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Electric Cars Not So Green

By | | Transportation
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A new study published in Environmental Science and Technology argues that increased numbers of electric vehicles over the next four decades will not result in a “clear and consistent trend toward lower system-wide emissions.” The reason, of course, is that it takes energy to produce electricity, and much of that energy comes from burning fossil fuels.


Maybe not green enough to be worth the wait.

Of course, we can increase the production of “renewable” electricity. But if we increase the demand for that electricity by driving electric cars, then we’ll still have to burn fossil fuels to supply electricity for other purposes such as light and heat. It might make more sense to use renewable electricity to replace fossil fuels in electrical generation while working to make fossil-fuel-powered cars more energy efficient.

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Peak Oil Panic

By | | News commentary
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The Antiplanner paid $2.99 a gallon for gasoline last week, which–according to my records–is the lowest I’ve paid for three years. The United States is now producing more oil than it imports for the first time since 1995. Not only is the U.S. producing more oil than Saudi Arabia today, it is poised to become the world’s largest oil producer (ahead of Russia, which is currently number one) by 2015.

Despite these dramatic changes, there are some who still want to harp on peak oil. “A new multi-disciplinary study led by the University of Maryland calls for immediate action by government, private and commercial sectors to reduce vulnerability to the imminent threat of global peak oil,” says one news article.

In fact, the study in question doesn’t predict that peak oil will take place soon, only that if it does, it will have serious consequences. But even that conclusion is wrong, as the “multidisciplinary team” would have known if one of the disciplines had been economics.

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The Fading of the Peak Oil Myth

By | | News commentary
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Remember all the talk about peak oil a few years ago? You don’t hear much about it today. The United States, supposedly almost out of oil, began producing more oil than Saudi Arabia a few months ago.

No one thinks there’s an infinite supply of oil in the world, but the peak-oil proponents were claiming that world oil production was about to peak and then head forever downwards just as China and India were consuming more, leading gasoline prices to inexorably rise to $20, $30, even $100 a gallon. This would force everyone out of their cars and onto mass transit, a prediction that was used to justify all sorts of otherwise ridiculous light-rail lines and land-use regulations.

The Antiplanner scrutinized these ideas eight years ago and concluded that those who held them had no understanding of the laws of supply and demand. For one thing, there are plenty of alternative sources of energy that are economically inefficient today but that could come on line if ever oil prices did rise enough.

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Small May Be Beautiful, but Coercion Is Not

By | | Regional planning
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A new report from Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality urges the state to give people incentives to live in smaller homes or disincentives to live in larger ones. A Life Cycle Approach to Prioritizing Methods of Preventing Waste from the Residential Construction Sector reviews the energy costs of various styles of homes and comes to the startling conclusion that larger homes require more energy than smaller ones. (How much did it cost to figure that one out?)

The report therefore recommends that the state “place incentives on smaller homes or disincentives on larger homes.” Why? If someone needs a bigger home, and they are willing to pay for it, why should the state care? Despite the coy use of the term “incentives,” what they really mean is coercive measures to arbitrarily make larger homes more expensive to force more people to live in smaller houses.

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