Redstate

it's always fun to take jabs at the extreme environmentalists you are GROSSLY overstating their influence in these matters.  Certainly they have an influence but it's not like they have dirty pictures of the President.

The problem is that the debate is being fought by the edges on BOTH sides thus leaving the middle with little choice but to stick with the status quo.

Clean coal is a marketing concept.  While clean coal technologies are cleaner than older plants they still throw up a lot of nasty stuff.  

Nuclear power died in the US after 3 Mile Island, and then was buried with Chernobyl. And I haven't see a single politician push in any serious way to bring it back.  The sad truth is that nuclear power still scares a lot of people who don't understand what it is.

I don't know much about the LNG debate so I must defer to you on that.

While environmentalists are resisting exploring ANWR and the Continental shelf the pro-exploration people are too busy trying to convince people that drilling in ANWR is no big deal and, imo, deceptively trying to convince Americans that drilling in the ANWR will greatly reduce our foreign oil dependency.  

You also seem to forget the power of the NIMBY.  If there is a TRUE culprit for our lack of new power plants and refineries it is the NIMBY and the NIMBY can be found in both blue and red varieties.

I don't consider myself an environmentalist.  But I do believe in smart planning and not simply looking for ways to open the spigot some more whenever demand, and thus cost, goes up.

remember to thank environmentalists for cleaner air, cleaner water, and all the species that aren't extinct today because of them.  And let's recall the rivers that now have fish in them again, the recovery of deer, the national forest program, migratory birds, the end of leaded gasoline, the list goes on and on.  Yes, we have problems with energy, but no, burning every last lump of coal in the ground is not the answer.  The stuff is filthy and the majority of coal plants aren't anywhere near "clean."  I don't know how you feel about breathing mercury, thorium, vanadium, and uranium from coal, but I could frankly do without it.  

On nuclear power, I'm in full agreement.  Build it.  Build lots of it.  The French are right.  With respect to LNG, the problem with it is that the ships are floating bombs.  In an age of terrorism, it wouldn't necessarily be prudent to put an LNG terminal in a busy port.  

The energy bill just passed features massive tax breaks for the oil industry, during a time of record profits.

Or lots of money to corn based ethanol, which is more expensive than oil, and completely impractical

And the house just hammered through a bill to build new, unneeded refineries.

Maybe the environmentalists don't offer any real solutions, but at least they aren't actively wasting federal money on clearly lousy solutions like our republican controlled congress is.

I'm interested in exactly how your so called "small band of extremists" has been able to set the regulations in a majority rules democracy? Could it be because most people realize environmental laws are important?

Y'all may find this interesting. It doesn't say what you might expect it  to say.

Yes, build nuclear plants, but we better be extremely rigorous with safety procedures because the public is not going to forgive any accident. It would also be nice to figure out what to do with the end products (while we wait for cold fusion).

This is spot on.

Supply and demand is the only way to have supply and lower prices.

We need to drill, drill, drill. PERIOD. Refine, refine, refine.

Plan? as in "planned economy"? There is too much planning. It leads to artificial markets. We need our energy markets to be more free, not more "planned."

A lot of the environmental movement is sappy and simply "I got here first and you are too late."

Look at the Keys; it was the environmentalists that fought waste water treatement. Look at the stupid $ave the Manatee Club, which is using a feral species to steal private property rights and destroy native species. Only true outdoor sportsman really give a darn.

What's their plan?

well, I can't speak for the hippy strawman you're envisioning, but I think most reasonable people would like to see the fuel efficiancy standards raised on all cars accross the board.  With a little government pressure and taxes going to new technologies instead of tax breaks to Oil companies that are already having very profitable years (and I should know, I have a significant amount of money invested in them) we could have cars averaging thirty to forty miles per gallon in ten years, easily.  The technology is there, we're just not using it.

Cold Fusion is a SCAM!!!!

If the government wants to give tax breaks for investment I'm all for it. But specific breaks for specific technologies is STUPID and leads to all kinds of pork projects and dead ends. Remember Semitech.  Let the free market decide.

Where did I say anything about planned economy?  Before you start prop up some Karl Marx straw man, let me save you the effort, and tell you that I am in no way advocating a planned economy.  

Please tell me what an "artificial market" is.  I would love to know.  Would you consider a market in which 90% of the supply is control by one entity to be a "artificial market"?  

Are you familiar with the term public policy?  It is used to implement public changes in order to further our general welfare and/or our common defense.

...

GROSSLY overstating their influence in these matters.

We have environmental laws that allow them to have the upper hand regardless of what is good or bad, right or wrong for the country as a whole. And they have become very, very proficient at making use of those laws to delay permits with endless reviews and analysis.

They  have access to the courts. And we have courts that have provient hemselves well able to allow spurious lawsuits and non-science to cloud the issue. That's enough right there to slow the process down for 10 years.

But it isn't the extreme environmentalists that are passing the laws, or getting them passed.  

And for the most part the people who are blocking new plants and refineries are the NIMBYs with help from the extreme environmentalists.

Are you willing to have a refinery built down the street from your house?

I agree with LundPHD.

With the demand for oil at record highs, and no projection for declining in significance, the most practical solution for me is to make our oil consumption more efficient.  There is no need at this time to be dumping piles of money on top of already extravagantly profitting oil barons.

