Grand Challenges for Engineering
While everyone was distracted by yet another school shooting last week, the National Academy of Engineering put out a list of 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering facing us today. Engineering is a bit of a misnomer; most of these challenges require a healthy contribution from scientists and others as well.

You can even vote for your favorite from this intriguing list on their Web site. I suppose I'm biased because I've read extensively about the subject, but I chose "Provide access to clean water" as the most important. The two most popular so far, "Make solar energy economical" and "Provide energy from fusion," were my second and third choices. To me, the bottom line is that water is essential to human existence whereas energy is not (although, theoretically, finding a way to generate cheap, abundant energy would make water solutions such as desalination plants more feasible).

Alas, most Americans still have their heads in the sand regarding water issues. A report from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography last week said that there's a 50-50 chance Lake Mead will be dry in 13 years, putting the millions of people in Las Vegas and southern California in jeopardy. And they used "conservative estimates of the situation," so things might be even worse. Of course, drought conditions continue in the traditionally moist Southeast, too. My cousin who lives near Atlanta claims the water is "fine" -- she's one of the many Americans who won't believe there's a problem until the kitchen tap literally runs dry. Check out this map, updated weekly, to see how much of the United States is short of water. Even if your state is fine now, what will happen when the Southwest dries up? Will California, Nevada, and Arizona try to get your water? Then realize that the United States is much better off than many populous nations in Africa and Asia, and you will begin to see the imminent global water crisis.

Most of the other engineering challenges pale in comparison to clean water and cheap energy. Secure cyberspace? Advance personalized learning? Enhance virtual reality? Those would be nice, sure, but our continued existence doesn't depend on them.

Labels: energy, water

- posted by David Johnsen @ 9:23 PM 2 comments

 
"Almost Heaven, West Virginia"?
Do you have any idea what is happening in West Virginia these days? Check out this sobering slide show featuring the "mountaintop removal" method of coal extraction -- along with several residents turned activists desperately fighting to save their land and their own lives. Be sure to click "captions" on the bottom right to read the devastating details.

To extract large quantities of coal, companies clear-cut forests (sometimes without even harvesting the wood), blast away up to 1,000 vertical feet of rock, fill valleys with mountain rubble, turn headwater streams into chemical spillways, and poison the groundwater. The totals are staggering -- 470 mountaintops blown apart, 800 square miles of forest denuded and leveled, 675 ponds filled with toxic coal sludge. And the government predicts the destruction will triple by 2012, only five years from now.

Are we willing to sacrifice Appalachia -- the land and its people --to sate our appetite for fossil fuels?

John Denver would surely weep.*


* For more about "Take Me Home, Country Roads" -- including the original verse about "naked ladies" -- click here.

Labels: energy, environment

- posted by David Johnsen @ 3:35 PM 3 comments

 
Duh! Big Houses Are Bad For The Environment
Almost every day, there is a news story that is so painfully obvious, it's a miracle someone got paid to write it. Because it's a shame to waste only my own time, I am starting an occasional "Duh!" feature to draw attention to these stories.

The big environmental story on AlterNet today is "Big Houses Are Not Green: America's McMansion Problem." What a shock!

In Los Gatos, Calif., controversy has raged this summer over the city planning commission’s approval of a proposed hillside home that will occupy a whopping 3,600 square feet – and that's just the basement. Atop that walkout basement will be 5,500 more square feet worth of house. The prospective owner says he’ll build to "green" standards, but at the Aug. 8 meeting where the permit was approved, the city's lone dissenting planning commissioner stated the obvious when he told the owner, "You have a 9,000-square-foot house with a three-car garage and a pool. I don't see that as green."

I love that quote. The sad part is that no one else agreed with him.

The article goes on to cite statistics about how 42% of new homes are 2400 square feet or larger, and then it details the cost of raw materials (lots of wood!) and energy. Builders highlight "green" features, but the most obvious seems to elude them: build a smaller freaking house! A study published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology in 2005 says, "A 1,500-square-foot house with mediocre energy-performance standards will use far less energy for heating and cooling than a 3,000-square-foot house of comparable geometry with much better energy detailing" (the article notes that the "geometry" of most new homes is woefully inefficient for the sake of looking interesting).

Unfortunately, the American mindset is to get the biggest thing one can afford, be it a house, a car, or a television. Until that changes, we are going to be the energy-hogging bastards of the world.

