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DrumBeat: May 3, 2007
Posted by Leanan on May 3, 2007 - 8:58am
Topic: Miscellaneous
DOE Halts SPR Crude Oil Purchases
The Energy Department said Wednesday it rejected as "too high" all bids for the purchase of up to 4 million barrels of crude oil to have been shipped in June to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.DOE also said it will "suspend direct purchases of oil for the SPR until at least the end of the summer driving season."
DOE had previously rejected all bids for purchases of up to 4 million barrels of crude for the SPR in a May solicitation for the same reason.
Venezuela vows to eject Conoco if resists takeover
Venezuela threatened on Thursday to eject ConocoPhillips from the OPEC nation if it further resists President Hugo Chavez's plans to nationalize its multibillion-dollar investments in the massive Orinoco reserve.
National oil companies now control an estimated 77 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and "really stand to be the major producers going forward," said Amy Jaffe, head of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, who led a panel discussion on the subject Wednesday.The shift means that international oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, which have dominated the industry because of their technical expertise and access to capital, will see their role changing, she said.
The 15 countries with the most potential to boost production will contribute nearly 70 percent of the world's total liquid production capacity by 2015, up from just over 60 percent today, the Cambridge Energy report says. Here's a look at the top seven, ranked by the size of their projected increase.
Gas Prices Continue To Rise with Word of Possible Summer Fuel Shortage
The US Energy Department says national gasoline inventories have fallen for eleven straight weeks and US refinery use is at less than 88% of capacity.Continuing refinery problems have some analysts wondering if there will be enough gasoline this summer, to meet the increased demand.
With gas prices up, station stops the pump
"When I make a 5 percent profit on gasoline and my price jumps 30 to 33 percent, the profit doesn't cover the increase," McCloskey said. "I really don't know when I'll be selling gas again."...McCloskey said part of his problem with gasoline prices is that he is an independent dealer, unlike many convenience stores that are owned by oil companies.
"I'm not branded, so I have five days to pay my gasoline bill, which basically means I have to have the money upfront," he said. "So if I don't make enough money from one load to cover the next one, I can't buy it."
Refinery Problems Fuel Gas Shortage, Price Hikes
A massive oil refinery fire in Oklahoma is to blame for empty gas pumps in Iowa....Hundreds of miles away, the blaze caused many unleaded gas pumps to run dry at stations in Iowa City and Fort Dodge.
Consumers Fed Up With Gas Prices
Americans are increasingly angry and concerned, according to the survey's sponsor, the Civil Society Institute, and want to see something done. The vast majority told researchers from Opinion Research Corp. that they want sharp increases in automotive fuel economy standards, as well as new windfall profit taxes on oil companies, with the proceeds used to develop alternative fuels and to reduce dependence on unstable Mideast oil supplies.
Rising fuel, food prices nurturing inflation
The rise in Canada can be traced to recent sharp increases in food commodity prices in the U.S. and globally, he said, citing, among other things, biofuel demand that is hiking prices for corn, wheat and sugar products.
Botswana: Fuel prices shoot up after a cut in recent months
Retail pump prices for petrol, diesel and illuminating paraffin have increased due to high prices for crude oil in the international markets.
Report: What Aging Oil & Gas Offshore Workforce?
Research carried out by Oil & Gas UK has exploded the commonly held belief that the UK oil and gas industry is suffering from a rapidly aging, largely male offshore workforce as a result of fewer young people, especially women, taking up jobs within the sector.
Power struggle in the Middle East: Iranian oil and gas resources too important to be ignored
Since oil is unlikely to be abundant in the future and the era of easy and low-cost oil is coming to an end, to meet that demand countries and companies have started to look around the world to find new hope. Hence an oil resource competition has started and security of supply became a major issue.
Museveni blames Kenya for fuel shortage
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is blaming his nation's recent diesel fuel shortage on officials from the neighboring African nation of Kenya.Museveni said Kenyan revenue officials are "blockading" the influx of diesel fuel to his country by demanding financial guarantees from oil companies, the BBC reported Wednesday.