For me, this means the encouragement of hybrid sales, making public transportation a more viable option in big cities (which I'm happy to say Kansas City is one of those pursuing this option.), and subsidizing the development of engine and fuel technologies.

The anti-people groups like Greenpeace et al have been lying to people for decades about nuclear power and the {cue scary music here} dangers it poses. Ever since Walter Cronkite and his infamous BS about plutonium being the 'deadliest substance known to man' the anti-nuclear folks have been scaring people with radiation poisoning and leaks and gruesome deaths etc. And they are doing it to this say only now they've added terrorists' "dirty bombs" to their repertoire for good measure

As far as I am aware there is no know case of anyone being killed by the operation of a commercial nuclear power plant in this country. Plant personnel are injured, but people working at Ford or GM get the same injuries - falls, tool accidents, etc. Even the "disasters" like Three Mile Island were nothing approaching a disaster.

coming more from pundits and pols on the right (and left) than from environmentalists on the left.  I think you're picking the wrong culprit.

Regarding the 3M island disaster.  It was a failure with poor results but falls short of being a disaster.  I suspect Chernobyl is a better example of what happens when a failure becomes disasterous.  I'm not an alarmist, I know that French, U.S. technology, safeguards and oversight are far superior to the old Soviet standards so accidents are far less likely.

On the other hand, a big failure in the nuclear world pretty much makes other potential industrial disasters pale in comparison.  It is prudent to be cautious.

What? new, unneeded refineries?

For the past several years now the US has been importing ever increasing millions of barrels of refined product every day because we do not have the capacity to refine in this country. Before Katrina/Rita refineries were at 93-95% of capacity and now there are several still offline from the storms. And 93-95% of capacity means you are overbooked --- it leaves zero margin for plan shutdowns, maintenance, product mix changeovers, etc.

If we found that a bazillion barrel pool of oil under Kansas tomorrow it wouldn't make any difference, we can't refine the stuff. Which, when you consider the recent technology advances in oil shales and the vast reserves available there ought to make one ill. Even if the technology works and we suddenly have the largest oil reserves in the world it won't do us any good --- we can't refine it.

But then I hold out no real hope for the shales anyway. From my reading I think the technology will work and it will work very, very well. But my grandchildren will still be waiting for the first barrel to come out --- the environmentalists will see to that.

were passed 20-30 years ago. The enviros have simply learned how to make use of them --- very, very effective use.

And I do not discount NIMBY, but NIMBYs and the enviros are in lockstep.

as regards the 'dirty bomb' I don't hear it from the same quarters as you I guess, but it's stupid regardless of where it comes from. It's all part and parcel of the 'scare generation' where we are supposed to be frightened of things like 'nuclear' and 'atomic' and all that nonsense. The "don't do anything and be prudent and cautious" school will be the death of mankind yet. We didn't get to where we are by being overly prudent and overly cautious. All great advances involve risk.

Three Mile Island is the poster-child for the anti-nuclear types in this country and it didn't actually hurt anyone. And had the plant personnel not overridden the computer controls it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Chernobyl was a disaster, but even it has been overblown. Recent reports of long term observation of the area residents show nothing approaching the predicted "biblical" proportions of cancers, etc.

already extravagantly profitting oil barons

Right out of the Big Oil Talking Points™ book.

Oil profits are at record levels for a very simple reason. The price of finished product is up, way up because demand remains high and actually continues to grow. And people continue to pay it. The cost of crude is up, way up too, but it has always represented a modest proportion of the price of refined prodcut.

More and more demand chasing a relativly stable supply. Oil company costs are not rising as fast as finished product prices; ipso facto oil profits rise. Conspiracy and nefarious business practices are not necessary to explain it; it's called supply and demand.

massive tax breaks for the oil industry, during a time of record profits

tax breaks are a good thing and profits are a good thing.

And the house just hammered through a bill to build new, unneeded refineries.

Three cheers for the House! Unneeded? Says who?

> You might remember to thank environmentalists for cleaner

> air, cleaner water, and all the species that aren't extinct

> today because of them.  And let's recall the rivers that

> now have fish in them again, the recovery of deer, the

> national forest program, migratory birds, the end of

> leaded gasoline, the list goes on and on.

No. Thank the wealthy and the middle-class. In every society, after people get secure in their basic needs, their thoughts turn to beauty and improvement of their surroundings. It's so predictable that it must be genetic. And, as science and education improve--pointing out the consequences of various kinds of pollution--you don't need activists to tell people that drinking clean water is better than drinking a chemical soup. It's wealth and basic education that changed America's attitude about the environment. Do we need advocates to tell the public that restaurants shouldn't have rat droppings on the floor? No. The public just needs the information, and that restaurant's business will disappear.

No. Thank the wealthy and the middle-class. In every society, after people get secure in their basic needs, their thoughts turn to beauty and improvement of their surroundings.

Who do you think is in the environmental movement?  You're describing the same thing.

And I'm a proponent of nuclear power ...  Just like many, many other environmentalists.  Taking care of the environment is not about fetishism, it's about making decisions that will allow businesses to prosper in the long term and individuals to protect their health in the short term.  Anyway, high heating costs aren't the results of "environmentalism."  They are the result of energy market deregulation.

