Deron Lovaas's Blog
National Petroleum Council: Boost Fuel Economy Standards!
July 17, 2007
Posted by Deron Lovaas in Moving Beyond Oil
That's the most noteworthy portion of the report issued by this advisory committee, composed mostly of industry reps and established in 1946 by President Truman.
Increasing standards for vehicle efficiency is the first and best of a slew of recommendations. In fact, one way to summarize the new, nearly-500-page report from the National Petroleum Council is: It begins well and finishes okay, but what's in the middle is a recipe for more oil addiction and global warming pollution.
I'm most familiar with the first section on demand management, since I participated in the group that researched and wrote it. It advised increasing energy-efficiency standards for vehicles, buildings, appliances and for making industrial processes less wasteful too. The part about fuel economy standards is most interesting because it means that the oil industry is basically calling for saving oil, and specifically advocating for reform of a policy that's being hotly debated in Congress right now.
Unfortunately, most of the media attention has zeroed in on the wrongheaded supply-side analysis, which claims that our energy challenge can be confronted by more drilling and by making use of high-pollution substitutes for oil such as shale, tar sands, and liquid coal, which would undermine efforts to solve the climate challenge.
These environmentally destructive notions are especially jarring when one reads the final section, which discusses ways to tackle heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions. And that should have been the focus throughout the report: How to meet energy needs while steering clear of the intertwined energy security and global warming threats we face, including consideration of analyses like this new one from EPA.
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- Deron Lovaas
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Comments
Nathanael Greene — Jul 18 2007 05:27 PM
I'd just add that I reviewed the biofuels section of the supply chapter, and while I didn't find anything technically wrong with it, I did find that it failed to address a number of critical issues. For instance it focused exclusively on the food vs fuel issue as the sole social concern related to biofuels and entirely ignored the wildlife, water, soil and air impacts. There was no acknowledgment that not all biofuels are created equal from an environmental perspective. It also failed to embrace specific recommendations to achieve the stated goals in a responsible manner. No mention of a low-carbon fuel standard, no mention of environmental safeguards, no mention of redesigning our incentives to drive the best practices and technologies.
So on the whole, I'd say the biofuels section falls into that middle section that Deron rightly points out is a recipe for more oil addiction and global warming pollution.