Labels: duh, energy

- posted by David Johnsen @ 3:13 PM 0 comments

 
Who Blogs for the Bastard Polluters?
Today the EPA helpfully suggests seven ways Bastard Polluters could help the environment without changing their plans to dump toxins into Chicago's drinking water. Buried in the article is this disturbing nugget:

BP, which has taken out full-page newspaper advertisements and paid Internet bloggers to defend the permit, says it needs to discharge more pollution...

As a public relations tactic, paying bloggers to say nice things about your deadly discharge ranks lower than refinery sludge. I'd like to know who these spineless, pathetic, corporate-butt-kissing bloggers are, and not so I can shake their dirty hands.

I know pay-for-posting isn't new. But shilling for a product to generate "buzz" is relatively harmless; advocating the rape of our lake is entirely different. If BP wants to spread bullshit in its own blog, that's fine. But integrity-deficient "independent" bloggers who take cash to kiss ass deserve to rot in Hell.

Labels: blogging, energy, Indiana, water

- posted by David Johnsen @ 5:19 PM 3 comments

 
Lyrics of the Day
Today we continue toward the exciting conclusion of DBT Suicide Week!

Since most of the band hails from northern Alabama, the Tennesee Valley Authority (TVA) is a topic of several Drive-By Truckers songs. The TVA brought many changes to that region, not all of them good. In "Uncle Frank" from the DBT's second album Pizza Deliverance, Mike Cooley explores the dark side of the TVA's impact. Uncle Frank lost his land when it was submerged by a new dam, and the promises of economic development were greater than the reality.

The cars never came to town and the roads never got built
and the price of all that power kept on going straight uphill
The banks around the hollow sold for lakefront property
where doctors, lawyers, and musicians teach their kids to waterski.

Uncle Frank couldn’t read or write
so there was no note or letter found when he died.
Just a rope around his neck and the kitchen table turned on its side

This song interests me because I read about the TVA recently in Water Wars by Diane Raines Ward. In its early days, the TVA served as a model for water development. It lessened the flooding along the Tennessee River, which in turn helped combat malaria and other maladies. It provided cheap, clean hydroelectricity for a region where many homes didn't even have power and those that did had been powered by dirty coal plants. It provided jobs during the Great Depression in a region sorely in need of economic development. Its hydropower fueled some of the aluminum plants -- as well as Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- that helped the U.S. win World War II. While some critics complained about too much government control, the TVA showed how important it is to manage a river as a whole system. TVA consultants were sought by developing nations wishing to control their water resources in a similar manner.

But by the time those countries came calling, the TVA was already heading downhill. Instead of staying true to their charter, they decided their business should be power generation rather than river management. Consequently, the TVA started building nuclear power plants and even coal plants (keep in mind part of their original mission was to replace coal plants). The nuclear plants crippled the TVA with debt, so "the price of all that power kept on going straight uphill." Now the TVA is an example of a good idea gone wrong, or at least a good idea that lost its focus. Of course, "Uncle Frank" is looking at the TVA from a "micro" point of view. While overall it did a lot of good, the lives of some people were deeply affected and even ruined in the name of Progress.

Labels: energy, lyrics, water

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:18 AM 2 comments

 
A Hummer in the Living Room
George Kovacs, the man who introduced the halogen torchiere to America, died last Friday.

What Kovacs' obituary doesn't mention is that a halogen torchiere is like a Hummer in your living room. Much as the behemoth SUV guzzles fuel, a halogen torchiere uses a 300-watt bulb to replace a lamp using a 75- or 100-watt incandescent bulb (or nowadays a 20- to 29-watt compact fluorescent bulb). This wattage is necessary because the torchiere is inherently inefficient: it reflects light off the ceiling instead of directly illuminating the room. A wiser populace would have steered clear of these electricity hogs when Kovacs brought them to America, coincidentally around the time of the first oil crisis in the early 1970s. Alas, style often wins out over efficiency.

Their heyday came in the 1980s when countless knockoffs appeared. Prices went into freefall as every store tried to offer the cheapest halogen torchiere to attract customers. I held out until a home improvement store (maybe Builder's Square or Handy Andy, both long gone chains) offered one for under $15. That was an amazing price considering that a halogen bulb alone cost $7-8. My torchiere was surprisingly well made and sturdy. It lasted about a decade before I became conscious of its energy consumption and threw it away.