Who should do the "smart planning" and what would it be? If you propose the government has an energy policy for the government ok. But if you propose the goverment control or influence private energy behavior for the private sector, choosing winners and loosers and setting targets, you are a marxist.

The government needs to get out of energy policy. It needs to encourage free markets. Sure OPEC has nominal control over pricing but that is because there is no marginal free market. Opening up ALL domestic engery exploration and lowering the cost of capital and shutting down the trial attornies would put a bullet in the heart of OPEC. Our environmental policies are as bad as OPEC at controling prices.

free trade for pushing our dirtiest industries and factories to Mexico, China, etc.

Double bonus- cheap stuff and clean air.

For me, this means the encouragement of hybrid sales, making public transportation a more viable option in big cities (which I'm happy to say Kansas City is one of those pursuing this option.), and subsidizing the development of engine and fuel technologies.

I'm just curious... why this focus on automobiles?  It seems like the notion is that driving is responsible for all of the energy consumption.  I know I've seen some figures here on redstate, but don't have time right now to do a search.  What percentage of energy consumption is directly attributable to consumer driving?

What about power generation?  Heating the home or buildings?  My house uses natural gas for heat; I'm sure others have oil furnaces.  What about commercial buildings?  Not a lot of places have nuclear power for such things, and I highly doubt large office buildings are being heated with electric coils powered by nuclear power plants or solar or wind or what-have-you.

Does public transportation consume no energy?  Anyone got any numbers on how (let's just pick an example) the NYC subway system is powered?

It just seems like any time energy comes up as a topic, folks on the other side of the ditch obsess about SUV's and gas mileage, to the exclusion of all else.  Why?  Do the numbers support the obsession?

-TS

What's wrong with lower taxes and better profits?

There are all these so described brillant people complaining about higher energy prices where all you had to do to hedge was buy some XOM.

The House does not build refineries. They just remove barriers from private enterprise from doing the same...if it makes economic sense.

The only good energy policy is NO energy policy.

that we scrap all environmental laws?  

according to the DOE is for gasoline used by cars and light trucks.

Its consumption accounts for almost 45 percent of all oil use

Not sure if you got the memo.

isn't a lot of the value determined in the market with speculation on supply and demand?

Here's what you said:

"We must [push efficiency] in conjunction with finding new technology and new sources of energy."

But what you proposed was:

carbon

nuclear

carbon

carbon

And that is why your arguments and indignation have no weight.  You pay lip service to the solutions in your attempt to portray environmentalists as the only evil to be overcome.

No market is truly free, since someone has to make the market in which trading exists.  

However, since you imply that by "free" you mean less involvement from government, let's take that to its logical conclusion:

No gov't regulation on energy exploration and development?  Ok, fine.  But let's also add:  

No subsidies to energy companies, also known as tax cuts.

No subsidies to gas consumption.  That means that all costs associated with driving, including construction and maintenance of roads, should be paid for at the pump by the driver.  

No restrictive zoning to keep those refineries out of your back yard.  If they can buy the land, they can build wherever they want.

No more releasing oil from the strategic oil reserve.  Hell, no more strategic oil reserve at all, as this messes with the "free" market.

No anti-monopoly regulations. No complaints about price-gouging. (Hello, Standard Oil!)

Finally, no gov't influence in securing/ managing energy sources. (No department of energy, no propping up friendly oil-rich dictatorships, no military engagements for oil.)

Then, we can all bask in the joys of a free market.

What is always left out of these free market arguments is the fact the the market isn't some natural, physical law with immutable properties but rather it's a social construct.  Society, valuing things like cleaner air, water or to live far removed from power plants and refineries are part of the social market condition and not artificial barriers constructed to constrain the market as if it were a Tsunami.

Like all social contracts those issues facing our economic activity need review, tweaking, tightening or loosening from time to time but their really isn't some conspiracy against "the market."  We all want economic benefit as part of but not the sole determinant in our quality of life.

of the matter is that the oil market is enormously complex. Crude prices are determined by a number of "market" factors; Production is determined by another set of factors. All of these go into making up the eventual cost of crude landed at a refinery.

But given our refinery capacity situation the availability of crude at any price does not appear to be a controlling factor. Exxon could offer to pay $100.00/bbl and they could get crude coming out their ears. But they can't refine it here. So we end up refining what we can and importing finished product to make up the shortfall. And that finished product importation is increasing by the year.

Right out of the Big Oil Talking Points book.

That's funny, I missed the part where he attributed oil profits to "conspiracy and nefarious business practices." Since you agree that oil profits are "at record levels" (because, as he already explicitly said, demand is high) I'm confused as to what, exactly, you are refuting here.

While it is true he did not use the word 'conspiracy' I for one interpreted the term as accusatorial. The composition of the phrase led me to believe that the poster viewed thes profits as the result of some sort of "questionable" practices.

The focus on cars comes from my personal situation.  Kansas City is almost exclusively a car-commuting city.  

I've also read some figures somewhere, but can't recall exactly where at the moment.  (Maybe the Dept. of Energy?)

I'll check it out later.