US Oil, Gas Industry Look to Past Storms for Future Improvements
The deadly hurricanes of 2005 have forced the U.S. offshore oil and natural gas industry to reevaluate and make changes in the way they operate their rigs to protect and preserve mining the nation's largest source of oil and natural gas.
British environmental scientist James Lovelock sensed that something was seriously wrong with human consciousness. How else could his peers report horrifying things so calmly? The polar ice caps are melting, they said, 3,000 species go extinct every year, the world’s large fish stocks have plummeted by 90 percent in the past century, and we’re turning the planet into a microwave oven. Business as usual.
Curious how modern civilization might ultimately end? In previous articles, I've discussed the coming food bubble -- a global collapse of the food abundance we naively enjoy today. Depending on who you talk to, this collapse of the global food supply could be caused by the end of peak oil, a collapse of bioversity followed by widespread crop blight, the depletion of freshwater tables, radical weather patterns caused by global warming, or the widespread disruption of global ecosystems through the continued use of synthetic chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, etc.)Each of these explanations sounds like bad news to me. Any one of them could conceivably pose a major threat to the future of our global food supply. And yet the real news is even worse: We're facing all of these threats at once!
Caterpillar jumps on the green bandwagon - The industrial giant finds that sustainability plays in Peoria
This is not, in other words, a company where you will find a bunch of tree-huggers. Even so, here are the headlines that jump out when you open Caterpillar's just-off-the-press 2006 Sustainability Report:Rapid population growth.
Limited natural resources.
Strained ecosystems.
No simple solutions.
Brighter, cleaner outlook for U.S. diesels
Nissan’s plans for a new Maxima is just one example of a move to cleaner, fuel-efficient diesel vehicles that could offer motorists a surprising solution to the problem of high gasoline prices, analysts say.
Quiz: What do you know about green business?
How much do you know about the business of being green? Take our Going Green Quiz.
Senate may vote in May to slash gas use - But environmentalist objects to bill classifying liquid coal as a biofuel
The U.S. Senate may vote this month on legislation that aims to drive down gasoline demand by boosting the fuel economy of cars and trucks and increasing the use of nonpetroleum fuels like ethanol.The Senate Energy Committee Wednesday sent to the full chamber a bill that targets gasoline demand - the biggest chunk of U.S. petroleum use. It also seeks to lower greenhouse gas emissions spewed into the atmosphere.
Saudi Aramco Production on the Decline
Saudi Aramco, the world`s largest state-owned oil company, said its 2006 crude-oil production decreased by 2.2 percent as reserves remained under 260 billion barrels for the fifth consecutive year.After its annual review in 2006, Saudi Aramco said on its Web site that average production fell to 8.9 million barrels per day from 9.1 million bpd.
Mexico's Pemex posts 1st-qtr net loss
Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex posted a first-quarter net loss of 10.1 billion pesos ($915 million) on Wednesday, hurt by decreased export volumes, a lower export price for Mexican crude and higher costs.
Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: Week Twelve
The fundamental problem in keeping the refineries working is that they are simply being pushed too hard. Twenty years ago US refineries were run at an average 78 percent of rated capacity and all was well. Now they need to be operated at close to 95 percent of capacity to keep up with increased summer demand. Moreover, there is a growing shortage of the experienced personnel needed to overhaul our refineries and they are becoming more complex as a result of the need to process more of the heavy sour crude oil that is an increasing share of what is available for import.
Exxon Mobil Says Peak Oil Unlikely in the Next 25 Years
The Exxon Mobil thesis is that Hubbert’s methodology worked when he applied it to the U.S. as an oil province, because the U.S. was extensively explored during the time period that covered Hubbert’s career. “Hubbert’s 1956 prediction turned out to be right; lower-48 U.S. production peaked in 1970,” just as he said it would, according to Exxon Mobil. But Exxon Mobil criticizes attempts to extend the application of what it characterizes as Hubbert’s “simple approach” to the entire world. And due to a misunderstanding of the Hubbert approach and its misapplication to a poorly defined world resource base, “a popular view has emerged that the world faces an imminent decline in global liquids production resulting from depletion of resources.”