Labels: energy

- posted by David Johnsen @ 7:16 PM 0 comments

 
About Oil Prices: What He Said
John McCarron's editorial "How to escape the automotive life" in the Chicago Tribune is right on target. He starts by encouraging Americans to walk more and to consider walking and biking in suburban planning. Then he takes on misguided political "solutions:" Bill Frist's $100 rebates, Judy Baar Topinka's sales tax reduction, and President Bush's suspension of environmental regulations. I think a lot of people aren't aware of this:

We should, if anything, raise the state tax on gasoline. Illinois is about to leave mega-millions of federal transportation dollars on the table for lack of a 20 percent state "match." ... That means federally approved projects like the rebuilding of South Wacker Drive, the CTA's proposed Circle Line and Metra's circumferential Star Line are indefinitely sidetracked, just when they'll be needed the most. The way gas prices are rising, who'd notice another penny or two to improve our region's public transportation?

After explaining what government should not do, he returns to what individuals should do: buy more efficient vehicles, drive more smoothly (I've been trying to teach this to my wife for years!), keep tires inflated, and try not to blame the oil companies -- despite their record profits, they aren't the ones setting the price of oil (I'll admit that ExxonMobil is a fabulous scapegoat, but deep inside I know McCarron is mostly right). His last point is obvious, wise, and hard to imagine for many:

We should change the way we live. It sounds drastic--not driving anywhere, anytime on a whim; not air-conditioning our homes to 68 degrees and toasting them to 72.

Frankly, that doesn't give me much to work with -- I walk or take public transportation wherever I can, I only run the air-conditioning when it's so hot that 80 degrees inside feels cool, and in the winter our thermostat ranges from 65 when we're awake to 60 when we're asleep. There is plenty of room for improvement for others, though. Like my parents -- occasionally I make the mistake of wearing a long-sleeved shirt to their house in the winter, and within minutes of entering, I'm burning up. Mom argues that their energy bills aren't that high, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be lower (I shouldn't pick on them too much; at least they have some compact fluorescent light bulbs).

A lot of Americans seem to look down on energy conservation as something they should only do if they can't afford to pay. After all, consumption is the American way. But the truth is that conservation helps everybody. Maybe you can afford your gas bill, but if you use less and the price goes down, maybe your retired neighbors will be able to afford their gas bill, too.

By making a few basic changes this winter, I cut our electric bills by 35%. We now use about 250 kilowatt-hours per month, which costs $32 (just wait until we get rid of that 16-year-old refrigerator!). Even allowing for 1,000 kWh during four summer months, we're 25-40% below the U.S. annual average. I'm not saying this to brag (okay, maybe a little); I want people to realize how wasteful we are and how easy it is to minimize energy usage. One person can't make much of a difference, but what if every residential customer reduced electricity usage by 35%? What if every motorist drove a little more smoothly and a little less often?

Labels: energy, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:17 AM 0 comments

 
Conservation, Not Legislation
Nothing brings out the stupids in lawmakers more than runaway gas prices. I've heard so many ill-conceived proposals in the past week that I can't keep track of all of them. Let's just hope a majority of legislators have some common sense and don't actually pass these laws. That's a lot to ask these days.

Where did this gas rebate plan come from? The Republicans, who supposedly don't approve of government handouts, want to give $100 rebates to taxpayers to help pay for their gas? The same people who wanted to cut everything from student loans to healthcare for the poor think it's in our national interest to compensate motorists for the rising cost of a dwindling resource. What the hell is that? And where would all that money come from? The budget surplus? Oops, there isn't one. The whole point of the Republican proposal is just to sneak in a measure to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which simply does not have enough oil to make a difference anyway. It's all political posturing for the November elections -- Democrats who oppose it will be portrayed as "cheating hard-working Americans" out of gas price relief offered so generously by the Republicans.

The dumbest idea (drum roll, please) has to be suspending state or federal gas taxes. This is the lowest sort of pandering there is. Lawmakers (including Democrats in Congress and in Pennsylvania) see the November election looming and figure they will win if they can push a law like this through the system. Said lawmakers apparently don't realize that gas taxes do not exist simply to make consumers pay more; those funds are used to build and maintain roads. If a tax is suspended for only a month, that's an 8.3 percent cut in funding for the year. To make matters worse, many are calling for two or more months. A lot of state governments are barely in the black these days (Pennsylvania is projecting a surplus, but President Bush can show you how easily that can disappear), and of course the federal government has overspent into a record deficit. If that money doesn't come from gas taxes, there is nowhere else to get it. And it isn't as if our highway infrastructure is in such great condition that we should defer maintenance.

