[geeks] electric cars

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Oct 23, 2006, at 1:47 PM, Mike Meredith wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:34:50 -0500 (CDT), Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> Gasoline is cheaper than Coca Cola - $2/gallon for Gas around here
>> (central NJ), $2.58 for Coca Cola ($1.29 for a 2 liter bottle, 4
>
> Petrol prices in the UK are nearer 0.87 (# per litre) x 4.55
> (litre->gallon conversion) x 1.87 (#->$) ... $7.14/gallon. It's amusing
> to hear about US residents complaining about high fuel prices :)
>

You are using Imperial Gallon instead of US Gallon (3.6 liters) in your 
conversion, so it is a little less than that.

Also, outside of just a few urban areas, you really do need a car in 
the USA, and you need to drive it many miles per year.  Even I, who 
work at home most of the time, end up putting over 12K miles per year 
on my car.

> Petrol is amazingly cheap (after removing taxes) but it competes
> 'unfairly' with other fuels because there is no cost of production ...
> just the cost of retrieval (oil is after all not produced by oil
> companies but by natural processes that turn rotting vegetation to oil
> over geological time periods).

As opposed to coal, or natural gas?  Those fuels also need only be 
retrieved.

>
> It also doesn't factor in the cost of dealing with the by products of
> burning all that oil ... not just the CO2, but other pollutants that
> contribute to asthma and other respiratory problems.
>
> It might be worth distorting the market by slowly raising petrol prices
> to encourage the use of bio-fuels.


If you try to distort the market, the markets distorts *you* .

> As an aside to another message ... the amount of agricultural land in
> the US has dropped by roughly 405,000 square miles since 1950 (21%).
> Finding 250,000 square miles for bio-fuels doesn't seem impossible.
>

Agreed, it can be done.

My opinion is that a focus on more efficient heating and cooling for 
houses, which accounts for some 40% of US oil and gas usage, would be 
the easiest first step, rather than focusing on cars (trucks and trains 
aren't going to be changing anytime soon).

Right now, you cannot build a house that is designed to be energy 
efficient without basically violating the building code.

Every developer/builder corporation (like Toll Brothers, Charter Homes, 
etc.) has standardized on above-ground, balloon-framing (2x6 and 2x4 
lumber construction) , low to zero thermal mass, forced-air heating, 
homes with R19 insulation (which works out to less than R19 due to 
thermal bridging).

Per the building code, each house will face the street it is on at a 90 
degree angle - whether that is optimal for solar gain or not.  Each 
house will have limited thermal mass - too much materials costs.  Etc 
etc.

Check out http://daycreek.com - the guy built a 2000-square foot, 
superinsulated house out of non-machined cordwood and recycled paper at 
a cost of maybe $40K plus his time.  Granted he took the long way round 
and built two walls and put insulation between them (essentially 
doubling his labor).  But, you could not, for any amount of money, 
build that same house or something similar in 99.9% of US housing 
developments.

--Patrick