Dumbest Bill Ever

I heard this on the Sean Hannity Show this afternoon and I couldn’t believe my ears, so I had to look it up myself. What I found was quite possibly the dumbest piece of legislation ever created.

The American Energy Act

It supposed to do a little of everything in order to appeal to everyone. And all this is going to do is increase the size of government at the expense of taxpayers. Going through the list of goodies for everyone includes:

• Allowing the drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (no later than… 2010)
• Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Extending the current tax credits for alternative energy (which T. Boone was arguing for in Congress a few days ago)
• Extending the tax credits for energy efficient appliances
• The creation of a new “home energy audit” tax credit
• Creating a new “American Renewable and Alternative Trust Fund” slush fund/piggy bank to be funded out of the proceeds from the off-shore and ANWR lease sales
• The creation of the Prizes that John McCain stumped for on the campaign trail.

Basically, this is an attempt by the Republicans to graft off-shore drilling onto proposals that would pass without a problem. It’s a me-too bill. The new parts are the Trust Fund (which Congress has shown that it cannot handle, see the Highway and Social Security Trust Funds), and the prizes. The prizes have been touted by economists, such as George Mason professor Tyler Cowen. From that post:

One drawback of prizes is that they tend to be awarded in the interests of the prizegiver, and not necessarily to stimulate maximum scientific output… Still, prizes make the most sense when you cannot predict where new innovation is coming from, and thus you do not know who should get the grants. As our world becomes more complex, less hierarchical, and more decentralized, I predict a greater reliance on prizes to stimulate science.

I agree entirely with this, and is an example of why government should not give out prizes. Government knows exactly where the research will come from and that this will not necessarily stimulate scientific output, but manage it to the best of a government bureaucrat. The fact that for at least one of the prizes, the conditions for winning are codified is good, but that can be changed down the road as seen fit, especially if someone offers up a good enough campaign contribution (A couple million for $500 million is a pretty good investment).

The 60 MPH Challenge – Day 1

The results from Day 1 of the 60 MPH Challenge:

Distance Traveled Yesterday: 332 miles
Distance Traveled Today: 330 miles (down .60%)

Gas Purchased Yesterday: 17.439 gallons
Gas Purchased Today: 15.862 gal (Down 9.04%)

MPG Yesterday: 19.04 MPG
MPG Today: 20.80 MPG (Up 9.24%)

Time to travel to Conway Yesterday: 2:12
Time to travel to Conway Today: 2:32 (Up 15.15%)

Time to travel to Columbia (from Georgetown) Yesterday: 2:56
Time to travel to Columbia (from Georgetown) Today: 3:03 (Up 2.97%)

Analysis:

Critique of the Pickens Plan – Part 3 – (Death of the Road Trip?)

Both the Pickens Plan and the various ideas for creating electric cars have a drawback that I’ve seen few people make notice about.

The lack of range for both natural gas and electric vehicles.

For pure electric vehicles, the current available range is about 50 miles. There’s talk of getting up to 120 miles with future technology.

Natural gas cars right now have a range of about 220-180 miles, depending on who you ask.

Compare this to current technology: gasoline automobiles can generally get about 400 miles per tank, which depends on the vehicle, but that a general range for most cars I’ve seen. Some get more, some get less, but an average of 400 seems about right.

Now, for most people who have taken road trips, it can be a pain in the rear to find gas and fill up. Alot of the time, you end up paying more because you’re not familiar with the area, so you end up buying at a station that may not be the cheapest. There’s also the situation where you end up needing to get gas, and then miss the station down the road that’s a couple of cents cheaper. But if you only need to fuel once, or not at all, then you don’t have these problems to begin with. Plus, there’s the delay of having to stop driving, get out, fuel, then get going again. It’s a hassle.

So a longer range means less of these problems. But that seems to be the last issue on the minds of car developers and those who want to prop up alternative fuels right now. Electric car people tend to focus on commuters. Which is fine, if commuting was the only thing that people did with their cars.

It’s not.

