George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)
The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:
Transcript
The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:
The Energy Independence and Security Act is massive, but it can be boiled down to
just a few numbers. First, 35 miles per gallon by 2020… That’s when automakers
have to increase the fleet average by ten miles per gallon.
Second, 36 billion gallons by 2022. That’s when ethanol producers have to increase
production by a factor of five. And two-thirds has to come from sources other than
corn.
And these numbers – 100 watts, 60 watts – those kinds of incandescent lightbulbs
are to be phased out, replaced by more energy efficient lighting.
Most environmental groups can find something to like in the bill. Farmers like it for
the ethanol mandates. And big oil companies like the Act for what’s not in it:
billions of dollars of proposed taxes blocked by Republicans in the Senate.
The Environmental Protection Agency says cars and trucks are starting to get better gas
mileage. That comes after a long period of worsening fuel economy.
Dustin Dwyer reports:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says cars and trucks are starting to get better gas
mileage. That comes after a long period of worsening fuel economy.
Dustin Dwyer reports:
The EPA says over the past three years, average vehicle fuel economy has improved by
about five percent, but that’s a small reversal after 20 years in which gas mileage only got
worse.
Jim Kliesch is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says the problem is that
getting more miles per gallon has not been a priority for automakers:
“The industry has been improving their vehicles for years. It’s just that they’ve been
applying their technical innovations to performance and not to fuel economy.”
Automakers say they’re now working to make cars more fuel efficient. In part that’s
because they have to under new fuel economy rules for trucks. And lawmakers in
Washington are debating new rules that could force even higher fuel efficiency.
There’s going to be a change to the sticker that tells you the estimated gas mileage on a new vehicle. Dustin Dwyer reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out the change in an effort to make the estimates more accurate:
Transcript
There’s going to be a change to the sticker that tells you the estimated gas mileage on a new vehicle. Dustin Dwyer reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out the change in an effort to make the estimates more accurate:
The US EPA has used the same standard to test for gas mileage since 1984.
Bill Warem is with the Agency. He says the tests were only done at room temperature, they didn’t include using the air conditioner, and they didn’t include fast accelerations.
Warem says that hardly reflects real world driving conditions.
“Our concern with the methods that were previously used is they were not as accurate as they could be in estimating typical mileage that a consumer would expect to get from a new car that you purchase.”
Warem says the new way of testing for mileage will show up on stickers for 2008 vehicles.
He says the estimated miles-per-gallon for the average car is expected to drop by about 12%.
A concept car powered by a lithium-ion battery. (Photo courtesy of hybridcars.com)
A lithium-ion battery used to power an automobile. (Photo courtesy of hybridcars.com)
Hybrid cars have become almost a symbol of environmentalism on the road. Powered by a gas-electric hybrid motor, these cars get up to 60 miles per gallon or better. Those gas savings come largely thanks to a battery. Now, people in the auto industry are looking at the next generation of battery that could push the gas savings even higher. Dustin Dwyer has this look at how batteries are cutting down on the need for oil:
Transcript
Hybrid cars have become almost a symbol of environmentalism on the road. Powered by a gas-electric hybrid motor, these cars get up to 60 miles per gallon of gas or better. Those gas savings come largely thanks to a battery. Now, people in the auto industry are looking at the next generation of battery that could push the gas savings even higher. Dustin Dwyer has this look at how batteries are cutting down the need for oil:
For about a hundred years now, the auto industry in the United States has been associated with a certain kind of vehicle – a vehicle that’s big, powerful and chugs a lot of gas. It’s all been based on the internal combustion engine.
Now, that model is being challenged. It involves a number of technologies, but the first to really break through has been the hybrid. Hybrid cars and trucks still have an internal combustion engine under the hood, but the engine is paired with a battery. Of course, it’s not just a battery like the batteries that have always been in cars. The batteries in hybrids are called nickel metal hydride batteries (NiMH).
One company that makes them is Cobasys. On a factory floor a little less than an hour north of Detroit, Cobasys engineer Scott Lindholm explains what makes these batteries different.
“Basically the big advantage of nickel metal hydride in a hybrid vehicle environment is it can do millions of charge and discharge cycles. Where, if you buy a battery for your flashlight or your radio, you really just charge it once as your primary battery. This will accept charge and give you power multiple times.”
That ability to be recharged, and emit energy from a battery that weighs less than in previous generations has made all current hybrid vehicles possible. For hybrid owners, that’s meant better gas mileage, and lower emissions.
The battery itself isn’t exactly new; the technology was first introduced in the early 1980s. It’s taken almost until now for car companies to realize the full potential of nickel metal hydrides, but this isn’t the final step. Bradley Berman is editor of hybridcars.com. He says the next wave of batteries is coming from the world of iPods and laptops.
