Photo courtesy of Benito78 at Flickr.com.
Ask the average person on the street, and they’ll agree with you that food and gas prices have risen a ridiculous amount. Most of us can remember buying gas for less than $2 a gallon or buying 10 ears of corn for a dollar. That was back when the greenback had some serious buying power - now, it’s so weak that even international supermodels are turning their nose up at the US dollar.
Back in 2006, gasoline cost about 5% of the average consumers take-home pay. Since then, gas prices have risen nearly 90%. So, even though most of us are using less gas these days, the average American is now spending about 9% of their after-tax income on oil.
That money has to come from somewhere else on the balance sheet. For an increasing number of people with tight budgets, economic trends are forcing us to change our habits in ways that have unintended side effects. Restaurant sales are down as their customer opt for more home cooked meals (or even home grown meals). Movie theaters are hurting because people are choosing to save money by staying at home. State highway departments are in trouble because people who use less gas also pay fewer fuel taxes. Many people are even trading in their SUVs for smaller cars (imagine that)!
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The lifestyle choices we make are directly related to the choices available to others. When Americans order a double meat hamburger patty, we’re consuming a whole slew of resources. Beyond the beef itself, we’re consuming pasture land, fertilizer, fuel used to transport the beef, and more fuel to cook it. Americans consume 24% of the world’s energy, and citizens of other countries are harmed by our excesses.
On average, one American consumes as much energy as
2 Japanese 6 Mexicans 13 Chinese 31 Indians 128 Bangladeshis 307 Tanzanians 370 Ethiopians
Worldwide, the picture is grim. Starvation and malnutrition are serious dangers in Bangladesh, Haiti, Somalia, and other countries that rely on cheap food imports. People living in those countries aren’t being forced to choose between gourmet coffee and house payments - parents in many countries are faced with the decision of feeding themselves, or feeding their children.
Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - that’s roughly 200 billion more than needed - enough to feed 80 million people.
One of the biggest problems with the American diet is our overconsumption of protein. Protein is high in calories, and our bodies convert it to fat. There’s a relation between our rising beef consumption and the growing obesity epidemic. Also, the kidneys are responsible for converting protein into usable forms. Eating excessive protein can cause serious kidney problems (including diabetes and failure to regulate blood pressure):
Ideally, you should consume 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, according to recommended daily allowances (RDA) set by the Food and Nutrition Board. So if you weigh 170 pounds, you need about 61 grams of protein each day. Protein should also make up approximately 15% of your total daily caloric intake…
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The average American consumes about twice that much protein. This overconsumption has devastating effects on our health, but it also has wide ranging impacts on the rest of the world. If we consumed less meat, there would be less strain on the world food supply:
The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?” But much of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.’s of the protein world, which are in turn guzzled by the world’s wealthy.
So, that’s something to think about the next time you’re out shopping. Instead of adding a second T-Bone to your cart, you might want to pick up some squash and pasta. Switching to one vegetarian meal each day can greatly reduce your footprint, while also improving the variety of nutrients in your diet and saving some money too!
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Popularity: 5% [?]
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Hybrid cars make me drool. The idea of getting 50 miles per gallon instead of 25 is almost enough to make me run out and get one today. But, hybrid cars are expensive and there’s an environmental case to be made for getting the full life out of my current car before I go shopping for a new toy.
It’s tempting to try for the best of both worlds and shop around for a used hybrid car. But, we’re rapidly approaching a milestone in the age of hybrid cars. Battery packs from Priuses made in 2001 were only rated for 100,000 miles (what do you call more than one Prius, anyway? Priusi?). Assuming the previous user drove 12,000-15,000 per year, that means the cars are likely to have 100k or more on the odometer. So, a first generation Prius is likely to come with a geriatric battery.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Used cars have all sorts of maintenance issues, and car buyers pay a discounted price because they know that costly repairs are a possibility. Battery packs break the mold because battery technology is complicated and hybrid battery packs are shockingly expensive. When these battery packs wear out, they can cost several thousand dollars to replace, and require expert technicians to do the work. From the Newsweek article:
Philip Card of Utica, N.Y., says a Toyota dealer wanted to charge him $3,900 to replace the battery on his 2001 Prius, which had 350,000 miles on it when he bought it used on eBay this year for $4,357.