The Sun, giver of life, still shines up in the sky, ignored.

Wind? The water cycle?  Hydrocarbons?  Yeah, those things just make themselves.

First, we have another "Manhattan Project" as people have suggested.  I think the focus of this project should be more effiecient and cheaper solar energy capture.

Think of of all the roof space available across the U.S. If the project boosts solar panel efficiency by say 30% to the dollar (of panel production cost), the payoffs would be enormous.  It would be cheaper to install solar panels throughout the country (and not just the Southwest).  If 60% of roofspace across the U.S. is covered by solar panels, we severely decrease our dependence on other forms (but I admit we will have a demand for it).  

A common point against solar is the inefficiency during cloudy days and the winter.  I say we simply employ a system where the big producers (i.e. the southwest) will  'trade' their excess energy for  'excess' water.  Some parts of the country have excess water, others have excess sunlight.  

It doesn't need to be built down the street. There are plenty of other places. But then the enviros complain it 'interferes with nature.'

But you need to get the unrefined oil to the desert and then ship the refine oil to the markets.  

This is part of the problem.  The more remote you make the refiners the more expensive it is to refine the oil.  

I realize this might fly in the fact of "It's all the environmentalists fault" but the laws of supply and demand do come into play here.  

Everything got cleaner since the 70's when he signed common sense laws (extremists want to do away with fossil fuels entirely, no matter the cost). SInce then polution has declined while energy use has drastically increased.

Amen to nuclear power, but until two democratic senators, one with 45 votes and filibuster power, clean-up costs make nuclear power far more expensive than coal - 11 cents per kWh as opposed to 4 cents.

your R & D senators.

and his price control ideas were wonderful.

No doubt environmentalists have contributed to the increased regulation of energy production.  Maybe that increases the cost of production to the producer, and maybe it doesn't.  There are probably cases of each.  It does definitely decrease some of the costs of production that were formerly borne by society at large in a wide range of forms.

The real driver in the energy market, however, is not regulation but money.  M-O-N-E-Y money.

Gasoline: the reason gas costs a lot right now is because refinery capacity is close to maxed out, and supply cannot therefore reliably respond to demand.  The reason for limited refinery capacity is that, for the last 20 years, oil companies have been closing less profitable refineries.  The section you want to read is "U.S. Refining Capacity", although the whole article is interesting.

LNG: a primary reason that there are only 5 LNG terminals in the US is that, until quite recently, it was cheaper to extract and sell domestic gas.  The reason other countries have relatively more LNG terminals is because they don't have domestic supplies.  

No doubt the process of permitting and building LNG terminals is "cumbersome and expensive".  That's because LNG is highly volatile.  It burns and blows up.  I drive by an LNG terminal twice a day, every day, and I can assure you that an accident there would make a very, very big dent.  I am, in fact, more than willing to go way out on a limb and guess that the overall costs associated with the permitting regs are far, far lower than the cost of one good LNG terminal meltdown would be.  It's called not being stupid.

Nuclear: the last nuclear plant brought online in the US was Watt's Bar in TN, brought online in 1996.  Not the 70's.  The US has greater nuclear generation capacity than any other country, and nuclear power generates 20% of the electricity here.  In spite of recent closures, generating capacity has held steady through the renewal of licenses and increased efficiency of generation.  Of the eight plants shut down since 1991, only one had production costs below the industry benchmark for profitability.  There are tons of incentives currently available for companies to build new plants, but it's easier for them to diversify into nuclear by buying existing plants.  So, they don't build new.  Money is the driver.

ANWR: environmentalists oppose drilling in ANWR because it's one of, if not the, last untouched piece of wild land left under federal control.  I agree with them.  Optimistically, at it's peak in 2025 ANWR oil will reduce US oil imports from 70% of total use to 66% of total use.  Four percent difference, at peak production.  We can make drilling in ANWR completely unnecessary by applying passenger car CAFE standards to SUVs.  You can decrease your gasoline use by a little over 3% by inflating your tires to the correct pressure.  If we can't put conservation measures of that level of simplicity on the table, there's no point in drilling ANWR anyway, because we'll just pee it away.

And, the "Dulles Airport" thing is cute, but estimates of that size generally rely on counting only the footprint of the actual drilling gear.  It's BS.

Regarding this:

So this winter, if you're freezing in your house or apartment, if your energy bill is costing more than your food bill, let's not forget to give credit where credit is due: Thank an environmentalist

Baloney.  You might, however, thank environmentalists for the clean air you breathe, the clean water you drink, and for whatever scrap of open land might still exist.

Money talks and BS walks, boys.  The driver on energy production is how much money can be made out of it, not whether the Birkenstock crowd has their undies in a knot.

died with communism. Or at least they should have.

Your heart is in the right place, but if we're doing a "Manhattan Project" for energy, we need to GO TO THE SOURCE.  The Sun does not burn FROM the atmosphere.  If we're going to drop billions on solar energy (which we should), it needs to be a BO-NAN-ZA, Moon Shot, Trinity level, OMFG I can't believe it's not butter project.

Put an solar-electric converter into orbit, and microwave the power into the grid. Done. Then all we have to do is invest in good batteries/fuel cells and we'll have SURPLUS power in 50 years.  A new gilded age.

Supply and Demand: it's like a giant auction. consumers like us bid up the prices of limited amounts of oil. If the greedy oil barrons lowered their prices to say $2.00 ( to take an extreme example right now) per gallon, we would buy up the supply too quickly and people would be left without gas at all (this happened in Socialist Russia a lot because of price controls). So 'greedy oil companies' bid it up to make sure everyone has a opportunity to get some. They then take the extra profits into their calculations for new production. When gas was $2.00 per gallon, it didn't make since for oil companies to produce gas that costs 2.50 to produce, but at $3.00 per gallon, it makes sense. Doesn't do much for bringing prices down though. Eliminating environmental restrictions makes it cheaper to produce gas, so it may make sense to produce more gas at $2 prices because it now costs only 1.50 to produce that same 2.50 gas (due to decreased regulation that isn't necessary), thereby lowering prices.

And if you still think the greedy oil companies are immorally destroying society to make money, then boycott them! don't give them your money. build or buy your green car. I cheer for you to do so, because it takes one less bidder out of the competition.

Hydroelectric has been a part of the mix for decades. It's great but clearly it only works in certain physical locations. And don't forget that the enviros doen't much like dams either.

Solar and wind are simply not 100% reliable; the wind does not blow and the sun does not come out from behind the clouds just because we flip on a light switch. Which means that there has to be  sufficient non-renewable (coal, oil, gas, nuclear) capacity to deal with an unknown asynchronous demand, an unknown demand that varies from hour to hour, day to day.

Renewables are a nice idea but they don't replace building power plants. I saw an item on TV a few days ago about some guy on Long Island who has his roof covered in solar cells. He's essentially independent of the power grid --- most of the time. But I've spent a fair amount of time on Long Island and I'll guarantee you that there are days and days when his solar array doesn't generate enough power to heat the inside of a matchbox.

The total cost for his installation was about $70,000 as I recall, $60,000 of which came from a "rebate" from the power company i.e. all the other power company customers payed for his solar cells. Combined with tax incentives it made it very attractive --- for him. But very expensive for everyone else. The only saving grace for LI power customers is that very few customers decide to go this route. But assuming enough customers went this route, LI power would still have to have sufficient on-demand capacity available to meet the demand of solid-overcast winter day or week.

I'll be the first to say that we need more research into alternatives, but even if we come up with an alternative tomorrow there is 100+ years of petroleum/gas distrbution infrastructure, much of which would have to be replicated for some other fuel system.

This is one reason why I don't think hydrogen as an automotive fuel is going anywhere in the near future. There is little free hydrogen on Earth; we have to "make" (release) it from some other form. That takes energy. And once we get it we have to distribute it. That means pipelines, delivery vehicles, filling stations, all of which have to be designed and constructed. And we can't lose sight the simple physical fact that hydrogen is a liquid at about -430 degrees F. That alone raises all sorts of "opportunities" for hydrogen as a fuel source.

It takes MuCh more energy to trap hydrogen than almost anything else...

Check out my "Small Thinking" reply though...I wasn't advocating any renewables in the way you think I was...

I am involved in the LNG issue, I consider myself educated on the subject.  We have 5 LNG proposals in our little town.  It's like a soap opera in these parts, all kinds of weird and shady backroom deals.

The crux of LNG is the energy loss in the gas to electricity process.  Our natural gas prices are very high right now because of the demand of gas-fired power plants.  They kick on during high electricity usage (9-5).  

The LNG process involves piping it out of the ground, turing it to liquid (-260,) putting in on a ship, using LNG to power the ship across the oceans, unloading it into giant tanks, heating it up into natural gas, piping it to a gas-fired power plant and using that electricity for power/heat.

If this sounds like a very in-efficient way of getting energy, it is.  Just the gas to electricity process is a 50% energy loss and this is the number for the best plants (others around 70%).  So, LNG will come online about 2011, but because of the energy-loss, it really won't bring down prices much at all, if it is used strictly for electricity (which all models say it is).  IMHO this is a horrible mistake and the local gas companies say the same thing; use LNG for home and businesses (and possible natural-gas hybrid cars, this is where we really need it) and other sources for electricity.

Car companies meet the CAFE standards by reducing the weight of the vehicle, primarily.  Then death rates go up because everything else being equal, a 3000lb car isn't going to protect you as well when you hit a wall as a 4000lb car will.  Then the same types will push for more manditory safety features on cars, which will drive up the price, except that then no one will blame the increased safety features that were necessary because of the lessened car weight, they'll blame those greedy car companies because your ANSI standard poor family can't afford a car any more, or even if they can, they won't be able to afford repairs to replace all that fiberglass when they get into an accident instead of just having some wrinkled steel.

This playbook has been run before, and it won't run any better the next time than any of the previous times.

for this.  

Up until the past 2 years auto manufacturers were to busy pumping more horsepower into cars, to worry much about fuel efficiency.

But I would like to know some example of cars that were modified in order to meet CAFE standards which then saw greater fatalities in accidents after the change.

To say "everything else being equal, a 3000lb car isn't going to protect you as well when you hit a wall as a 4000lb car will." seems pretty silly.  The laws of physics would disagree with you.  Are you suggesting that we should intentionally make cars heavier for safety reasons?   Perhaps you tell these automanufacturers to stop making their engines lighter because it is making the car more dangerous.  

Your way of thinking regarding auto safety is about 40 years old.  

*almost all.

We should bury their text in Yuccca Mountain.

Make sure to stock up on drinking water.

Look at NY's nuclear power and VA's nuclear power.  NY [even with Niagra Falls] sells electricity at over 10cents/kwh while VA is closer to 5.  The diff is all in birkenstock voters and their checkbooks.

And where do I find this information about NY vs. VA power generation?

Thanks -

So this winter, if you're freezing in your house or apartment, if your energy bill is costing more than your food bill, let's not forget to give credit where credit is due: Thank an environmentalist

No, thank you.  My gas my gas bill from 40 to 120 a month.  How about yours?  I bet your spouce drives the SUV and you drive a Ford F150.  I wouldn't be supprised if you've owned more mustangs/mopars than you have cousins!

But shouldn't we be concerned about the 55% as well?

-TS

... let's adopt Cold Fusion :-)

If you're going to deny the simple basic fact that everything else being equal, a heavier car is going to protect you better in an accident than a lighter car, then we have no common ground to talk about this issue, because I think you're insane.

Tell you what.  You can pick the econobox of your choice and drive it straight into a brick wall at 50mph, and I'll do the same with an SUV.  If you survive, I'll get out of the hospital before you do-- unless you picked a Volvo, in which case your 'econobox' cost more than my SUV.  (And before you ask, no I don't own an SUV or have any particular love for them.)

What is OK is to have some regulations or standards of health and safety. What does not work is trying to steer the ship. The government should not be selecting technology or setting prices. It should encourage development with simple guidelines.

Try checking out these urls from CATO:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3409

http://www.cato.org/research/articles/taylor-910319.html

Some choice quotes:

A third effect of CAFE has been to reduce the weight of small cars and subsidize their sales (because those are cheaper techniques of improving mileage than retooling engines), which, in turn, has increased auto fatalities. It has been estimated that the 500-pound reduction in auto weight that coincided with the introduction of CAFE has increased the fatality risk by up to 27%.

Indeed, the relationship between high-mileage cars and body-bags is the strongest finding of the past two decades of auto-safety research. Why? Because cars generally get good mileage by decreasing body weight and "downsizing." The average weight of a car fell to 3,100 pounds in 1989 from 4,100 pounds in 1975, when CAFE was first passed by Congress. Although fuel efficiency more than doubled (without, incidentally, decreasing our oil imports) so did the vulnerability of American motorists.

Even Ralph Nader, one of the most prominent advocates of a 40 mpg CAFE standard, concedes that "larger cars are safer - there is more bulk to protect the occupant."

If you're going to press a point about car safety that even Ralph Nader concedes, then I reiterate my previous point doubting your sanity.

There is no law against a monopoly. There are only laws against the monopoly abusing the it power. Do you honestly believe anyone entity sets gas prices.

There was some dope on Rush today that thought that the spike in gas prices was set by the gas industry.  But when Rush asked the bozo, "Why did they come down?"; the guy had no answer. If the oil companies make money at $3 and they can set prices would they not make more at $4? The ignorance of supply and demand is stunning. If you want people to use less, make less and the price will go up. If you want it cheaper make more! OF ANYTHING.

This is evidence of two things 1) hardly anybody in this country understands basic our economics; 2) it works.

Is there any information available on what change in vehicle weight translates into what level of fatalities? If it is a small number, we should consider how the benefit to society of having a lower demand for fuel weighs against a possible minor increase in fatalities.

Cars used to weigh much more in the early 70's, but I'm not aware that traffic fatalities were adversley affected when we moved to smaller lighter cars after the oil embargo. I'd be very interested to see any study that tried to show impact of weight change normalized for other things like reduction in DUI and increase in use of child safety seats.

Also, I'm curious what type of safety features currently contribute significantly to the cost of a car. Besides airbags (a couple hundred bucks?- if so, well worth it) and seat belts ($20?), have other safety requirements already driven up the cost of cars? If so, I'm not aware.

This is more evidence that the so called environmentalists are phonies.  If they really cared about the environment they would insist that ALL energy exploration and refineries would be in the U.S. where there are environmental rules and regs.

Just like the two biggest environmentalists in the Keys that fought waste water treatment because if there were municiple sewers the guy next store could get a building permit.

Just like the $ave the Manatee Club. Greed on both sides. At least we are honest.

Correct a part of the price of oil is the believe that it will remain hard to get vs the supply. I we get a possitive supply shock then the price will crater.

I was working up to reply to this oft-repeated and meaningless attempt to blame those who have zero control over our energy policy.  But Amos nailed it.  

If we were talking about the high cost of wind and solar, yeah, blame those environmentalists. Otherwise, let's hear what Cheney's energy committee resolutions were.  It's not as if anybody with knowledge around the issue didn't know about Peak Oil a long time ago.  

It's appalling that we even have this argument days after the administration's appalling energy bill was pushed through.

Cold Fusion is a HOAX. It was a scam dreamed up by a couple of guys in Utah. It is a total HOAX>

The albedo of the earth is only ~30%, meaning there's only 30% more energy available outside of the atmosphere than at the surface of the earth.  You have an interesting idea, but I wonder what is more economically feasible.  

