)

Principles of the State of the Union Address

I hadn't intended to join the cacaphony of bloggers and pundits who are Monday-morning-quarterbacking the State of the Union address. But NEW's all-star board member, Laura Retzler, asked a great question last night that I've been puzzling over since: what's NEW's take on Bush's plan to end the nation's addiction to oil?

It later occurred to me--too late to answer Laura--that my reply should have been rather obvious to me. NEW is developing a concise statement of values and principles, that will orient and unify our research. Among these values are two that are especially germane to energy security: "make prices tell the truth" and "build complete, compact communities."

In his speech Bush called out technological innovation as the primary way to break the addiction. Certainly he's right that technology should play an important part in diversifying our energy portfolio--especially certain types of biofuels, new clean energy sources, and lighter-weight vehicles, for just a few examples that NEW promotes. Yet technological solutions may not be the surest path to ending our addiction.

That's where NEW's principles come into the picture.

"Making prices tell the truth" is especially important. The price of gasoline does reflects only the direct costs of extracting, refining, and distributing it, not the full costs that are externalized to society, such as air pollution, climate change, and even entanglement in unstable regions. By the same token, "free" parking often carries with it high costs, similarly externalized. With a smart restructuring of parking incentives, including parking taxes, there's reason to believe we can achieve substantial gains in both energy efficiency and conservation.

Another of the principles, "build complete, compact communities," would improve home energy consumption and render driving, which has high energy demands, optional or even irrelevant for many people. We already know that compact urban development with good transit and pedestrian alternatives yields dramatic reductions in energy need, even while it boosts health for residents.

NEW's principles may not point to flashy promises of zero-pollution cars or safe nuclear energy. (And they may not come with strings attached to big subsidies.) But they point to hidden levers in our economy and society--small tweaks that can yield outsize results for energy security.

So that's may belated reply, Laura. Thanks for setting me to thinking about this.

*********

By the way, here's the full text of Bush's remarks on energy last night:

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, more reliable alternative energy sources, and we are on the threshold of incredible advances. So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative, a 22 percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy.

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.

Bio-Fuel's Progress

Interesting timing:  this study (subscription only, except for the abstract), just published in the journal Science, may give a boost to the biofuels bill that's currently working its way through the Washington legislature.

The study addressed itself to the issue of whether ethanol from corn really reduces greenhouse gas emissions -- which has been an area of fairly intense interest among both supporters and skeptics of biofuels.

To me, it looks like the authors really did their homework, and have done their best to be conduct a fair analysis that takes the best points from all sides of the debate.  Their final answer: compared with gasoline, filling your tank with corn ethanol reduces total GHG emissions by about 13 percent.  Score a point for ethanol!

As fair as the paper seems, it probably won't end the controversy; David Pimentel, one of corn ethanol's main detractors, has already dismissed the study as "another pro-ethanol paper".   

And, as with everything, the devil's in the details; and for a system as complicated as corn ethanol production there are a lot of details.  For example -- and pardon me if this is getting too geeky -- I'm not sure whether the authors accounted for the 1 percent or so of nitrogen fertilizers that are applied to cornfields, but then get volatilized and released into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide.  NO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, about 310 more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, so even small releases can make a difference.  If the authors haven't accounted for that, then the GHG gains of ethanol may be substantially lower than the paper suggests -- perhaps a 3 percent improvement rather than 13 percent.

But one thing that the paper does make clear is that cellulosic ethanol -- made from woody material or straw -- at least has the potential to be lead to really substantial reductions in GHG emissions.  If a modest biofuels bill can help jumpstart interest in cellulosic ethanol, it seems like it could be well worth the effort.

Peak Oil in Rural Oregon

The Ashland Daily Tidings has an interesting (though brief) article exploring what, exactly, might happen in their corner of southern Oregon if oil prices keep going up.  To me, it's good to see people thinking more about this.  Not just because it will help people prepare for the adjustments that will be needed should oil become progressively dearer -- but also because it might help shift people's thinking about what kinds of transitions might be possible, or even desirable, even if oil prices flatten out or decline.

But I do think that a word of caution is in order -- if energy prices do continue to trend upwards, we're going to have to take a cold and steely-eyed look at our proposed solutions to help people cope.  Some of them, however well-intentioned, just might not cut it.

Note, for instance, this comment by a environmentally inclined local leader in Ashland, who thinks that mass transit would be a great solution for high energy costs in rural areas...

"We [already] have a free bus service, but it doesn’t get you to where you want to go,” he said, noting that it is inconvenient to commute between Ashland and other area towns and that the bus only runs along the main transportation lines.

Most mass transit is based on high-density use, he said. But what Ashland really needs is low density use, he added. He said a system of vans that operate like airport shuttle buses could be the answer.

