Senate Debates Fuel Efficiency

Few U.S. Senators in the region supported stricter fuel standards in the most recent vote on the issue on Capitol Hill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett has more:

Transcript

Few U.S. Senators from the region wanted stricter fuel standards in the most recent vote on the issue on Capitol Hill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


The legislation called on domestic car makers to produce fleets of vehicles that get
better gas mileage. The standard called for an average fuel economy of 40 miles per gallon by 2015. The current standard is 27-and-a-half miles per gallon. Three of the region’s senators opposed the measure for every one senator who supported it.


Anne Woiwode is with the Sierra Club. She says foreign automakers are producing
more fuel-efficient cars. Woiwode says that competition will hopefully spur lawmakers from
car-producing states to push for stricter fuel standards in the future.


“It’s going to be harder for the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois – the whole Great
Lakes region – to compete.”


Critics of higher fuel economy standards say they would force domestic automakers to
produce smaller, less safe cars. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Economy Maintains Cycle of Sprawl

As businesses and governments struggle to find ways to revive the economy, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator James Howard Kunstler says that it’s time to re-scale the marketplace. And, ultimately, to re-think how we live and work:

Transcript

As businesses and governments struggle to find ways to revive the economy, Great Lakes
Radio Consortium commentator James Howard Kunstler says that it’s time to re-scale the
marketplace. And, ultimately, to re-think how we live and work:


Not long ago, The New York Times reported that car sales had fallen off 30 percent. The
paper commented that quote “strong auto sales this year have been a key contributor in
propping up consumer spending, which in turn has been the main impetus of economic
growth.”


Is that all our economy is about? Buying and selling cars? In a way, the answer is yes.
The U.S. economy is now based on the creation and maintenance of suburban sprawl and
all its furnishings and accessories.


What keeps the cycle going? The easiest credit the world has ever seen. Often to people
with poor records of repaying loans. What happens when the music stops, and the zero
percent “miracle loans” stop with it? What other economic activity is there in the United
States? We don’t make anything here anymore except movies, TV shows, and pop music,
and only a tiny percent of Americans can be in show biz.


We’ve outsourced the actual making of most mundane products to distant nations where
people work for peanuts. Everyday retail trade is conducted through so-called “efficient”
national chain stores. Behind this mask of efficiency, though, lies the wreckage of
America’s communities, and the complex, fine-grained networks of economic relations
that once supported them. In rural America, ruin and depression are rampant among
small farmers. Today, we subsist on Caesar salads which travel an average of 2,500
miles from field to table.


This a system primed for unwinding. We are fast becoming a nation reliant on everyone
but ourselves. More tragically, as it unwinds, we will be stuck with all the unsustainable
furnishings: the far-flung subdivisions of commodity housing; the redundant chain stores;
the countless miles of blacktop in need of continual repair; the gazillion cars that we can
no longer afford to replace. We’ll be stuck living in places that are not worth living in,
and not worth caring about, far from any food supplies, and with no networks of local
economic interdependency.


These are our prospects, and they can only be worsened by looming international military
mischief, Jihad, de-stabilized oil markets, and terrorism.


There’s really only one reasonable way out of this predicament: the re-scaling of
America. We face the enormous task of reconstructing local economic networks that add
up to real communities, which in turn add up to places worth caring about. It’s time to
re-size and downscale everything we do from farming to schooling to shopping. The
future is telling us very clearly that we have to start living locally, but we are not
listening, and we are not prepared.


James Howard Kunstler is the author of The Geography of Nowhere and other books. He
comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Carmakers Exempt From Greenhouse Gas Plan

The Canadian government is under attack by environmentalists after it exempted car manufacturers from its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

The Canadian government is under attack by environmentalists after it exempted car
manufacturers from its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Opponents say the government granted the exemption because the car assembly plants are located
in Ontario.


The province is a stronghold of support for the leading Liberal party.


But federal officials say the auto plants were exempted because their emissions are already low.


Many industries are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions under the newly signed
Kyoto Protocol on climate change.


John Bennett of the Sierra Club agrees that the auto plants are relatively small polluters.


But he’s concerned that the feds lost some leverage as they try to convince automakers to create
more fuel efficient cars.


“It was a short term political tactic, but in the long term, it might mean we won’t get the kinds of
fuel efficiency improvements in cars that are absolutely essential if we’re going to meet the Kyoto
target and go beyond it.”


Thus far, the auto industry is resistant to building more efficient vehicles.


For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Proposed Fuel Efficiency Standard Criticized

Environmental groups have been critical of the White House for not going far enough in requiring the auto industry to make light duty trucks, such as SUV ’s, more fuel-efficient. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has this report:

Transcript

Environmental groups have been critical of the White House for not going far enough in
requiring the auto industry to make light duty trucks, such as SUV’s, more fuel-efficient.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Many of the big environmental groups said the Bush administration’s plans to increase
the fuel economy standards for SUV’s by a mile-and-a-half a gallon wasn’t enough. The
environmentalists say the proposed standards will do almost nothing to make the nation
less dependent on foreign oil. Chris Struve is a market analyst for Fitch Ratings. He says
if the environmental groups want real results, they should turn their attention from trying
to regulate the auto industry’s behavior and instead try to change public opinion:


“It all comes down to consumer preference and frankly the U.S. consumer has
not demonstrated that they have a concern for fuel economy and until the
environmentalists can demonstrate otherwise, I think, you know, you’ve got to be very
careful what you do.”