And what happens if gas prices don't go down? Will there be another rebate? Will gas taxes be suspended again? Eventually we'll all have to drive SUVs because the roads will deteriorate too much to drive regular automobiles on them. There is one surefire solution to rising gas costs -- drive less. Nine out of ten Americans will probably say, "I can't." And at least eight of those nine will be liars:

• "I have to drive Precious to school!" Why can't she ride the bus?
• "Johnny has to go to soccer practice!" So does the kid down the street. Why can't you split the driving with his parents?
• "I have to get to work!" Maybe you should move closer. Barring that, assuming public transportation isn't available, why don't you carpool?
• "I have to get a loaf of bread!" Why didn't you pick one up on the way home from work? (My neighbors come and go five times or more every Saturday. Don't tell me they couldn't combine some trips.)

I haven't even mentioned walking, bicycling, or going inside instead of idling in the drive-through line. All of these lifestyle changes make a hell of a lot more sense than suspending fuel taxes or deepening our deficit to hand out gas rebates.

Labels: energy

- posted by David Johnsen @ 10:26 AM 0 comments

 
Conservation Elation
We just got our electric bill for the month of November. For the first time I can remember, it was under $40 -- only $36.29 (292 kWh for 31 days). Our daily electricity usage was about two-thirds as much as last November and only half as much as our daily October usage. How did I do it?

• Installed compact flourescent light bulbs in almost all fixtures. The only exceptions were the spherical bulbs in one bathroom and the chandelier bulbs in the dining room. The flourescent chandelier bulbs I have found are too big for that fixture so I did the next best thing: unscrewed half of the six 25-watt bulbs. Thanks to a ComEd instant rebate, I bought ten 60-watt equivalent GE bulbs at Ace Hardware for only 99 cents each!
• Switched from desktop to laptop. My Pentium 4 desktop PC finally died completely, and my Pentium M ThinkPad is much more efficient.
• Turned off porch and foyer lights. My wife turns these on when she leaves for work. I turn them off when she drives away. Porch lights only invite solicitors, and I don't even answer the door (if you want to "drop in" at our house, you should call first). I turn the lights on about 15 minutes before my wife comes home. They're compact flourescent too.
• Minimized hair dryer use. No one cares what my hair looks like most of the time anyway since I work at home. I towel dry and air dry it instead.
• Paid more attention to turning off lights. In grade school there were orange stickers on every light switch that said, "If you don't need 'em, don't feed 'em."
• Turned off moisture control feature on refrigerator. This isn't necessary in winter anyway.

There is much more that I can do, and maybe we can break $30. I still need to aggressively clean the dog hair out of the refrigerator coils. I need to keep nagging my wife to do only full loads in the washer and dryer (the latter is gas-heated but still uses electricity). I also need to remind her to unplug rechargers when they are finished charging (they stay warm, so they are still using electricity). I should put the stereo equipment on a power strip that I can turn off (the receiver has a standby light, so it's always drawing power). I need to remember to put my laptop in standby mode when I won't be using it for a while -- the AC adapter stays cool in standby mode, so I know it isn't using much juice. And finally, I need to buy three compact flourescent globes for the bathroom. Most of these improvements will be minor, but they can add up.

Best of all, this is just "bonus savings" from tips I have come across while focusing on our gas bill. In that area, I am anxious to see the benefits of insulation and radiator reflectors. Of course gas savings will be harder to measure since the outdoor temperature has such an impact on gas usage.

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 8:59 PM 0 comments

 
Natural Gas Blues, Part III: Heat Reflectors, Insulation, Tankless Water Heaters, Shades
Now that I am finished reviewing my copyedited book manuscript, it's time to revisit the topic of energy efficiency. Yesterday I received some super-sharp, premium heat reflectors from Novitherm Canada to install behind the nine radiators that are against external walls. They are more than simply aluminized reflectors; they also have angled sections that look like sealed louvers. These create a thermal barrier of air between the reflector and the wall that keeps even more heat in the house where it belongs. This makes them better than anything I could have crafted myself using cardboard and aluminum foil. They weren't terribly expensive; even with shipping to the USA, they only cost about $170. The only downside is that they will reflect the backsides of the radiators. A few years ago, I stripped many layers of paint from the fronts, but I couldn't always get behind them-- now everyone will see what I missed. Oh well, some aesthetic sacrifices must be made, I suppose. Installation promises to be easy, but we'll see if I can screw it up.

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 7:34 PM 0 comments

 
Natural Gas Blues, Part II: Boiler, Windows & Insulation
A commenter on the previous "Natural Gas Blues" post made some good suggestions. My reply got long, so I decided to make it a new post.

Although I'd love to replace the boiler and windows, I don't think we're ready to invest $20K+ in the house right now. Our boiler is old (1983), so I'm sure we could save gas with a new one. When I asked our HVAC contractor about replacing it last year, however, he told us that it's a good model in good condition. Maybe there's more money to be made keeping the old one going as opposed to selling me a new one? If the boiler fails, I will have to look into coupling it with an indirect-fired domestic water heater as the commenter suggested. For now, I will probably just add an insulating sleeve to the heater we have. I also installed aerators yesterday to decrease our hot water usage.

The previous owner had aluminum double-pane windows installed 10-12 years ago. I don't know what gas or coatings they might have, but at least they aren't ancient (house is 85 years old). To put in the latest and greatest, we would need to replace about 25 windows on the first and second floors, plus another 15 shorter ones in the basement, which is heated. Judging from what we spent to update ten windows that he inexplicably skipped (like I said before, I'd like to smack him), we could spend $15-25K on windows alone. Window treatments with insulating qualities would probably help a lot. We installed honeycomb shades (triple-cell) in two rooms a few years ago, and I'd like to buy more of those.

The only big investment I am looking at right now is insulation. I'm sure we are under-insulated, particularly in the attic. Unfortunately, we have a SpacePak air conditioning unit up there along with a silver tarantula of tubing. That may complicate matters; we'll have to hire professionals. Obviously we should have insulated before we got the SpacePak, but we didn't think of it. You would think our general contractor would have recommended it, but alas that project manager wasn't the brightest. At least I got him to add foam board insulation in the living room and sun room when they replaced the crumbling plaster with drywall.

To be continued...

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:22 AM 2 comments

 
Natural Gas Blues, Part I: Tankless Water Heaters And Radiator Reflectors
Our natural gas bills have always been outrageous in this house, sometimes over $300 a month during the winter. And it isn't because I keep the place nice and toasty--daytime is usually 67 degrees F, going down to 63 degrees at night. With prices higher than ever in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this year I am getting serious about reducing our heating costs. Maybe it's time to finally put curtains over all those windows (my excuse: we just moved in... about 6-1/2 years ago), or at least cover them with plastic for the winter. I tried the plastic thing two years ago but only did one window (on the bright side, that window is still covered, though it looks a little worse for wear).

Our gas water heater is 11 years old and I'd like to replace it, maybe with a tankless unit. Considering that our current model uses only five therms less than the most wasteful model on the market in 1994 (an estimated 276 therms annually), I'm sure we'll be better off no matter what we buy. The previous owner made a lot of bad decisions with this house--if he wasn't dead, I'd probably go smack him upside the head at least once a month. Tankless systems are more expensive, but they last longer and use less gas, especially if we get one with an intermittent ignition device (like the spark ignition on our stove) instead of a constant pilot light

Most of our gas is used by the radiator heating system (hot water as opposed to steam). While perusing a government web site about conserving energy, I found this suggestion: "Place heat-resistant radiator reflectors between exterior walls and radiators." That makes a lot of sense, but of all the radiator-heated buildings I've been inside, I have never seen this. Even my in-laws, who are notoriously chea--I mean thrifty--don't do this. Intrigued, I googled "radiator reflector." Tossing out the obvious mismatches (i.e. car radiator stuff), I found some U.S. sites that reprint the government's suggestions verbatim but very few that elaborate on them. I found many more U.K. web sites, so I would guess this is more popular across the big pond.

Some sites tell how to make your own, and it's as easy as you might guess: tape aluminum foil over a piece of cardboard. The way I turn any home improvement project into a disaster, however, I'm afraid that my homemade reflectors would look cheesier than a 1950s science fiction movie. Although a few U.S. sites claim that hardware stores sell them, our local store right here in the heart of radiator-heated Chicago does not. Twelve pages into my Google results, I only found sources in the U.K. except for one in Canada. If I lived in Ontario, I could even get a rebate for installing radiator reflectors. With a stab in the dark, I googled "radiator reflector Illinois" and came up with a supplier in New Jersey. I don't get it. If these things are as great as everyone says they are, they should be selling them on every freaking street corner in Chicago.

P.S. While researching energy, I found Mr. Electricity, aka Michael Bluejay. Not only does this guy offer advice for saving electricity, but he's a safe cycling advocate, too.