“Imagine a bunch of little vans zipping around town taking you where you want to go door to door,” he said. “It would be great in our town. The whole key would be a computerized dispatch system” that would alert drivers as to where someone needed to be picked up.

Sounds nice, no?  Instead of driving a car, you just call a van that picks you up at your home and takes you straight to your destination -- and call another one when you need to go home.  Convenient?  Yes. Costly?  Almost certainly -- especially if you have to pay drivers, which is one of the major costs even in dense urban areas.  Energy-efficient?  Not so much, I'd wager, for reasons that should be fairly obvious.

The problem is that it's really, really hard to provide cost-effective, energy-efficient transit service to a population that's spread out over the landscape.  I can conceive of energy-efficient transit between densely populated villages dotting a rural landscape.  (Old European farming towns come to mind.)  But as a general rule, the more elbow room people have around their homes, the farther they have to travel to get to everyday destinations; and the farther they have to travel, the more energy they use to do so.

My point:  high energy prices might do more than force a reconception of how we get from place to place; it may force us to redesign our places.  And--especially for those of us accustomed to both to the solitude of the country and the amenities of the city--a steady rise in energy costs could force a reevaluation of whether we really need so much elbow room.

Green Saves Green

A couple of new studies have found that California can meet its ambitious 2010 goals for reducing climate-warming emissions at no net cost to consumers.  And, even better, meeting the even more stringent 2020 goals could actually save consumers money:

"It's basically a very good news story," said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, an environmental think tank based in Washington, D.C. "We found you could do this very cheaply."

Now, I haven't looked at the studies--and I might not really be able to judge their quality even if I had.  By their nature, studies like this tend to be speculative: they show what could happen, but not necessarily what will.

Still, this seems extremely plausible to me.  Despite a period of relatively high oil and gas prices, energy is still pretty cheap relative to our incomes.  And as a general rule, cheap energy means wasted energy. Consumers tend to demand very short payback periods for energy efficiency investments--usually, just a couple of years at most.  While most businesses would be ecstatic to take advantage of such fast rates of return, most households, apparently, aren't run to the same fianancial standards.  Which means that there's still a lot of very cost-effective energy efficiency investments out there--things that could easily pay back any initial investment in short order.  That's as true in the transportation sector as in the home:  we already know, for example, how to boost vehicle efficiency without compromising safety.

The benefits to consumers from energy effiency investments are, if anything, likely to compound.  Once you hit the payback period, energy efficiency is like a cash cow -- it just keeps saving and saving. (And saving.)  Plus, since most of California's energy from oil, gas, and coal comes from out of state, energy efficiency investments will tend to keep more of California consumers' money circulating in the local economy--which can be an effective way to boost demand for local goods and services.

All in all, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a push to reduce global warming emissions resulting in a substantial boost to California's economy over the long term.  But we'll just have to wait and see how the state responds to the news.

Bottle Battle

About yesterday's post on glass recycling -- some astute readers noticed that by focusing on recycling, I'd ignored more important priorities:  reducing the use of packaging, and reusing glass bottles where practical.  That's a fair enough critique.  But it did make me wonder:  what happened, exactly, to the practice of reusing glass bottles?  I can still remember drinking Coke from reusable bottles as a kid, but I rarely see that anymore. How come? And, more to the point, how would a system of reusable glass bottles stack up against recyclable glass and plastic containers?

On the first question -- what happened to reusable bottles? -- there's this recent article that sums up the situation nicely.  In a nutshell:

• Beverage marketers prefer customized bottles, with a unique shape and feel for each brand; but a reusable bottle system is most cost-effective if all bottles are interchangeable.
• Food stores don't like to take back bottles.  It's an administrative hassle and takes up time and space that they'd prefer to use for other purposes.
• Consumers don't like to return bottles.  Given the option, they'd prefer to recycle a bottle than return it for reuse.

Obviously, those barriers aren't insurmountable by any means.  But they also don't seem to be uniquely characteristic of North American consumer culture.  Though Japan's economy is far more energy-efficient than ours, its reusable bottle system, which used to be extremely effective, now seems to be falling by the wayside.  (Sigh.)

Some of the same forces are at play in Japan as in the US -- beverage makers are introducing customized shapes and sizes of many drinks.  But perhaps just as importantly, Japan's beverage delivery services -- which would pick up empty bottles at the same time they delivered new ones -- have declined, with more people getting their drinks from supermarkets.  The decline of reusable bottles is just a side-effect of other economic and social forces.

Of course, there are public policies that could stimulate a resurgence of reusable bottles -- mandatory bottle deposits, requirements that stores accept reusable bottles, perhaps seed money for local bottlers to restart the reusable bottle system.  An uphill battle, to be sure -- but it could have its benefits.

Then again, before we consider that sort of thing we should take a careful look at the possible hidden costs of reinstating a returnable bottle system.  Consumers might avoid reusables; unreturned and broken bottles can eat into the energy savings of a reusable bottle system; it's even conceivable that a reusable bottle system could generate extra car trips, reducing the net-energy benefits. 

Of course, reusable bottles could still save energy, reduce waste, and create local jobs, compared with glass recycling, or even with lightweight recyclable plastics.  But I think we'd owe ourselves a careful accounting of just what these benefits might be before spending all the political capital needed to reboot the reusable bottle industry.

Pain in the Glass

A random call from a reporter piqued my interest -- does recycling glass really save energy?  That is, after you take into consideration all of the energy spent to collect glass from people's homes, truck the collected glass to a distribution center, route it to a glass manufacturer, and then melt it down for reuse, does glass recycling really save anything, compared with using virgin materials?

I was actually fearing the worst here.  Obviously, given all of the energy costs of recycling glass, it's conceivable that it isn't a very good deal for the environment.  Plus the reporter was asking specifically because he'd heard some mention that the benefits of glass recycling were overblown.

As it turns out, though, I shouldn't have worried.  From just about every serious analysis I dug up, it seems that glass recycling really does save energy, compared with using virgin material.  Some handy citations: here, here, here, and this extensive lit. review (pdf).

But as with most things, there is a bit of a twist.

As several of the studies point out, glass recycling saves energy -- but much less energy per ton of glass than, say, recycling newspaper, steel, and aluminum. (See, e.g., page 31 of the lit. review.)  And because the theoretical energy savings of glass recycling appear to be relatively slim, it could mean that actual savings could depend on lots of devilish details -- how far the glass is shipped, how dispersed are the neighborhoods from which glass is collected, whether people make special car trips to recycling centers, etc. 

One of those devilish details -- covered here, about 3/4 of the way down the page -- is the type of furnace used to melt the recycled glass.  From the article...

[C]leaner-operating electric furnaces...use less energy and thus create less emissions than natural gas-powered furnaces, [but]  cannot use as much recycled glass, so they are not as efficient.

That is, by using an efficient, low-emissions furnace, you can actually decrease the overall energy efficiency of your glass recycling operation.  Darn.

And then there's this:  even though using recycled glass does appear to have a lower environmental cost than using virgin materials, the environmental cost is not zero.  Obviously--from an energy standpoint at least--it's better to drink water from the tap than water shipped in glass bottles, even if the bottles are made from recycled glass. 

But more to the point, it may be that buying a drink in a lightweight plastic bottle uses less energy than buying a beverage in container made from recycled glass -- even if the glass bottle is re-recycled, and the plastic bottle just gets thrown away after a single use.  This study from Israel (pdf) suggests as much -- though it points out that this is only true for certain types of plastics.  And in the same vein, this analysis from the Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Analysis suggests that paperboard cartons have a lower environmental cost than bottles made from recycled glass.

Of course, I'm no expert here.  All the information I have on the subject comes from a bit of googling -- and much of it seems to be at least a decade old.  But it looks like glass recycling really is worthwhile...and, simultaneously, that the gradual trend among beverage bottlers to replace glass with plastic is in all likelihood a good thing.

Just My Opinion

Two op-eds in today's Seattle Times worth taking a look at...

• Biodiesel: short-term crush or long-term relationship?  Bruce Ramsey takes a balanced, but ultimately favorable, view of government programs to encourage home-grown fuels.


• The rapid disappearance of America's middle class.  We posted on a similar subject a few days ago, but it's worth repeating -- rising family incomes don't necessarily mean that we're better off.  In fact, after adjusting for inflation, male full-time workers earn $800 less today than in 1973, which means that the rise in median family income is entirely due to increases in two-earner households.  Of course, these sorts of trends are hard to make sense of across decades, since so many things change -- people's expectations, the quality of consumer goods and public services, enjoyment of time at work vs. time at home, etc.  Still, there's ample reason to believe that the well-being of the middle class has become uncoupled from steady increases in per-capita GDP. The money quote of the article. "All the talk about family values is just that — talk — when our financial policies are driving middle-class families to the wall."

I'm not sure I share all the opinions expressed in the op-eds -- but don't really have anything to add to either piece, either.

Flat Liners

Interesting.  It looks as though gasoline consumption in the Pacific Northwest has more or less plateaued since 1998, when gas prices were at an inflation-adjusted low point.  Take a look, especially at the little flat part on the far right of the trend line:

Of course, this is based on partial-year data for 2005; actual consumption for the year may be a bit higher (because of a strong economy) or a bit lower (because of high prices).  But even if 2005 proves to be a bit higher than 1998 in the final analysis, it's still a surprising trend.  With the exception of the oil crisis/recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s, gas consumption has grown pretty consistently since the 1950s.  And per capita consumption of gas had barely budged since the early 1980s -- our consumption has been tightly correlated with total population growth.