Economic growth to end soon - forever
What Bakhtiari is saying essentially is that, quite soon, world economic growth ends - forever. Of course, there will still be some parts of the world, such as those endowed with exportable amounts of the remaining oil, where sky-high oil prices will bolster foreign earnings and stimulate local economic activity.However, all “western” nations, (with the exception of Norway and Canada) are net oil importers. For these nations, decreasing energy levels in their economies will mean decreasing economic activity.
18 workers kidnapped in Nigeria
Gunmen kidnapped at least 18 people in less than 24 hours in three attacks, seizing people from an offshore oil vessel, a power plant construction site and a bar, officials and witnesses said Thursday.
Russia cuts off oil in battle over war statue
In a development that echoed Moscow’s disputes with Ukraine and Belarus, the state-owned Russian Railways suddenly halted oil deliveries to Estonian ports. It claimed that it needed to carry out maintenance work and denied that it was imposing sanctions. Russia ships around 25 million tonnes of fuel oil, gas oil and petrol through Estonian ports.
Fixing climate carries big costs
The latest International Panel on Climate Change report, "Mitigation of Climate Change," examines fixes — or "mitigation" in climate lingo — to global warming, both technological and economic. The report will underline the environmental and financial benefits of quick action to cut emissions, says report co-author John Drexhage of Canada's International Institute for Sustainable Development.But fixes also come with costs explored in the report. If governments, for example, impose fees on carbon dioxide emissions, it would raise the price of electricity for businesses and homeowners alike.
A holiday at the end of the Earth: tourists paying to see global warming in action
Bored with your usual holiday? Try watching bits of the world as they start to heat up!The effects of climate change are leading to a distinctive new form of 21st-century travel: global-warming tourism.
Power station harnesses Sun's rays
It is Europe's first commercially operating power station using the Sun's energy this way and at the moment its operator, Solucar, proudly claims that it generates 11 Megawatts (MW) of electricity without emitting a single puff of greenhouse gas.
Fewer Valentine's roses as Norway goes 'carbon neutral'
Fewer roses on a wintry Valentine's Day, less room for kids in smaller cars and costlier holidays in the tropics: life in Norway will be less glamorous but more climate-friendly as the country aims to be the world's first "carbon neutral" economy by 2050.
Green lobby pushes renewable energy
There's no shortage of ideas for high-tech measures to combat global warming: develop clean biofuels made of corn or palm oil, build more nuclear power stations or bury harmful carbon emissions in underground vaults.But those are the last solutions many environmentalists want to hear about.
http://www.upi.com/Energy/Analysis/2007/05/02/analysis_iraq_oil_law_auth...
Jeff Vail posted an excellent article discussing Jevons’ Paradox and energy policy. After a few days of thought I wanted to revisit the topic.
The main point of his article, IMHO, was “Should we try to use government policy to increase efficiency, if we know that energy savings will just be consumed elsewhere?”
Jeff did a good job defending the answer of “NO” (and he later softened that position). I am going to attempt to defend an answer of “YES” (hopefully without making myself look too much the fool). Detailed below are several reasons that a policy of energy efficiency improves our society’s chances for long term survival. Instead of focusing on not spending the energy, it is more about how to spend the energy to best effect.
Many of these points were made in the prior discussion, but scattered around in comments. I wanted to summarize them and begin another round of discussion.
Cartel Controlled Market
The world oil market has pricing controlled by a cartel. This cartel is defending a price floor. As efficiency increases, prices are pushed toward the floor and the cartel removes oil production from the market. Production removal delays the day that peak production arrives.