“It’s already out there in small electronic devices, and the big question is can it scale up for an automotive application? And the race is on to make that happen.”
Many say these lithium-ion batteries have the potential to be cheaper, lighter and more powerful than today’s nickel metal hydride batteries. The problem with them right now is safety. You might remember hearing something recently about batteries in laptop computers exploding. Well, those were lithium-ion batteries, and bigger, more powerful batteries in cars could mean a higher chance of catching fire for lithium-ion batteries.
Berman is confident that problem can be overcome, and he says we could see these kind of batteries in cars within 4-8 years. And that could mean big changes in gas mileage for hybrid owners. Berman says while the current generation Prius gets 60 miles per gallon in the city, lithium-ion batteries could get the next generation up to 80 miles per gallon. And the next step, a new plug-in car.
“If one of these carmakers comes through with some limited capacity for plugging in, which means you could charge more of it up, and you could use more of the battery on a regular basis, you’re starting to approach maybe triple digits.”
Some argue that plugging in just moves the environmental harm elsewhere. Instead of using gas to power your car, you’d generally be using coal or nuclear power from your local energy company. But supporters say that still leads to lower overall emissions.
Also, hybrid technology for cars doesn’t come in a vacuum. It can be combined with new biofuels, or eventually hydrogen. That could mean significantly cleaner cars – even cars with zero emissions. But just like the development of the nickel-metal hydride battery, these technologies could take a number of years before they’re ready.
Peter Gail holds his favorite weed: the spinach-like lamb's quarters.
It's not hard to find lamb's quarters in a suburban backyard.
Edible lilies in the same backyard.
Your barbeque grill isn’t the only place to find food in your backyard. There are lots of plants out there to eat, but most of us call
them weeds. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Your barbeque grill isn’t the only place to find food in your backyard.
There are lots of plants out there to eat, but most of us call
them weeds. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:
Peter Gail of Cleveland loves food. He’s got a lot of meat on his bones.
“Gee, you can’t get me to stop. I start eating this stuff and I can’t stop. It’s terrible, it’s terrible, it’s addictive (laughs).”
But his favorite foods grow right in his backyard, and probably yours. Gail is what’s
known as an ethno-botanist. He’s on a mission to teach more people about how to eat the
plants growing all around their houses. His latest converts are a troop of boy scouts:
“My grandson was one of the boys in this Boy Scout troop. And when I got over to his
house three days after we got back from scout camp, he grabbed the bag, the plastic bag
of weeds that his mother weeded out of the yard that day and dragged it over to me on the
patio and said find the edible plants in here and show me them.”
Gail says the yard becomes more exciting to most kids when they can sit down and
munch. His own love of the backyard snack started when he was just a boy. His family
faced some tough times. They were saved by a common weed known as lamb’s quarters.
“My dad died and left the family with no money. A friend told my mother we could live
off lamb’s quarters. For six months we went out and every day my brother and I would
gather the young tops of lamb’s quarters and then bring them into the house and my
mother would make them into every kind of spinach dish imaginable, until she learned
how to make a living. And then after that she still, we still liked the plant so we still ate it a lot.”
These days you could pay a lot for lamb’s quarters in a gourmet food store. They’re sold
as Belgium spinach. Or, Gail says, you could just take a quick look around your yard.
Today we’re walking around a backyard in suburban Cleveland. We find lamb’s quarters
at the base of a tree. Some say you can recognize the leaves because they look like the
hindquarters of a lamb. Gail thinks they look more like the silhouette of a Christmas tree:
“You’ll notice it has, when you’re looking down on it, it looks like somebody spilled a
little bit of talcum powder on the very top. It has that little dusting of white that is right on the top and on the underside of the leaves you see the same dusting, but taste one leaf, taste a leaf of that.”
And it does taste like spinach, but the USDA reports it’s even more nutritious than
Popeye’s favorite treat.
“It doesn’t take any cooking. It can be eaten raw, or it can be cooked. It will interfere, if you eat too much raw, with the assimilation of both iron and calcium, so you usually want to cook it. It makes a great addition to omelets, great cooked green, great quiches. Any recipe you use spinach in, you can use lamb’s quarters.”
There’s a lot more than just lamb’s quarters in the yard to eat. This time of year, Peter Gail also recommends sautiing the buds or petals from orange and yellow daylilies. He’s also a big fan of dandelions. He suggests looking for the young, tender leaves because they’re less bitter. Gail says he believes dandelions were brought to America by Italian
immigrants. They’re used in lots of Italian recipes:
“80 percent of the things we call weeds were vegetables brought here by immigrants.
