The Law of Large Proportions Saves Energy

Americans drove more miles in 2019 than the previous year but used less energy to do so, according to data released by the Department of Energy last week. This isn’t a new trend: American energy consumption for highway passenger vehicles has declined 12 percent since 2007 despite the fact that we are driving 7 percent more miles.

Click image to download a four-page PDF of this policy brief.

The data were published in edition 39 of the Transportation Energy Data Book, which has information all modes of transportation, often going back to 1970. The data in the book show that not only is our energy consumption for transportation declining, the carbon footprint of motor vehicles is also falling, which helped the United States reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 13 percent since 2005. The book also has information about petroleum production around the world, auto ownership for many other countries, toxic air pollution, and other energy- and transportation-related topics. Continue reading

Cars Getting More Energy-Efficient

The average car on the road used 2,939 British thermal units (BTUs) per passenger mile in 2016, according to the recently released Transportation Energy Data Book. This is the first time since the Department of Energy began keeping track that BTUs per passenger mile for cars has fallen below 3,000. It compares with 4,102 BTUs per passenger mile for transit buses.

Click image to download a 14-MB PDF of this book. Click here to download all or individual tables in the form of Excel spreadsheets.

Actually, according to the latest data book, BTUs per passenger mile fell to 2,998 in 2015. But the previous edition of the data book had reported 3,034; the latest edition revised the number slightly downward. Continue reading

Transportation Energy Costs

The average car on the road consumed 4,700 British thermal units (BTUs) per vehicle mile in 2015, which is almost a 50 percent reduction from 1973, when Americans drove some of the gas-guzzliest cars in history. The average light truck (meaning pick ups, full-sized vans, and SUVs) used about 6,250 BTUs per vehicle mile in 2015, which is also about half what it was in the early 1970s.

Click on the above image to download a 10.2-MB PDF of the above report. Use links below to download spreadsheets or individual chapters from the report.

By comparison, the average transit bus used 15 percent more BTUs per vehicle mile in 2015 than transit buses did in 1970. Since bus occupancies have declined, BTUs per passenger mile have risen by 63 percent since 1970. While buses once used only about half as much energy per passenger mile as cars, they now use about a third more. Continue reading

What If All American Cars Were Electric?

An Antiplanner reader writes, what “if all vehicles in USA were powered by electricity?” The reader wasn’t sure, but suspected that it would be “impossible to do with electricity as now generated and distributed.” I was inclined to agree, but when I looked into it, the results surprised me.

First, as I’ve noted before, only about a third of the power used to generate electricity ends up being delivered to the end users; the rest is lost in generation and transmission. This would seem to reduce the apparent efficiency of electric cars.

Counter to that, however, internal combustion engines dissipate most of their energy in the form of heat. On average, only about 21 percent of the energy from burning gasoline or Diesel is used to move vehicles; the rest is lost. Electric motors, however, only lose about 20 percent of their energy as heat. This more than offsets the losses from electrical generation and transmission. Continue reading

2014 Transportation Energy Data Posted

The energy efficiency of the average car on the road increased slightly in 2014 as did air travel, but the average light truck and Amtrak used slightly more BTUs per passenger mile in 2014 than in 2013. That’s the finding from the latest edition of the Transportation Energy Data Book (6.5-MB PDF), which was posted on line on Monday. Specifically, these numbers are from tables 2-15, highway modes, and 2-16, non-highway modes.

The book is published each year by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In addition to the book in PDF format and the individual spreadsheets for each of the 250 tables in the book, they usually have a link to all the spreadsheets in ZIP format, but the isn’t available yet.

According to the spreadsheets, most forms of urban transit became a little more energy efficient in 2014. I suspect declining fuel prices will produce some different results for 2015. Transit ridership is falling, so transit’s energy efficiency per passenger mile is likely to decline, as is Amtrak’s. If falling fuel prices allowed airlines to keep fares lower and fill more seats, airline fuel efficiencies may increase.
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It Won’t Do Any Good, But Let’s Do It Anyway

Oregon has a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by forcing electric companies to stop burning coal and to get half their energy from renewable resources. It sounds like a great plan, but like so many government plans, it has a few flaws.

First, it won’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Second, it will increase energy prices, thus reducing the viability of Oregon’s economy.

At least, that’s the conclusion of Oregon’s Public Utility Commission, the three-member board that is supposed to regulate electric utilities. The only problem is that the commission was never consulted about the energy plan, suggesting that the state is listening only to groups who are already true believers.

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Cars Saving Energy Faster Than Transit

The average automobile on the road in 2013 used 1.2 percent less energy per mile than in 2012, according to table 2-15 of the latest edition of the Department of Energy’s Transportation Energy Data Book. Both cars and light trucks achieved about the same gain.

Click image to download a 12.9-MB PDF of the data book. Click here to access individual spreadsheets of all the tables and charts in the data book.

In contrast, says the datebook, the average transit bus used 0.9 percent more energy per mile in 2013 than in 2012. Worse, the average number of people on board transit buses declined slightly, so buses used 1.0 percent more energy per passenger mile.

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The Future of Oil

Bloomberg argues that “supply alone is [not] behind the plunge in crude prices to $50 a barrel.” Instead, demand for motor fuel has slacked off due to lack of growth in driving combined with more fuel-efficient cars and more competitive electric cars.

The electric cars argument is specious, as too few of them have been sold to have much of an impact. The lack of growth in driving has already begun to turn around. Bloomberg itself demolishes the argument that supply isn’t the major factor with its very next story, which reports that Saudi Arabia greatly stepped up oil production in March, partly to meet the country’s “growing domestic requirements” and partly, no doubt, to hurt American or possibly Russian producers.

There is no doubt that cars are becoming more fuel efficient, but that is offset by the huge increase in cars sold in China, where auto sales have exceeded those in the United States since 2009. Besides, gasoline only accounts for about 19 gallons of product from a 42-gallon barrel of oil. Some of the rest goes to Diesel fuel, but most goes into other products for which demand is not likely to decline.

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Solar Conways

Crowdsourcing is one of those great ideas that could only come about because of the Internet. But it also opens up the possibilities for con artists, or at least advocates of really bad ideas, to get money from people who don’t know any better.

One of those bad ideas is solar roadways, which–thanks to a tweet by George Takei (because actors on science fiction TV shows know so much more about science than other celebrities)–received more than $2 million in pledges when its promoters asked for only half that. The pledges kept coming in even after numerous web sites debunked the proposal to turn roads into solar energy collectors.

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New-Car Fuel Economy Up 30% in 7 Years

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute has kept track of the EPA mileage ratings of all new cars and light trucks (pick ups, SUVs, full-sized vans) sold in the United States since October, 2007. Between that month and February, 2014, the average fuel economy of autos sold grew from 20.1 mpg to 25.2 mpg. While your mileage may vary, this is an incredible record of improvement in fuel economy.

Though we are accustomed to measure fuel economy in miles per gallon, a more appropriate way to compare vehicles is the other way around: gallons (or some other unit of energy) per mile. As Green Car Reports observes, when asked, “Which saves more gasoline, going from 10 to 20 mpg, or going from 33 to 50 mpg?” most people answer the latter but in fact the former is true. In any case, when measured in gallons per mile, new-car fuel economy improved by 30 percent between October 2007 and February 2014.

The Department of Energy hasn’t posted data for 2012 or 2013, but its Transportation Energy Data Book, table 2.13, say that over the seven years from 2005 through 2011, the average BTUs per vehicle mile of all autos on the road declined by 7 percent, from 5,600 to 5,200. Since new cars replace the old fleet at the rate of around 6 percent per year, the 30 percent increase in new-car fuel economy is not immediately seen in the entire fleet, but it will be eventually.

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