Essentially the cartel is fulfilling the same function as complex government regulation. The cartel keeps efficiency gains from being instantly consumed in the new demand created by a price drop.
World governments could improve this process by entering into agreements with the cartel to defend a higher price floor. Essentially, this works as giving up economic growth now in favor of a longer term energy plateau (which is what we want to happen).
Preparation for Fossil Free Future
Eventually, society will be totally dependent on sustainable flows of energy. These flows will be much smaller than fossil energy flows. Our future quality of life is dependent on having high efficiency products available to make the most use of limited flows.
It takes years to create more efficient products. And it takes decades to shape more efficient cities. Any kind of efficiency policy begins this transition before the market price signals, giving society more time to adapt and soften the landing.
CAFE is a good example of preparing for the future. It takes years to generate new car designs, retool car factories, and replace fleets of cars. The Hirsh report stated it would take 15 years to replace the current fleet, and more than 20 years before most of the fleet was at maximum CAFE efficiency levels (it takes years to phase in the higher mileage requirements and more years to replace the fleet vehicles with the highest mileage versions).
By passing the CAFE legislation now, we prepare our vehicle fleet for a world with much less oil. If we waited for market signals to drive the change, the replacement would start too late and the replacement rate would be much slower as people are forced to stop purchasing vehicles because they are hemorrhaging needed capital on energy expenses. (Vehicle sales drop during recessions).
Giving Others a Chance
Efficiency measures lower the cost of energy, and this lowered cost increases demand “elsewhere”. One key item is that “elsewhere” might be a place that really needs that energy (like Africa) or a place that is making smarter choices (like Europe) and directing that energy into sustainable flows (wind) or long term investments (rail).
High EROI fossil energy sources give a society an “agility” to change course. Efficiency in one country opens opportunity for other countries to invest with greater speed.
Dennis Meadows has an example in his ASPO presentation on how the rate of self capitalization of nuclear power plants is severely limited. The lower the EROI, the lower the rate of growth (or change).
Carbon Tax and Production Credit
When the last drop of fossil energy is gone, the size of the world economy will be dictated by the size of the sustainable flows we have built for ourselves. Society should be investing in creating sustainable flows.
The problem is that the EROI of sustainable energy sources is less than that of fossil energy sources. So it will *always* cost more to get energy from sustainable sources until the fossil sources are greatly depleted. This is a disaster in a society that expects “market forces” to solve the energy problem. Essentially, market forces will do everything they can to worsen the energy problem by *delaying* investment in sustainable flows until it is too late.
By too late, I mean that EROI of fossil flows is reduced to that of the sustainable flow level, which drastically reduces the growth rate available for self capitalization. Essentially, if a society waits, it will never be able to transition before the fossil fuels are exhausted and the society collapses.
Some form of Carbon Tax plus sustainable flow Production Credit is needed to correct this EROI imbalance before it happens naturally. A carbon tax that offset half the EROI would lower use of the fossil fuels (but not stop the use so the high EROI can be put to work). A production credit would encourage the investment of sustainable flows and keep the efficiency savings of the Carbon Tax from being lost in consumer expenditure.
This is just an example and I am sure there are better ones. I bring it up because some efficiency measures provide a way of pushing more investment into sustainable flows.
It hasn't happened.
It isn't happening.
It will never happen.
It isn't that you're a "fool" (you write much more intelligently about the subject than I could).
It's that governments are insane.
It isn't even so much that they are insane, it is just that those that actually run governments run them to advance what they perceive to be their own interests. Those interests do not at all match the interests of the people who do not run the governments, or with the general interest of the nations being governed. Their perceptions with regard to their own interests may even be incorrect, but that is a different issue from insanity.
The biggest problem is that governments tend to be run by men in their fifties or older, who know that they are going to be in power for only a few years (and alive for only a few years beyond that, at best). They thus have an extremely short-term focus. Crises that unfold slowly over decades with long term consequences that could last for centuries or forever and that require long-term mediation efforts simply don't make it on to their radar screen.