That’s one of the reasons most of the things we call weeds in our backyards aren’t
indigenous plants. They aren’t plants that were from America. They’re plants that are
from Europe and Asia and from South America.”
Gail says over time those traditional foods escaped from gardens into the wild. After
World War II, things changed. Most people started buying food at the grocery store and foraging became unpopular. He says only the poor searched the yard for food:
“One by one, as generations went by, the kids didn’t learn as much the second generation,
the third generation they knew nothing. And by the time we reach where we are now,
almost everybody can walk right by the most nutritious plant going, the most commonly eaten
plant back in the 30s and 40s, and not even have a clue what it is.”
Gail is trying to change that. He wants people to become reacquainted with these plants
so we don’t recklessly destroy them. He travels around the country giving workshops,
taking people on neighborhood forages, and teaching cooking classes. Gail believes we
might need these plants again someday.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to change the way it calculates fuel economy estimates on the window stickers of new cars and trucks. Consumer and environmental groups have been arguing that the estimates don’t match up to real world driving. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to change the way it
calculates fuel economy estimates on the window stickers of new cars
and trucks. Consumer and environmental groups have been arguing that
the estimates don’t match up to real world driving. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:
The current EPA tests assume cars and driving conditions are the way
they were in 1985. The tests don’t factor in air conditioning, driving in
cold weather or driving any faster than 60 miles an hour.
The EPA says the new methods will lower the miles per gallon estimates
on most vehicles. The city estimates for conventional cars and trucks
could drop 10 to 20 percent. For hybrids, the city estimates could drop
up to 30 percent. A hybrid’s fuel economy is more sensitive to cold
weather and air conditioning.
Consumer groups say the new tests will give buyers a more accurate
picture of the car they take home.
Susan Pikrillidas is with AAA.
“We do honestly and truly believe that accurate labels will cause people
to buy more fuel efficient vehicles particularly in light of the high
gasoline prices.”
Under the proposal, the new test methods will begin with 2008 models…
so you could see the new stickers on cars as soon as fall 2007.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the
way it determines auto fuel economy ratings by the end of the year. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, consumers have complained that the current ratings don’t reflect the actual gas mileage they’re getting in their vehicles:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it determines auto fuel economy ratings by the end of the year. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, consumers have complained that the current ratings don’t reflect the actual gas mileage they’re getting in their vehicles:
EPA spokesman John Millett says the organization has been reviewing the MPG calculation methods carefully and plans to propose changes to the system by the end of this year. He says the last update to fuel economy measures was in 1985, and many things have changed since then.
“Speed limits are higher, congestion has increased, more vehicles are equipped with air conditioning than before. There are other factors that we need to consider as well: aggressive driving, cold weather, and there are some other regional or local impacts.”
Millett says it’s too early to say how far off the current estimates are, but many experts say there’s a ten to fifteen percent difference between official MPG ratings and real results. Millett says it’s important to remember there’s no perfect test and fuel economy ratings are estimates, not predictions.
Some federal lawmakers are concerned that the EPA's estimates on different cars' gas milages may be misleading consumers. (Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health)
Some federal lawmakers, along with a few environmental and consumers’ groups, want the Environmental Protection Agency to change the way it calculates a vehicle’s miles-per-gallon. They say your actual mileage will probably vary from the EPA’s figures. More from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland:
Transcript
Some federal lawmakers, along with a few environmental and consumers’ groups, want the Environmental Protection Agency to change the way it calculates a vehicle’s miles-per-gallon. They say your actual mileage will probably vary from the EPA’s figures. More from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland:
According to the EPA, my Ford Escort should get 33 miles per gallon. I wish. With the Fuel Efficiency Truth in Advertising Act, Congress could soon force the EPA to revise its fuel economy tests to reflect real-life conditions. David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists is among those who say a change is long overdue. He says the EPA created its current tests years ago.
“You wouldn’t evaluate how a student knows current events based on a test from the early 1970’s. So, it doesn’t make sense to be testing the fuel economy of our cars and trucks based on tests that are 30 years old.”
The EPA says your actual mileage depends on a number of factors, like how you drive and how you maintain your car. It says its carefully controlled lab tests are helpful in comparing one vehicle model to another.
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.
Surveys show that Sport Utility Vehicles remain a popular choice
among car buyers. But if you drive a small car, or if you are worried
about air pollution, you may not be happy with the increasing numbers of
S-U-V’s on the road. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Matthew
Lawrence agrees, but he thinks S-U-V’s are, on a deeper level, a spiritual
problem:
George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)