Also, I think many people (myself included) would wonder about the safety of microwaving that energy back to the earth, from that far away, it would have to be a quite focused pulse.

Interesting thought though, and definitely worthy of discussion.

Who cares if a species is extinct.  It happens all of the time.  We wast to much time, energy, and money protetecting a spooted owl that 99.9 % of the people will never see and could care less about.  But you Liberal environmentalists closed down a whole industry over a stupid owl and cost many Americans their job.

Ralph Nader is not someone I listen to for sound scientific or economic opinion.

Secondly I generally discard 3rd party commentary on unsourced studies.  Doubly so when the 3rd party is an overtly biased group like Cato.

First of all my point was in response to your hitting a wall hypothetical.  A heavier car hitting a brick wall is likely to just cause more torn metal.

Secondly trying to make a 1 to 1 relationship between CAFE and vehicle weight is dubious.  While a heavier car is generally safer in an accident I would sooner take a modern 3000 lb car over a 10 years 3500 lb car.  

Lastly I don't necessarily care about CAFE versus a gas tax.  CAFE was a more politically expedient than a gas tax so that's what we have.

anything about setting prices or selecting technologies?  

Species are getting wiped off the face of the Earth at quite a pace.  I don't care about most of them; I  get plenty of sleep at night.

But what I need you to personally do is make sure that none of them hold the clues to any kind of medical breakthroughs that could affect me as I age.

Ok?  So... get to work!

... but 99% of all of the species that have ever existed on Earth went extinct before man became dominant. Species extinction is part of natural selection. Species that cannot adapt to changing conditions die off.

I'm not suggesting we all ought to go out and shoot a spottted owl, but waxing elequent over species extinction just doesn't comport with historical reality.

is brought down from Alaska we could take it to Nevada or California for refining which doesn't increase the costs very much compared to transporting it all over the country. The stuff from south America could be brought into Arizona and Texas for Refining with the same minimal costs. When we talk about the difference from down the street from my house to the desert( or some other remote location), we are talking a very minimal distance compared to transporting it across the nation. But Enviros argue that while remote places aren't down the street from us, they are 'down the street' from wildlife.

I agree with you whole-heartedly that it's the simple laws of supply and demand, but the supply curve can be and is shifted left artificially by environmentalists, thereby driving up prices.

... you missed the " :-) " at then end of my comment.

Do you know how much it would cost to build to Venezuela? And how exactly would we keep that pipeline secure for the 3000-4000 miles it would travels through other countries?

There's a reason why most refineries are next to the water.

If you're going to deny the simple basic fact that everything else being equal, a heavier car is going to protect you better in an accident than a lighter car

Since it's possible to build a super-heavy car that kills you in a 25mph collision, and it's possible to build a super-light car that allows you to survive a 180mph collision, I call your "fact" a silly thing.  "All things being equal" has no meaning, practically speaking.

The most I'm willing to grant you is that a heavier car in vehicle-vehicle collisions tends to fare better than the lighter car.

Safety is largely independent of heaviness of the vehicle.  Costs keep cars heavy.  But don't take it from me: you said so yourself with your Volvo comment.

You know, I wasn't sure before, but now that you've quoted this study:

It has been estimated that the 500-pound reduction in auto weight that coincided with the introduction of CAFE has increased the fatality risk by up to 27%.

I'm sold.  I'm welding two 500-pound steel plates to my sedan roof tonight.  That should get me my 27% back, times two!

Supply and demand is the only way to have supply and lower prices.  We need to drill, drill, drill. PERIOD. Refine, refine, refine.

...or we could reduce demand.

I don't dispute what you are saying, but it still doesn't justify the "we don't know what's there, so who cares if we lose it" attitude many people have.

A lot of interesting and extremely useful discoveries that we take largely for granted now-a-days have come from nature.

I feel okay about the species that died off before we got here.  Not much I can do about it, really.  But today, when we have the capability to exploit new discoveries... and we blindly destroy them instead, well, that doesn't settle so well.

It comes in ships. The stuff from vuenezuela would come to Texas and be refined. The stuff from Mexico would come to Arizona (or be refined in Mexico since they need jobs there anyways). And the oil from Alaska would come down to California and Nevada, which I think it already does come to California, though I could be wrong. None of this involves building 4000 mile pipeline through foreign countries.

He said in his talking points one night that someone sets the prices and he wants to know who. He has officially become irrelivant to me.

I inferred a pipeline when you mentioned Texas as the ingress point for South American oil.  Not sure why it would be otherwise but ok.

The problem is that port are very crowded places. Lots of people.  IOW, NIMBY country.  

So now you need to get the oil from the port to the refinery.  This is where the problems begin, economically.

It certainly does start with the problem you mention. The enviros have multiplied the problem by limiting the number of refineries built (we haven't had a new refinery since 1976 even though gas use has increased by 25%). And the certainly use the NIMBY effect by scaring people into thinking the water is going to be poisoned, even if the refineries are built in remote locations (kind of like most Nevadans oppose holding the radioactive waste of the country even though they are no where near it).