It is a difficult problem, and I'm not sure that a really good solution exists for it. Philosopher kings, anyone?
Governments are either insane or have a logic that is not apparent to us "common folk".
Our entire culture is insane.
More likely our society is inebriated with cheap and easy power. Perhaps sanity will return when this "drug" supply runs out.
Of course, it won't be fun going "cold turkey".
Well is the government of Norway insane? Switzerland? Germany?
I think a government generally works pretty well to advance the interests of the predominant powers. So I wouldn't let "the people" off the hook so easily. GWB was elected at least one time after he had already been president for a full term.
In short, the "government" is part of our society and just reflects what the people are really about as an aggregate. Pretty sour lemon but there it is.
Personally I think this is too pesemistic a view. I don't think the government is particularly representative of the people at all. Rather Bush and his friends really represent the classs interests of about 1% of the population, well let's be generous and call it 5%. The fabulously weatlhy and powerful elite that controls well over 50% of the wealth of the United States.
These people also own, in a literal sense, the mass media. So their particulur view of the world, almost automatically becomes our view of the world.
For the last twenty odd years a "class-war" has been raging in the United States, where the rich grab more and more from almost everyone else and remove themselves increasingly from the sphere where most Americans live and work. Once borrowing becomes more difficult and the debt bubble bursts, the true extent of the massive re-distribution of wealth to the rich, will become startlingly apparent to all but the most obtuse.
It amuses me to do so, but I can hold these two views in my mind at the same time; they don't seem all that opposed to each other. In fact, I believe there are major differences between nations in how they approach these issues (or, whether they acknowledge them at all, in the case of the US), and these differences reflect what one might call a "nation's culture." Do the people of the US have steeper discount rates than those of Sweden? Because they're sure acting like it.
If they push it too far they may need more then just Blackwater.
I would very strongly dispute this.
The US is the large problem child but the people of the US have been under constant planned attack for decades now. It is unfair to blame it just on the people, especially when ignorance is rampant due to a education system that teaches more social engineering then any other kind.
The insanity is to have a system that for all practical purposes is a single party under the same ownership and with no social responsibility whatsoever. The demand side of this social responsibility has been destroyed by the planned influx of minorities and undue favoritism for some sectors of the welfare establishment with the deliberate intent to create friction.
You end up with factions that will never work together, just like Palestine or Iraq, and the small minority at the top that owns all the politicians laughs all the way to the bank.
I understand that many people here are far more educated then me, but the view from corporate penthouses and gated communities isn't the same as from street level.
The problems are leveraged on the street, it will not take all that much for things to get out of hand.
All the technical ideas are interesting and pursuable, but they are not going to work without a systemic change that evens the playing field or at least is perceived as evening of the playing field.
Comparing the US with Europe other then perhaps the UK in 2007 is like comparing apples and oranges.
Good point. Currently, one of Germany's major unions is planning strikes, because they feel that company profits belong to the workers in at least equal measure to managers/shareholders. (That the union demands are as extreme as the corporate counter-offer is standard horse trading.)
200,000 workers participated yesterday, apparently, in what was merely a 'warn strike.'
There seems to be a certain awareness that if you don't stand up for yourself as a worker, no one else will. And an awareness that the people actually doing the work are the workers, not the managers and shareholders.
The same applies to many aspects of life in Europe - and when it is described in the U.S. press, this idea that people standing up for their rights becomes an object of ridicule or scorn (not that critical judgment shouldn't be used - but that is often notably lacking). Or is just ignored.
No, it really isn't possible to compare the U.S., where apparently 40% of Americans believe they will end up in the richest 1% of the population, with Europe.
I may add, another difference is that Europeans tend to be a lot less binary in their thinking than Americans. When describing how Germany, for example, is attempting to handle challenges which are clearly facing the world in the future, it is often assumed that Germany is either a paradise or a hell. Instead, it is a complex interplay, a truth which Germans see as commonplace.