So, here are a few things to bear in mind:
1) A huge aftermarket is developing for hybrid batteries from wrecked hybrids. If your Prius is totaled by hail damage or a fender bender with an SUV, don’t let a savvy scrap dealer take advantage of you by “taking the wreckage off your hands”.
2) The resale price of hybrids is falling in line with the resale price of the non-hybrid versions. Due to uncertainty over the value of hybrid batteries (and the cost of upcoming replacement), there may be some real deals out there if you can find hybrids with cosmetic wear but value under the hood.
So, Caveat Emptor! When shopping for a used hybrid, it might be a good idea to pay for a diagnostic evaluation of the battery pack. And, if you’re one of those Prius, Insight, or other hybrid drivers who I’m jealous of, here are a few rechargeable battery tips that you can use to get the most mileage from your battery pack before it needs replacing. One way to put these battery saving tips into practice is with a trickle charger that keeps the battery above 50% of charge without overheating it.
Photo courtesy of garyhymes at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Photo courtesy of George Morris at Flickr.com.
I recently rode an Amtrak train from Chicago to Dallas, and every seat was full. Compared to my previous experiences on Amtrak, that was an amazing change. Just 6 months ago, I remember that there were 4 empty seats for every one that was claimed. When I asked my fellow passengers why they chose to ride, the hot topic was the high price of gas. Fuel prices are driving up the price of airplane tickets (just last weekend, fares rose $20!), and 3 major airlines died in the first quarter due to oil shock. Drivers are also becoming aware of every drop of fuel that they use - no one likes to see a $50 or $100 charge at the pump!
The silver lining of this is that we’re starting to see the cost of different modes of travel mirror their real price in terms of pollution. High gas prices are making environmentally friendly transport more and more competitive. In effect, this is a preview of how a carbon tax could change the face of travel.
Train and bus ridership are growing like crazy:
As gas price keep climbing, a growing number of Americans are leaving their cars in the garage and getting on board trains. Commuter train lines around the country are reporting big jumps in first quarter ridership: up 15% in the suburbs of Seattle, 13% in the communities north of Miami, 7% in the region surrounding Minneapolis-St. Paul, and better than 5% in New Jersey.
Subways and bus routes are feeling the boost too. People are leaving their cars at home and hopping on public transport. Unfortunately, since many of these commuter services use petroleum based fuel, their costs are rising too. Increased ridership can offset these increased costs in the short term though. It costs almost as much to run an empty train as it does to run a train with 40 people in it. Additional paying passengers add minimal costs while bringing in much needed revenue. Fuel prices are also rising for train and bus operators though. When commuter services charge the same despite rising prices, this can eliminate any efficiency gains.
If the price of oil stays at these levels, there’s likely to be widespread demand for better public transportation:
Five dollar gasoline may be enough to force some people to give up steady use of their personal cars and seek other solutions. For others, the quitting price may be ten or twenty dollars per gallon and for the very wealthy even $100 a gallon gasoline ($80 or $100 thousand a year) would be an acceptable price to pay for the convenience of the private car.
In the case of slowly increasing gasoline prices the problem is one of forming a critical mass that will make economic sense for greatly expanded mass transit. Such a critical mass is likely to come for long distance travel first, for as soon as discretionary air travel becomes unaffordable, the demand for better train and bus service will increase rapidly. Long distance automobile travel may fill some of this gap especially for moving multiple passengers or if cars become significantly more efficient, but for the lone traveler, a long distance car trip could become very expensive.