The same problem goes with natural gas. From a link provided by the Pickens Plan:

* Second drawback: since natural gas is a compressed fuel, the tank takes up some trunk space, and only holds the equivalent of 8 gallons of gasoline. Honda estimates the vehicle’s range to be 220 to 250 miles, although Consumer Reports claimed it was closer to 180 miles.

NGV enthusiasts are getting around range limitations (and vehicle scarcity) by converting their own vehicles to run on natural gas and adding spare tank capacity. Throwing extra tanks in the bed of a truck, for example, can boost driving range to around 600 miles. The best part about converting a vehicle (as opposed to the Civic GX) is that if you run out of CNG, the system automatically switches back to gasoline.

– Gas 2.0

Throwing extra tanks in is fine if you’re by yourself and you have room to spare in your trunk. But vacationers don’t have that liberty, especially if they have children. Which means they’ll need bigger cars (oh no, SUVs!) or fill up more frequently.

Finally, there’s the problem of filling up. Now, there is the option of refueling at home for both electricity and natural gas. But what about on the road? Especially in rural areas, there seems to be a dearth of natural gas and electric refueling stations. Now, there’s also a dearth of gas stations in rural areas too, but I’m even talking along highways. You’re going to need alot more stations if the fuel doesn’t get enough range.

And what happens if you run out of gas. Like I mentioned before, there’s the problem of bringing gas out to someone who’s stranded. But what about LNG or electricity. Maybe you can find a house where you can plug your car in, but you’d need a pretty long extension cord. Or maybe drain from someone else’s car, but LNG is a bit more problematic than that.

Nevermind that alot of the cars proposed are compact/sub-compact. Again, a problem for families or people who are of larger than average size. I would like to see what the results for a full-size/truck/SUV are before I can say that electric/natural gas vehicles will have mainstream appeal. And without mainstream appeal, we’re just talking in hypothesis.

It seems to me that alot of the focus on travel seems to be withing larger urban and suburban areas and commuters specifically. Which is fine, except that it neglects a significant aspect of driving for many people. The idea of going somewhere other than work. That something that all proponents of alt fuels will need to grasp and pay attention to as well.

The 60 MPH Challenge

Thanks to Senator John Warner of Virginia, we’re back on our way to re-living the 70’s. Warner, who’s on his last legs as a public servent, dipped into the Bucket List a second time (after coming up with the Warner-Lieberman climate boondoggle) and found the 55 MPH speed limit.

I guess he wants to have a lasting legacy, although I have no idea who’s going to want to remember Sen. Warner fondly as a result of government heavy-handedness. Here’s the money quote from his comments on the Senate floor:

He is a wonderful mechanic and an engineer on cars. He said the carburetion system–he argued with me about this when I spent the past weekend with him–shook his fist at me: I don’t want this 55-mile-per-hour limit. And that is good advice.

So what does Sen. Warner propose? The 60 MPH speed limit. That will go down much easier than a 55 MPH national speed limit, as that 5 MPH will make all the difference to travelers. (How does sarcasm translate on the internet?)

In typical senatorial fashion, Sen. Warner also requires the federal government to reduce gas consumption by… a whopping 3%. There’s no force behind this and there’s no concrete steps that his bill puts into place.

I have an idea Sen. Warner. Since you like the 55 MPH speed limit so much, why don’t you make the government try it out first. Basically require that all new gov’t cars be fitted with a 55 MPH speed governor. It’s not that hard, as most passenger cars have governors on them already (although they’re set at a much higher 120 MPH or so). Just have the engineers at GM/Ford/Chrysler cut that down and problem solved. Instantly enforceable gas savings. And the gov’t gets to be the guinea pigs.

Of course, this will never happen because, as with all laws, the government applies the law to itself last, if ever. Just try to think of the last time you saw a government car pulled over for speeding? If never comes to mind, you’re not the only one.

So in honor of the Senator’s idea, I’ve decided to make my own little study of the plan and see what it’s effects, if any are. You can see what I’m going to do below the cut.