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 10:24 PM 7 comments

 
The Key To Reducing Our Dependence Upon Foreign Oil...
...is to reduce our consumption of oil. This is such an obvious thing that every American should be up in arms over what Congress and the President are doing with the energy bill that is expected to pass soon. Instead, what we are getting is a bill that pushes more exploration of American reserves by giving huge handouts to oil companies that are already quite profitable without our tax money. I don't need to mention where Bush/Cheney's bread is buttered, do I? It's funny how these guys support free trade and open markets except when they have a chance to assist their oil cronies. We need to reduce consumption, and we need to find alternatives. There is some mention of alternatives, but reducing consumption is off the radar. The only consumption-oriented solution offered by the bill is to extend daylight saving time, but that will mostly affect electricity (I suppose oil-powered electrical plants would use less oil with DST, but that's not where our main oil usage is anyway).

The United States can never produce as much oil as it now buys from other countries. To give out federal money with the idea that more domestic development can really make a dent in our demand for foreign oil is folly at best. Every year Americans put more cars on the road, using more oil. Every year Americans spend more time in traffic, using more oil. Every year Americans move further from city centers, expanding into exurbia in vain pursuit of the "American dream" and lengthening their commutes to where the jobs are, using more oil. If we can't produce enough oil now, how will we ever produce enough to meet future demand? This is clearly unsustainable. (This leads to the debate about whether capitalism as an economic system dependent on constant growth is sustainable, but let's not get into that right now.)

What can we do? It seems that the least we can do is raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements. Surely that is part of this energy bill, right? Of course not. Maybe we can encourage mass transit, make it more difficult to develop the outer limits of metropolitan areas, provide incentives to people or companies to reduce consumption, increase taxes on SUVs and other gas-guzzling vehicles (and channel that money directly into research and development of renewable energy sources)... There are so many possibilities, and we aren't even exploring them. Bush's only "bold, new idea" is to start building more nuclear power plants. In a time when we are supposedly fighting a global war against terrorists, that just seems to invite disaster by creating more targets. And of course there is the problem of nuclear waste, which we have not effectively resolved for existing plants, much less a new generation of them.

Of course, drilling in such areas as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a part of Bush's plan, too. Somehow he has convinced Joe Sixpack (eg, my brother) that this is a great idea because we need to develop as much domestic oil as we can rather than buy foreign oil. He makes it sound as if the ANWR is sitting on a hundred years' worth of oil deposits. But the problem is that there just isn't enough oil there to make a noticeable difference. One way or another, we are going to run out of oil, or at least we will reach a point when production lags so far behind demand that market prices cannot bring supply and demand into balance. How will we get to work? How will we ship goods across America and around the world? How will people who live many miles from stores get food? How will trucks deliver food to those stores anyway? If the best that Bush and Congress can do is to put off our impending misery for months or even a year or two, do they deserve our votes? We need to put our money into finding real solutions, not into exploiting the limited resources we have.

And then there is the war we are waging to supposedly stabilize a region whose sole value to us is its black gold. Whether you believe that oil is the primary, secondary, terciary, or whatever reason for our involvement in Iraq, you cannot deny that without oil, the Middle East would just be an appendix attached to Africa, a continent that gets little attention from those who dictate our foreign policy. "Cheap oil" is already one of the biggest myths in America. The true costs of cheap oil are borne by all of us whether we drive or not. Our tax money is dedicated to fighting wars, maintaining military bases, and propping up despotic but US-friendly regimes in order to keep the cheap oil flowing. Suddenly it isn't so cheap anymore, is it? The Bush administration and Congress are only perpetuating this myth rather than taking a hard look at reality.

UPDATE 08/01/2005: Today I found a recent article at AlterNet called "Oil Companies Discover 'Sustainability'" by Charles I. Burch that discusses the ridiculousness of oil companies talking about sustainability with regard to a non-renewable resource.

UPDATE 08/29/2005: A Chicago Tribune editorial today chastized the Bush administration for proposing to modify the CAFE standards. They argued that it wouldn't solve our problems right now, and this is true. They also argued in favor of higher taxes on gas to encourage people to drive less. I agree with what they are saying because ultimately, that would have the same effect as CAFE because consumers would demand fuel efficiency. However, that doesn't mean that CAFE couldn't be part of a long-term strategy. The gas crisis of the 1970s taught us that once gas prices dip, people won't care about fuel economy anymore. Then it would be nice to have more stringent CAFE requirements to keep the automakers' feet to the fire. Then again, it is increasingly unlikely that prices will go down again. Of course, the joke of all this is that there is no way any politician will get elected or re-elected if he/she supports high gas taxes.

Labels: energy

- posted by David Johnsen @ 3:17 PM 0 comments