If you’re undecided about taking the train, here are 9 underappreciated benefits of train travel. Compared to travel by air, the benefits of train travel boil down to lower cost, increased comfort, and reduced hassle from security. Air travel still wins on convenience, reliability, and prestige. Long distance buses are also a great option - some studies suggest that intercity buses the most fuel efficient travel available today:
Based on mileage and passengers in 2004, highway buses achieved an average of 148.4 passenger miles per gallon. That’s more than double achieved by intercity trains which achieved 74.1 passenger miles per gallon. Airlines managed 40.9 passenger miles per gallon, while cars came in last at 35.4 mpg.
Photo courtesy of VSPA at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Photo courtesy of littlenelly at Flickr.com.
Staples really bite. If you’ve ever caught your finger on the teeth of a staple or ruined important documents with a hungry stapler, you probably don’t appreciate these sharp little metal doodads. Well, the planet doesn’t appreciate them either.
Staples are wasteful and have a huge carbon footprint. The most common type of office staple is made with galvanized steel - that’s steel that’s been re-heated and coated with a layer of zinc. As you can imagine, this double heating process is a pretty energy intensive task. From mining and transporting ore, to smelting and forming the staples one at a time from wire spools, staples gobble up energy at every step of their production and use. This energy use causes millions of tons of pollution.
Since staples are tiny, they rarely get recycled. In fact, they often increase the cost of recycling paper because they contaminate the recycling stream and can jam machinery. In paper recycling centers, the staples are pulled from the line by powerful magnets and screening filters, and then they’re thrown away as a recycling byproduct.
So what does the office of the future look like? How do you bind pages together without using staples?
Photo courtesy of gordasm at Flickr.com.
Instead of adding a piece of scrap metal to your documents, a staple free stapler cuts a tiny strip of paper and then threads that strip through the other documents. Unfortunately, there are some limitations to the technology. It only works on a small number of pages, generally 2-7 sheets of paper of normal thickness. So, unless you want to make a new “un-staple” every 5 pages in a document (and mess with offsetting those marks), these are best suited for short memos rather than binding training manuals.
If your office uses a lot of short notes and you don’t want to waste time going to the office supply store all the time, perhaps one of these metal-free staplers is the answer. Otherwise, you might want to consider an older technology - the paperclip!
Photo courtesy of sabor.tijuana at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 9% [?]
23 May 08 |
Photo courtesy of danilion at Flickr.com.
There are plenty of things you can do to save gas while driving. Check your tire pressure. Remove antennae balls. Drive slower. But, in the real world, we’ve all got limited attention spans. Changing habits is hard work, and few people are prepared to make drastic changes to every stage of their drive.
So, what really matters? Is it more important to use cruise control or take the flag down from the gun rack? Luckily, Consumer Reports has tackled the issue. Their real-world study has some hard numbers and surprising conclusions.
After reading the list, I realized that no one had prioritized our options. So, here are the 5 biggest changes you can make to save gas, with estimates of fuel saving potential:
1. Get your lead foot off the gas pedal (save 5-10 MPG)
If you’re going over 55 miles per hour, slowing down increases fuel efficiency. On their test car (a Toyota Camry) Consumer Reports found that slowing down from 75 MPH to 65 MPH resulted in a 5 mile per gallon performance increase. Slowing down from 75 MPH to 55 MPH saved 10 miles per gallon!
2. Eliminate drag (save 6 MPG)
Engineers hate drag. Every piece of a car that sticks out (from the rear view mirrors to the radio antennae) reduces fuel efficiency and acceleration. The one thing engineers hate worse than drag is customers who modify the cars that they worked so hard on by adding more drag. That’s what happens whenever we attach a car-top carrier, clip a bike onto the spare wheel, or even tie a ribbon onto the antennae. All of these attachments hurt fuel efficiency more than most people realize. So now’s a good time to streamline your car - those truck balls aren’t fooling anybody, anyway.
3. Combine errands and keep your engine warm (save 4 MPG)
Combining errands saves gas in two ways - not only does it prevent driving over the same route again and again, but combining errands keeps your engine from cooling down. A warm engine is at the right temperature for optimally burning fuel. Parking in the sunlight can help to a limited extent, especially if “cold” is your hometown’s default temperature.
4. Maintain a steady pace (save 2-3 MPG)
Accelerating and decelerating constantly can take a real toll on your gas mileage. Going a steady pace makes inertia work in your favor, boosting gas mileage and also preventing unnecessary wear and tear. One of the easiest ways to set your pace is to use the cruise control. Also, try to accelerate gradually up to speed when entering the highway, and coast down to speed when using an exit.
5. Keep tires properly inflated (save 1.3 MPG)
When tire pressure gets low, the tire starts to sag like a limp balloon. This means that more of the tire comes in contact with the road, which, in turn, increases friction. Tires that are underinflated by 10 PSI rob cars of about 1.3 miles per gallon. If you’re not sure what pressure is the right pressure, check the floor well inside of the drivers door. On most cars, the ideal pressure is printed either there, or in the owner’s manual.
If you tally up the gas savings from all these steps, they total 24 miles per gallon. That can be a bit misleading though - each of the fuel saving calculations was done in isolation. Following all of the advice probably wont take your car’s gas mileage from 20 to 44 miles per gallon, but there aren’t many cars that can get 20 miles per gallon while making glaring mistakes.
The scary truth is that gas prices are rising, and there’s not much we can do to affect the price at the gas station. Don’t worry though - our European neighbors are happy to tell us that fuel prices in America are still relatively cheap. The only realistic way that we can cut down on gas related costs is to change our driving habits and use less fuel. Remember when gas only cost less than $3 a gallon? You can get there again, even if the pump is charging $4. Boosting fuel efficiency from 20 mpg to 30 mpg can cut your fuel bill by a third! Start with the easy, effective steps and incorporate these 5 tips into your daily commute.
Photo courtesy of twizzler at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 12% [?]
30 Apr 08 |
Photo courtesy of 604 Plonker at Flickr.com.
We often make poor decisions about the future. When we buy cars, choose careers, or plan dinner, people are often motivated by short term goals and overlook long term implications. We buy cheap cars that waste gas, gravitate toward high risk jobs with the hope of big rewards, and choose tasty meals that are horrible for our bodies. In short, we make many decisions that are penny wise, but pound foolish.
Why do we do this? Is it a cultural thing, or something hard-wired into all humans? There’s good reason to believe that evolution is responsible. The decisions that promote our immediate survival and reproduction are rewarded, while decisions that promote long term success aren’t. After all, long term success depends on the sum of all of our choices - the effects of long term decisions are muted and we subsequently discount the rewards.
In fact, long term planning skills often go against the grain. Making sacrifices now can prevent us from having kids and passing on our genes. Saving food for the winter is a good long-term plan, but a layer of fat would be more useful if someone is going to steal our food. Everyone wants to find their soul mate before having children (especially if that soul mate happens to be a rich supermodel), but what if we get hit by a bus tomorrow?
Hal Ersner-Hershfield of the Stanford Center on Longevity has some interesting findings:
Hal Ersner-Hershfield, a fifth-year psychology grad student in Carstensen’s lab, is working on a way to help young people make better decisions about planning for retirement. It’s based on his work using functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans that first demonstrated that, when people are asked to imagine themselves in retirement, the parts of their brains that usually “light up” when they think about themselves don’t light up at all. It’s as if they were thinking about a stranger.
So, if our future selves are strangers to us, why should we make good long-term decisions? Think about it - are you the kind of person who makes financial sacrifices and then gives the money away to random people on the street?
This has big implications for the environment. Environmental policy requires thoughtful long-term decision making, and it offers few immediate rewards. Sacrifices are concentrated among a few companies, but the benefits are distributed across the entire planet. Finding a way to get people to relate to the effects of their actions is a major challenge. The good news is that Hal Ersner-Hershfield found a way to change people’s behavior. He showed test subjects digitally aged pictures of themselves in the mirror and then gave them $1,000 to spend however they liked. Subjects who had “seen the future” chose to invest more of that money than the control group. So, the trick is finding a way to clearly illustrate how climate change can affect the world.
Here’s what our future might look like unless we change course:
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Popularity: 8% [?]
Photo courtesy of the.voyager at Flickr.com.
The radar system that monitors airplanes has changed very little in the last 50 years. Due to this, there’s a pretty large “fudge factor” planned into routing all air traffic. Very bad things can happen when planes run into each other (or even when they run into each other’s wake’s - check out this cool video of what wing tip vortices do to the air). No one wants that to happen, so there are aviation rules that keep airplanes 10 minutes apart and prohibit unplanned altitude changes.
As passengers, this means that we spend hours waiting on the runway for paths to clear in the sky, and that we often get stuck in rough patches of air that make the trip feel like a roller coaster ride. Planes waste hundreds of gallons of fuel on the ground and the rules cause even more waste because pilots are unable to take advantage of favorable tail winds at different altitudes. With fuel costs at all time highs, and maintenance costs rising as well, these rules add significantly to the financial and ecological costs of travel.
Good news though. Airbus is testing a new type of radar for aircraft, using satellite signals to replace ground based radar (and offer better coverage in the middle of the ocean):
…in late March the partners in CRISTAL ITP (the ‘ITP’ standing for ‘In-Trail Procedure’) used satellite-navigation-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance—Broadcast (ADS-B) technology to demonstrate safe cruise-altitude changes in oceanic airspace. ADS-B is now being developed internationally to replace radar as the world’s primary method of air traffic control (ATC) worldwide by the early 2020s.
This system is one of several in development that offer significant fuel savings. It also may allow jets to fly in tighter formations, which would allow more flights per day out of each airport (and reduce the wait time under current passenger loads). Until the system is up and running, here are a few things you can do to save fuel on board your next flight:
1) Pack light.
If you can get all of your clothes and toiletries into one bag or even into your carry on, do so. Every pound you avoid putting on the airplane can prevent dozens of lbs of CO2 from being produced. You may also want to consider mailing your luggage ahead to your destination via UPS or FedEx (these shipping companies use ground transport and ultra-efficient airplanes). You’ll have better insurance coverage, less chance of losing items, and the ability to track your bags. Many airlines are also adding a $25 surcharge for a second bag.
2) Conserve power
Try to avoid using anything on the plane that draws current. Overhead lights, power plugs, and even earphone plugs draw current that’s produced from jet fuel. Bring your own book light, use the bathroom on the ground before boarding, and avoid using the in-flight video screen.
3) Close your window shade
Cooling the airplane is one of the most energy intensive processes on board. If it’s sunny outside, shutting your window shade can help reflect heat away from the interior (and help the passenger in 13E get a peaceful nap). On the other hand, if it’s cold outside, a closed window shade can help insulate the plane and retain heat - which also saves fuel.
Photo courtesy of clearskyphotography.com at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Photo courtesy of jolengs at Flickr.com.
American car manufacturers love pickups and SUVs. These high end vehicles have been lavished with elaborate advertising, intensive research, and promotional test driving campaigns because of high profit margins. As a result of this infatuation, gas guzzlers account for an unhealthy percentage of sales from the Big Three.
Profits at Detroit’s Big Three will shrink by $7 billion to $11 billion. Reductions in vehicle sales, especially SUVs, will lead to an industry-wide decline in pretax profits of $11.2 billion to $17.6 billion. Detroit’s Big Three will absorb $7 billion to $11 billion in total reductions because of their dependence on SUV and pickup sales.