Struve says few environmental groups are willing to push the hot button issues that would
change consumers’ behavior, such as higher gasoline taxes to make drivers think before
they buy a gas-guzzling vehicle.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

A Drive Toward Fuel Efficiency

Despite the recent defeat in Congress of a measure that would have raised fuel efficiency standards, carmakers are still feeling pressure to design and produce less polluting vehicles. Some companies are betting on new technologies to make those dramatic pollution reductions, and a debate’s emerging over how best to get there. Some observers say what’s at stake is nothing less than the future of the automobile. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert filed this report:

Transcript

Despite the recent defeat in Congress of a measure that would have raised fuel efficiency standards, carmakers are still feeling pressure to design and produce less polluting vehicles. Some companies are betting on new technologies to make those dramatic pollution reductions. And a debate’s emerging over how best to get there. Some observers say what’s at stake is nothing less than the future of the automobile. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert filed this report:

It’s a clear battle between emerging technologies: what’s available now: hybrid engines, versus fuel cells, which aren’t due for at least ten years. Hybrids use current technology, a gasoline engine, and add an electric engine for additional boost. A hybrid car typically gets double the mileage of a non-hybrid.

Toyota and Honda have both opted for the quicker path. They’ve been offering hybrid cars now for the past few years. Toyota’s Prius is a sedan. Honda opted for a sporty, two-seater, the Insight. But whether sporty or practical, Honda’s Andy Boyd says consumers embraced the new engine.

“We had a great reaction to Insight – people really excited by the technology, very accepting of it. It’s very transparent technology, easy to use and we think it’s ready for prime time.”

Prime time for Honda means putting the hybrid engine on a more practical vehicle, which they’re doing. The Honda Civic is a company best seller. The hybrid Civic goes on sale in April. Priced around $20,000 the Civic will get 50 miles per gallon. And Boyd thinks it will result in even broader acceptance of hybrid technology.

A domestic automaker is also jumping on the hybrid bandwagon, hoping to broaden the hybrid’s appeal. Ford Motor Company will launch the hybrid Escape sport utility vehicle later next year. Ford’s Jon Harmon says that’s an even better vehicle choice than the Japanese offerings.

“Most of those vehicles have limitations because they’re such small vehicles and we think that by giving a vehicle with more functionality that customers are looking for, like the Escape HEV, that we’re really going to open up that market.”

The hybrid Escape will get 40 miles to the gallon in the city, twice the mileage of its gasoline engine counterpart.

But while hybrids make big dents in reducing pollution, they’re not considered the final answer to the environmental problem. The more promising contender is fuel cells.

“In a minute we’ll introduce a revolutionary concept, so revolutionary that we believe it’s no stretch to say it could literally reinvent the automobile.”

General Motors President and CEO Rick Wagoner unveiled his company’s first fuel cell car prototype, the Autonomy, at the North American International Auto Show earlier this year. Fuel cells run on a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. They emit only water vapor and heat, so they’re essentially pollution free. They’re also extremely fuel-efficient. But even the GM fuel cell car won’t be available for at least ten years. That’s because the technology still faces many financial and engineering hurdles.

Even so, GM spokesman Bill Nowak says that investing in fuel cell technology is smarter than putting money in less effective, near-term hybrids.

“It has a fair amount of potential to improve your efficiency but you’re adding another power plant. A hybrid combines an internal combustion engine with an electric motor so there’s some cost factors involved in that. That’s why we think the best technology by far is the pure fuel cell.”

Still, many experts and other automakers don’t expect to see fuel cells on the road very soon. David Hermantz is with Toyota’s Technical Center. He says it could take 20 or 30 years. And he’s concerned that by pushing for fuel cells; GM’s trying to postpone any near-term actions to reduce auto pollution.

“GM’s interim image appears to be that ‘leave us alone for now and we’ll get to fuel cells in the future’ and we think we need some kind of progressive path to get to the future.”

That path for Toyota is a commitment to offer 300,000 hybrid vehicles a year worldwide beginning 2005. Honda also will continue promoting hybrids. Again, Honda’s Andy Boyd.

“In the long-term, fuel cells are probably going to be the answer, but again, if we’re looking out about 30 to 40 years, do we want to wait that long to try and do something about fuel efficiency and reducing emissions? Reducing fuel consumption is the greatest thing we can do to cut emissions, so we’re trying to do that.”

Still, the federal government currently prefers the long-term option. The Energy Department recently scrapped an existing hybrid research program and instead decided to fund an effort to develop a fuel cell powered vehicle.

That concerns Mike Flynn. Flynn runs the University of Michigan’s office for the study of automotive transportation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He says the government’s decision, which comes amidst a slump in the auto industry, will take pressure off automakers to pursue hybrids.

“They have tremendous demand on their resources right now, so why would I do other than what the government is telling me I should be doing, which is this longer term bet on fuel cells which I may be able to defer a little bit in the first few years and use my resources elsewhere.”

Flynn’s also worried about focusing only on fuel cells. He says that if another technology wins out, the domestic auto industry could be left behind.

But GM’s Bill Nowak says that’s unlikely. And he’s convinced that ultimately, the company’s bet on fuel cells will pay off.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.

Commentary – Gasoline Hike a Good Thing?

Earlier this month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration made headlines when it announced that the winter of
1999-2000 was the warmest one in 105 years. But Great Lakes Radio
Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston thinks that the real news is at
the gas pumps: