The art of propaganda
Being sick and somewhat out of sorts, I only half-listened to the SOTU speech (text) on Tuesday. But what I heard did nothing to change my opinion of our lame duck President.
I heard plenty of weasel-phrases, and the anemic goals reminded me of "the soft bigotry of low expectations". Twenty percent over ten years? This is just over three times the rate of last year's 0.6% OECD reduction. The USA's consumption of petroleum products is roughly 45% gasoline; if the US had eked out the same 0.6% cut from gasoline alone, it would come to a 1.33% cut in gasoline consumption - already 2/3 of Bush's stated goal. Given gasoline prices in the $3.00 range again, this appears likely to happen all by itself.
We need to aim closer to 50% over 10 years, and 100% over 20. We can do it, with PHEV's, movement of freight to rail and niche biofuels. But Bush's map goes straight into the swamp.
The other weasel phrase is "cutting our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East." Let's examine this phrase in detail:
- "cutting our total imports". The US imports about 4 million bbl/day from the Middle East (assuming that all non-Venezuela OPEC oil is ME oil), but Bush's 20% reduction in gasoline consumption would only yield about 1.8 mmbbl/day in savings. Disconnect.
- "by the equivalent of..." Not literally? The equivalents are not stated.
- "three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East." See above. Also:
- ME oil imports (~4 mmbbl/day) amount to less than 1/3 of total US imports of 13.5 mmbbl/day.
- Venezuelan production is declining with Chavez' control of the oil sector, so our total imports must go down or else our ME imports will have to rise to compensate.
- Oil is fungible. So long as we import oil, we strengthen our ideological enemies in the Middle East.
- Bush compares to current Middle East imports, with no hint that worldwide non-OPEC exports are declining. Even if the goal is met, we could be more dependent on ME oil than ever.
- Falling domestic oil production would also leave us to import more from the ME. ANWR won't help; it will take 10 years to come on line, and will cut our imports less than the Priuses that Toyota has already sold in the USA.
All in all, this was one for the Hall of Shame. I would have been even more disappointed than after last year's "addicted to oil" speech... if I'd had any expectations. He did nothing substantive about the problem before, and I expect nothing better from him unless he has no other options. (Cynicism has its benefits; you can be pleasantly surprised, but rarely crushed.)
Now it falls to the barely-Democratic Congress to craft the policies we need, the policies we should have had on the "URGENT" list since 9/11/2001. Will they be able to get around an administration joined at the hips to the oil industry, willing to use executive power to obstruct and even destroy (EPA libraries, NASA earth-observation programs) anything unfriendly to its power base? Only time will tell.
¶ 1/26/2007 01:16:00 AM
materialize this year as promised by their producers, we will see a significant reduction in gasoline consumption within 3-4 years.
Bush SOTU speech is irrelevant, cars aren't invented or developed by Presidents or Government departments.
Political speeches are just hot air.
The government doesn't develop cars, but it does establish the environment in which the developers operate. Huge improvements in pollution came about because the government made it a top priority. If the Bush administration had been working on even small measures aimed at economy and independence instead of dismantling all the efforts of previous administrations, we'd be in far better shape as a nation.
But the oil companies wouldn't be so profitable.
Bush sold out his nation and the people who voted for him. That's all that counts, and I call it treason.
I would have returned all business vehicles to the standard depreciation schedule, effective January 1. Oil import taxes would have similar effects to steel import taxes (disadvantage domestic industry which uses oil as a feedstock), but eliminating the per-manufacturer hybrid car tax credit limits and closing the E85 loophole would have been good. (Without the loophole, E85 collapses like a jolted soufflé.)
Of course, it might make more political sense to wait to deal with ethanol until food prices upset the electorate. It's hard to get credit for solving a problem that never hit the public consciousness.
The conceptual advantage of the plug-in hybrid versus a pure electric vehicle is that is requires a substantially smaller battery to achieve a given reduction in gasoline consumption.
E.g. a 30 km PHEV might cut gasoline consumption by 75 % wheras you need a 300 km EV to make up that final 25 %.
Batteries are expensive now and will probably only decline in price incrementally over time. We'll get a much better payback in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption if we build 10 plug-in cars than if we build 1 electric car. Government subsidies should be orientated appropriately.
All these things could have been advanced by the congress or by state and local governments. I think that the failures are pretty well spread around.
Those kind of statements needlessly alienate a potential group of supporters for reform.
This really does take leadership from the top, and that leadership has been sorely lacking.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/02/range_fuels_to_.html#more
Pretty nice. I wonder if any of the 25% waste heat can be recycled or used to run a turbine, or dry biomass. Though the "WTW" efficiency will likely be less than if the syngas were converted to electricity through a SOFC as you have suggested.
I also wonder if it can be tuned to produce charcoal.
On the one hand, I think that's progress. On the other hand, it's a process which cannot raise its yields enough to replace petroleum, and competes for the same feedstocks as a much higher efficiency charcoal-electric cycle. It can displace fossil carbon, but isn't suited to sequestration. Color me ambivalent.
<< Home