But if these numbers are right, we're starting to see some concrete signs that high prices are begininning to bite.  From 1999 through last year, average per-capita gas consumption throughout the region fell by 7 percent.  That's not a huge amount, mind you.  But it's something.

It's too early to tell whether that trend will continue--whether we'll continue to be able to add new residents without increasing our total consumption.  I doubt it.  Still, the little flat part to the right of that graph gives me some reason to be hopeful.

There's No School Like the Green School

There's a nifty little story in today's Oregonian about the trend towards "green classrooms" that can save school districts money -- not just because of lower energy costs (which is what you might expect) but because they're actually cheaper to build.  According to one physical plant director in charge of a relatively new energy-efficient school:  "[W]e thought the building, with all its energy-efficient features, would cost a lot more to build.  But it didn't. It was about $120 per square foot, which was among the lowest cost for a high school at the time."

In some ways, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.  The Rocky Mountain Institute has talked for years about how super-efficient buildings can often be less expensive than ordinary ones, due to lower costs for  heating and ventilation systems and light installation.  But it's good to see some concrete examples to show that those sorts of savings are possible in practice, not just in theory.

The Year that States Took a Stand

Here's something to celebrate as we begin a new year: With Oregon's decision to adopt clean-car standards late in December, all three West Coast states will be implementing this landmark program for reducing global warming pollution simultaneously, beginning with the 2009 model year. Six other states--including Massachusetts, which signed on last week--have also adopted the stronger standards.

This is a great example of the groundswell of state and local action that stood in stark contrast to the posture of federal negotiators during the recent UN Climate Conference in Montreal. While the negotiators walked out, a new America walked in for the world to see: States, cities, businesses, and citizens from all over the United States who are committed to this urgent campaign for solutions. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was an especially strong ambassador for this new US engagement.

As 2006 begins, I remember what Frances Moore Lappe said: "Hope is a stance, not a calculation." But here's my calculation anyway: Across a very wide spectrum of our society, a consensus is emerging that we must end our dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the clean energy transition, and it's our generation's job to do it. You can see it in Olympia and Salem and Boise and D.C., with electeds from both sides of the aisle clamoring to support new energy security initiatives. This issue will feature prominently in midterm elections. This is the beginning.

California Dreaming, on Such a Winter's Day...

Just a few days ago, I posted on a mileage-based car insurance program that recently made its debut in Japan -- and hoped that this could hasten the introduction of a similar system on this side of the Pacific.

Now, the LA Times reports on an announcement by California's insurance commissioner that he's planning to...

"...propose rules forcing auto insurers to set rates based on the driving records and miles driven by motorists, and to give less weight to where drivers live — a change that could affect the pocketbooks of 23 million California drivers.

The proposal was embraced by consumer and civil rights advocates who have long complained that city dwellers — especially in minority neighborhoods — pay higher rates than drivers with similar records who live in rural towns and suburbs."  (Emphasis added.)

Seems like the US didn't have to wait for Japan's lead after all.  Obviously, this is not yet a done deal.  But it's still promising -- both because it could make the automotive insurance system fairer to people who don't drive much (notably women, the poor, and city-dwellers), and because it could give all drivers the opportunity to control their insurance costs by driving less.

Japan Gets PAYD

Here's a little something I'll be keeping an eye on:  Japanese insurance company Aioi has started to offer pay-by-the-mile car insurance. (See page 2 of this pdf.)  This is an especially nifty development, since it means that Aioi will be working out some kinks in the technology (the company will verify mileage with a device installed in policyholders' cars) which might help PAYD make the leap across the Pacific.

As we've said many times, pay-as-you-drive insurance (or PAYD) offers huge advanatages. Overall, the system is fairer than the all-you-can-drive insurance that most of us buy:  people who don't drive much tend to incur less crash risk, and they wind up subsidizing people who do a lot of driving.  Even the policies that give a little price break for low-mileage drivers still make the people who drive the least subsidize everyone else.  And not only is PAYD fairer to low-mileage drivers, it also creates an automatic disincentive for extra driving:  just as an all-you-can-eat buffet makes it more likely that you'll gorge yourself, all-you-can-drive insurance makes it more likely that you'll drive more than your really need.

We've long been hoping that some auto insurer will offer PAYD in our part of the world.  In 2003, Oregon even passed tax incentives to sweeten the pot. But so far, no company has taken the bait.  And that's pretty understandable