Detroit’s Big Three will absorb nearly 75 percent of the decline in total sales volume. Without deeper discounts, sales volumes in the North American car and light truck market will shrink between 9 and 14 percent, or 1.9 to 3.0 million vehicles, because of the overall effect of higher oil prices on the economy. Detroit’s Big Three automakers absorb nearly 75 percent of the sales decreases.
The chickens are coming home to roost. For years, American car manufacturers have lobbied for freedom to produce cars that are less and less fuel efficient. While protesting legislation to raise the CAFE standards, Senator Bennett summed up the position nicely:
…the manufacturer deals directly with the customer in producing the kinds of automobiles people want to buy. And if people say: I really don’t want to buy that automobile, if CAFE standards disappear, the manufacturer can say: OK, if you don’t want to buy it, we won’t produce it. Whereas, now there is pressure; we have to produce it in order to meet the CAFE average, whether people want to buy it or not.
Unfortunately for American autoworkers, car manufacturers were slow to recognize that consumer tastes are shifting. With oil headed over $120 a barrel, sales of most American made cars have fallen sharply, but, believe it or not, economy cars are selling pretty well. Even “economy” cars that would barely meet foreign standards are selling well in the US:
Focus sales are up 23 percent through March compared with the first quarter of last year. The redesigned car is taking 7.6 percent of the U.S. small car market.
Photo courtesy of Ochileer at Flickr.com.
Anyone out there in the market for a new car?
What kind of car are you considering, and why? Leave us a comment!
Popularity: 11% [?]
School Buses are nearly a perfect fit for biodiesel. They travel local, well planed short routes so they can always be refueled from a biodiesel facility so that the driver doesn’t have to settle for fossil fuels in a crunch.
A couple of years back Gloucester Co. started a trial in which 20 of its school buses would be run off of biodiesel. Now, according to this article at WVEC every single school bus is run off of bio fuels made locally.
Roger Kelly, head of transportation for the district says that even the drivers are noticing a difference, although the accountants are not. Fuel cost is nearly the same for both biodiesel and regular but money is not always the most important thing.
“It’s hard to put a price on cleanness,” he said. “We’re definitely saving on better health for kids growing up,” said Kelly. “Buses going up and down the road that are putting out less emissions. So, there’s a dollar amount there.”
The drivers are noticing that the buses run better on biodiesel (something I have noticed in my own car) and because biodiesel lubricates better and cleans out fuel lines and tanks that buses will last longer possibly providing a financial benefit in that area.
Other area school districts are consulting with Gloucester about making the switch to biodiesel as well.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Previously we talked about Jatropha as a new biodiesel source here, here, and here. Now The Naples Daily News reports that My Dream Fuel LLC is has been cultivating a Jatropha SW Florida. Jatropha produces four times the fuel per acre than soy and ten times more than corn. Paul Dalton, a former attorney owns the company and says demand is great:
“There are about 100 buyers for every gallon you produce,” he said.
Dalton already has close to a million plants in the ground and hopes to plant another million before June and is in the process of opening a 15,000 square foot seed crushing and plant cloning center in Ft Myers. The seeds of the of the plant are crushed in order to make biodiesel.
My Dream Fuel is one of the first companies to bring large scale planting to the US of Jatropha, a plant native to Mexico and South America. The company expects to be able to turn out plants at the rate of one million per month
“We studied our mother trees that we use to clone for over six years, and we have over 500 of them. So we have the largest bank of mother trees in the world, of any company,”
“We know of a couple of groups from New York and from Spain that want to plant in Texas and Brazil. So in the next couple of weeks, we may exhaust our current supply,” Dalton said.
Dave Wolfley, the owner of Sunshine Biofuels is working towards establishing a fuel plant. He has been campaigning to convince local farmers to take a chance on the new fuel crop and has a few ready to try it.
Jatropha evangelist are targeting citrus groves in Florida with diseased trees and cattle ranchers looking to branch out. With the reported ability of this plant to grow in nearly any environment that is a lot of land in a lot of the country that these plants could be grown on.
Popularity: 11% [?]