That was one tactic of the plantation owners in Hawai`i. (They resisted statehood for as long as they could, because they didn't want to be subject to U.S. labor laws.) They brought in indentured laborers from many different countries: China, Japan, Portugal, Korea, etc. They housed them separately and gave some ethnic groups preferential treatment. (The Portuguese got to be supervisors, since they were kinda sorta almost white.) They didn't want them to be able to communicate and thus unionize.
There is another critique to the Jevons' Paradox that could be mentioned.
Even if one accepts the argument that money saved through energy efficiency is used to increase demand for consumption of other items, it must be noted that such demand and consumption would not otherwise exist. In other words, the demand curves for the other categories of goods must be more elastic than is the case of energy. If they are more elastic, then a subsequent reduction in the supply of energy (which given peak oil is inevitable) will result in a further round of energy price increases and demand destruction. Because the demand for energy will still be relatively inelastic compared to many other goods, consumers will have to pay for their higher priced energy by reducing their demand for other goods with more elastic demand curves. Thus, given an energy supply curve that is constantly shifting due to continuously declining supplies (post-peak oil), the Jevons' Paradox effect must only be transient at best.
Under such an energy supply and price environment, the only rational course of action for any consumer that is able to realize savings due to energy efficiency investments is to reinvest those savings in further energy efficiency investments in anticipation of even tighter energy supplies and higher prices in the future.
The Chinese claim to have bumped into something big:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-05/03/content_865419.htm
Big whoop. They will just piss it away with their new automobile centric economy.
So if China uses maybe half what the US does, say 10 million a day, that's 3.65 billion a year. This can't be right. They're getting excited about two year's supply ? What relevance can this have to the culture that has seen thousands of years of dynasties and emperors and such? Even at 5 million a day it's just four years.
In the long run oil will be irrelevant and but a sidebar in history. Nasty sidebar, though.
Holy crap!!! Liquified coal as a biofuel? How about oil as a biofuel? Perhaps congress could be a biofuel. Another thing I hate is that they are always saying that "environmentalists say" such and such. Howe about rational humanoids say such and such?
It's too little, too late to boost fuel economy through CAFE standards.
After the recent news about the polar ice cap, it is all so freaking hopeless.
I guess if you stretch the definition far enough, one could say that all fossil fuels are biofuels. Unless you believe in an abiotic theory, the general consensus is that they are formed from geologically sequestered biota, so like all biofuels thus do ultimately have a biological origin.
How such an overstretched definition could possibly be of any usefulness is a different question. . .
Cheer up TSTREET and stiffen your upper lip, there is always a silver lining somewhere. Think of the bright side of life, as the crosshanged singed in the Monty Pythoon movie The Life Of Brian.
BTW isn´t oil also a biofuel, isn´t it made of old algae etc.
And if the Polar ice cap goes you can sail there, there´s a silverlining in everything.
Kenneth
Wow a single vote decided 'liquid coal' was not
biofuel. Some advocates for gasification technologies say that a blend of coal and biomass inputs has advantages. Maybe some kind of chemical signature needs to be identified to check on the alleged proportions if bio is exempt from carbon caps. Either that or tax coal as it leaves the mine. Coal is like The Blob from Outer Space as it creeps into everything; ethanol distillation, making up for low hydro dam levels, replacing expensive gas imports and now liquid fuels. When it runs out the meaning of 'renewable' will become clear.
Maybe they thought it was a biofuel because melamine, a byproduct of coal is being used in pet food.
Maybe they could vote to define beach sand as an energy source. There is an abundant amount of it, and it does get hot during the day. Should sound pretty good to your average politician. . .
Please, Mr. and Ms. Politician, I beg you to force me to buy the high MPG car that's already available, the car that I could go out and buy right now if I wanted it - because I don't really want it.
Sigh.