I was gradually losing any faith in O'Reilly. and then he pontificated on the dastardely oil business and the shadowy "someone" who is fixing oil prices. At that point I changed the channel and have not been back since.

I don't listen to Ralph Nader generally either, but when even he is forced to concede a point that he probably doesn't want to concede about car safety, which is a topic he's done more work on than probably the entire readership of redstate combined, then I figure the point is proven.  Kind of like Michael Moore conceding any point about Iraq to George W. Bush.  If you're not conceding the same point, then that makes you even more of an extremist about this point concerning car safety than Ralph Nader, which is an awfully lonely position to be in.  Have fun with it.

Second, Cato listed their source; if you want to ignore that, go ahead, but don't go trying to call it an unsourced study.  And ignoring the indirect source because it doesn't jibe with your particular views doesn't mean you've proven anything, just that you're not willing to consider viewpoints other than your own.  If you want to prove anything, go to Cato's source and debunk that, or show that Cato's not presenting it accurately.

Third, trying to compare a 10-year-old 3500lb car to a new 3000lb car is comparing apples to orange juice.  It most emphatically is not 'keeping everything else the same', and is totally bogus rhetoric and I reject it utterly.

Finally, saying CAFE was the politically expedient thing to do doesn't prove anything either.  I'm sure we can both list situations until the cows come home where big problems were ignored or kicked down the road because it was easier to do the politically expedient thing than to do the right thing.  In fact, I would call that the cause of 90 percent of the political failures in this country.

My point still stands: raising CAFE standards is dangerous and not sufficiently effective to be worthwhile.

Humans are a species, too.  99% of all species that have ever existed on Earth went extinct before man became dominant, yes.  And now here we are, sitting on top of a big old food chain that, should it collapse, will take us with it.  Here we are, breathing air that, should it become too devoid of oxygen, or too hot, or too cold, will put us up on the extinct list.

Historical reality is that we're here, not the dinosaurs.  Historical reality is that when a species goes out and consumes all of its resources and grows its population, it is followed by population crash in which everyone starves to death.  The tables can turn on a dominant species mighty quickly.  Other species aren't just there to provide medicine, of all things.

He lost me before that but this was the icing on the cake since it was about the dumbest conspiracy theory comment I've ever heard about oil companies.

They're there for food, and fuel, and clothing, and a thousand other uses, some merely aesthetic, some more practical.

Also, I think many people (myself included) would wonder about the safety of microwaving that energy back to the earth, from that far away, it would have to be a quite focused pulse

agreed. has no one played sim city 2000 with disasters on??

for political circles. The scapegoat.

Do you really believe oil companies are not price gouging??? what a joke. there are several holes in that theory. first of all, the gap b/t the price to produce and the end price of gasoline has increased this year. according to the ftc, oil would have to cost $114/barrel to justify these gas prices.

second, if supply and demand was the real reason for the increase, then gas prices would go up, and crude prices would remain stable. if gas prices are truly going up b/c of lack of refining capacity, that would not cause an increase in crude demand. it would cause a decrease. is that so hard?

lastly, natural gas....

natural gas is totally unrelated to crude, gasoline, etc. are we really to believe that all of a sudden natural gas supplies either ran out or demand went up astronomically in a matter of months?

but environmentalists have been blocking supply for decades. SUV people have budged by increasing gas mileage and now they are moving to hybrids SUV's, but environmentalists haven't let up at all about constricting supply. So while I dislike SUV's (nay, I hate SUV's, even my mom's), I know which side is making progress and which side is holding things up, and I don't mind venting against enviros for being obstructionist.

and lower overall prosperity, too.  Funny how that would work.

Scapegoats are actually in no danger of going extinct.  They'll last as long as we do.

last two scapegoats because they will be blaming each other.

I don't know where CATO gets their data, but according to the Department of Transportation:

• The occupant fatality rate (including motorcycle riders) per 100,000 population, which declined by 22.7 percent from 1975 to 1992, decreased by 0.9 percent from 1992 to 2003.
• The occupant injury rate (including motorcycle riders) per 100,000 population, which declined by 13.6 percent from 1988 to 1992, decreased by 16.6 percent from 1992 to 2003.
• The nonmotorist fatality rate per 100,000 population has declined by 52.4 percent from 1975 to 2003.
•  The nonmotorist injury rate per 100,000 population has declined by 45.6 percent from 1988 to 2003.

So, my five minutes with Google seems to find that cars may have gotten lighter, but they have also gotten safer, so we can either conclude:  1)  that CAFE standards have actually been making us a lot safer; or 2) that CAFE standards and weight have little to do with overall automobile saftety.

I'm personally inclined towards #2, but if you want to insist on a linkage, I suppose I'm happy to conclude that a side benefit of CAFE standards is that they're good for safety.

...driving a Prius instead of a Sequoia is going to have a devestating effect on the economy.  Or maybe it's all the people taking mass transit instead of driving to work that are really the drag on the GDP.  Obviously they should be spending money on gas instead of buying other stuff with their money.

Okay, snark mode off...

Spending lots of money on gas is not useful to the economy at all.  It would obviously be much more economically productive to do the same job (moving people, making stuff) for less gas, which also means less money.  Isn't this the very definition of productivity?