No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby - H. L. Mencken.
Please, Mr. and Ms. Politician, I beg you to keep the reptile brains# from buying Hummers, Escalades and Expeditions that endanger my family and I in our economical car.
Best Hopes,
Alan
# The Hummer H2 & H3 were specifically designed to appeal to the reptile brain.
Hmmm ... but then what about all those huge buses and semis? Lanes segregated by physical barriers?
And what of their too-abundant incompetent drivers? Chicago is close enough that I get some of their local news - trains seem to collide on a routine weekly basis with trucks (and the occasional school bus) whose driver is either trying and failing to beat the crossing gates, or is too stupid to grasp that "never stop over railroad tracks" means that the back of the truck (or bus), not just the driver's seat, must not be over the tracks (so that, e.g., starting to cross whenever there's not room to finish is verboten, and if that takes time, well, tough.) And for a number of years, it's also been getting so that a long road trip is incomplete without the sight of a formerly speeding truck flopped over outside the curve of a ramp somewhere along the way.
Paul: Big money runs the show. Here in Ontario, at one time the speed limit for transport trailers was 50 mph while the limit for cars was 60 mph. The trucks also had to stay in the right lane. This was law to save lives. Not now. Now you have giant train-like trucks literally 3 feet behind your bumper at 125 kph (77.5 mph) at night, in a blinding rainstorm. To say the driver of the car is intimidated is an understatement. You know that if you have to touch your brakes for any reason you are dead-period. I am not even mentioning the motorists killed every year by flying giant truck tires (can't force them to keep their tires on the truck-costs too much money). Apologies for the negative rant.
Truck only lanes have been proposed (we have a truck & service vehicle only road for the port here in New Orleans). Still, if the number of oversized vehicles can be reduced by half (and the half driven by non-professional, self selected reptile brains), that is a quite positive step !
However, the best solution is get the cargoes onto an (electrified) train :-) and get vehicles over 4,000 lb (hopefully closer to 3,000 lb) largely off the road except where specifically needed (utility repair trucks, grocery delivery trucks, etc.)
Best Hopes,
Alan
You know, the big commercial trucks don't bother me that much. I haven't looked for any statistics, but I would guess that they are responsible for a relatively small number of accidents. It's the big passenger vehicles such as suburbans, excursions, and hummers that worry me. I'd really love to see them banned. It would make driving smaller cars much safer if there were no SUVs on the road.
Actually, on the practical side, sometimes it's the big, bus-sized RVs weaving and wobbling at speed along the narrow country roads that worry me the most.
Ok, I looked up some statistics. You can get the whole report here: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2005.PDF
It looks like on a per miles traveled basis, large trucks (vehicles over 10,000 lbs) account for a larger percentage of fatalities than passenger cars or light trucks. Light trucks account for a larger percentage than cars.
Overall, the proportion of vehicles involved in traffic crashes is:
56% Passenger Cars
38% Light Trucks
4% Large Trucks
Passenger cars account for more since there are more of them on the road. Some other statistics from the report:
The want higher mpg without having to switch from their overpowered suvs, trucks, and other gas guzzlers. Ideally, they want SUVs and trucks to be segmented so that there are separate standards for each class size. They want their Escalades but with better gas mileage for no additional cost. In short, they want it all, but as you say they don't want to get off their butts and buy those great mileage cars that are already available.
But as we know, it's all a conspiracy. Those auto companies can build cars that go the speed of light weighing several tons with mpgs over 100 at no additional cost.
CAFE standards are a loser. Start by putting all vehicles in the same category. And the gas guzzler tax doesn't even apply to SUVs. Fix those two things and I will begin to think congress is serious.
Best Hopes for $10 per gallon gasoline.
People want more efficient cars just like they want better public transportation. Better public transportation means other people will use it leaving more room for them on the highways. Likewise with more efficient cars, if other people buy and drive more efficient cars that leaves more, cheaper oil for them and their SUVs.