By PAUL C. “CHIP” KNAPPENBERGER and PATRICK J. MICHAELS
Well, well, well. The EPA has finally gone and done it. They have actually calculated the climate change impacts projected to result of one of their climate change regulations—in this case, the proposed rules for the efficiency standards for medium and heavy duty vehicles.
What they found was hardly surprising—the climate impacts from the proposed regulations will be vanishingly small.
The EPA calculates that the amount of global temperature rise averted by the end of the 21stcentury from the proposed regulations to be… wait, this is too good to paraphrase. From the EPA:
The results of the analysis demonstrate that relative to the reference case, by 2100 projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by 1.1 to 1.2 part per million by volume (ppmv), global mean temperature is estimated to be reduced by 0.0026 to 0.0065 °C, and sea-level rise is projected to be reduced by approximately 0.023 to 0.057 cm.
Did you catch that? According to the EPA’s own calculations, their regulation mandating the fuel economy of medium and light duty trucks avoids somewhere between twenty-six ten-thousandths and sixty-five ten-thousandths of a degree of future global warming. In other words, it is a useless measure when it comes to influencing the future course of global temperature. If the EPA wants to regulate the fuel efficiency of trucks, it needs to justify it for reasons that don’t relate to climate change.
Of course, if you’ve followed anything that we’ve ever had to say on EPA efforts seeking to mitigate future climate change by limiting carbon dioxide emissions, you know that we have been stressing this for years (basically, since EPA started issuing such regulations). Over and over again, and for each newly-proposed action, we show that the resulting temperature savings will be measured in hundredths to thousandths of a degree. It is nice to finally see that the EPA completely agrees with us (we’ve known they have all along, but they are just very reluctant to admit it).
When describing the impact of these minuscule changes, we use terms like “trifling,” “impressively tiny,” “meaningless,” “scientifically undetectable,” and “environmentally inconsequential.”
Here’s how the EPA describes them:
“EPA determines that the projected reductions in atmospheric CO2, global mean temperature, sea level rise, and ocean pH are meaningful in the context of this action.”
“Although these effects are small, they occur on a global scale and are long lasting; therefore, they can make an important contribution to reducing the risks associated with climate change.”
Not only do they talk in glowing terms about the climate significance of the regulations (“an important contribution to reducing risks associated with climate change”), but they simply love the economic ones as well.
Through the magic of the social cost of carbon, the EPA transforms 0.003°C of avoided global warming into $100 billion of economic benefit, and raves:
“[We] estimate net economic benefits exceeding $100billion making this a highly beneficial rule.”
We’ve got to hand it to government bureaucrats, they can be extremely imaginative when it comes to justifying their existence.
But sadly, imagination doesn’t trump reality.
So, while we commend the EPA for actually calculating the climate impacts of their regulation (or should we say, making the results of their calculations publically available), for their overly optimistic view of the import of the (virtually non-existent) impacts, we rate the EPA’s level of spin as “Heavy Duty” and award them four Spin Cycles.
Heavy Duty. Government regulations or treaties claiming to save the planet from certain destruction, but which actually accomplish nothing. Can also apply to important UN climate confabs, such as Copenhagen 2009 (or, quite likely, the upcoming 2015 Paris Summit), that are predicted to result in a massive, sweeping, and world-saving new treaty, followed by self-congratulatory back-patting. Four spin cycles.
The Spin Cycle is a reoccurring feature based upon just how much the latest weather or climate story, policy pronouncement, or simply poo-bah blather spins the truth. Statements are given a rating between 1-5 spin cycles, with less cycles meaning less spin. For a more in-depth description, visit the inaugural edition.
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“[We] estimate net economic benefits exceeding $100billion making this a highly beneficial rule.”
Meaningless without knowing both the discount rate used for this calculation the projected cost of compliance. Show your work.’
The assumptions in the social cost of carbon calculation are too whacko to be worth discounting realistically. The social cost of carbon is most certainly negative, as cheap energy is what brought so many out of poverty.
The $100B will be from government spending our money.
Rob
The EPA is going to use this SCC number as a foundation for making other estimations. It will not have to be explained if everyone is doing it, right? The people behind it estimate that it is a path to regulation by the projection of ‘economic benefit’.
The value is this: If they can show such a ‘huge economic benefit’ from such a small number, then dividing up ‘3.2 degrees’ gives it a $ value.
Do not guess that this is not fully thought through. It is rooted in a desire to make certain actions ‘viable’ economically. If we take the 65 thousandths of a degree and invert it we get 15.38 x 100 bn per degree of avoided warming. This makes it obvious that 3.2 degrees of avoided warming is worth:
1/0.065 x $100bn x 3.2 deg = $5 Trillion give or take $80 bn.
Now isn’t that a nice round number? Control CO2 and avoid $5 trillion work of social harm. I suspect this has a lot more to do with the announcement than the details of how the $100bn was calculated. No calculation will be shown, only the benefit of spending a few trillion to avoid damage of 5 trillion. Agricultural productivity benefits will be ignored.
If you get deeper into the calculation I am sure there will emerge a SCC number that is ‘per ton of CO2 emitted’ conveniently above the Gold Standard value of $20 (the voluntary alternative to the UNFCCC/GEF/CDM carbon trading market).
Everyone: please let us know when the EPA-justified SCC per ton number emerges.
PJ and others note below that it is 0.0065 not 0.065. That makes it $50 trillion not $5 trillion needed to fully count the SCC. Can someone put an SCC number on a ton of CO2, if this is the case?
[Order of magnitude fixed. Thanks. ~mod.]
$100 billion between now and 2100? And is that in 2015 dollars or 2100 dollars? If the “benefits” are considered to be worldwide in impact, shouldn’t this financial benefit be stretched over the rest of the century AND the rest of the globe?
($100 billion / 85 years) / 11 billion people in 2100 = 10 cents of benefit per person per year. HIGHLY beneficial…
Bank of Zimbabwe dollars. Enough to buy a book of matches (which would warm the planet more that these so-called reduction efforts would cool it).
The EPA estimate of economic benefits is as meaningful as Trump’s self-assigned value of the “Trump brand”…
rip
There, fixed that for you. Let’s see, we take the 30 trillion dollars estimated cost of the full climate “catastrophe” of 3 C warming by 2100. We take 3 thousandths of a degree C, as one thousandth of this. Uh Oh, that only gives us 30 billion dollars. Rats.
OK, let’s up the cost of the full climate catastrophe — since nobody has a friggin’ clue as to what it is going to be, we might as well call it one hundred trillion dollars to the nearest power of ten, for some meaning of the word nearest that a bit more aggressive than logarithmic. Now a thousandth is — wait for it — $100 billion!
Seriously. Just stop with Meaningless. Discount rate doesn’t matter. Projected cost of compliance doesn’t matter. We do not know either how much warming will result from any amount of CO2 as of 2100. We do not know how much CO2 will be added to the present concentration by 2100. We do not know the net benefits of that CO2 — which are absolutely not going to be zero, as simple plant growth of food crops and timber will be increased by as much as 50 to 100%, depending on just what the unknown CO2 is and what the unknown and unpredictable changes in things like the patterns and net amount of rainfall are. We do not know by how much sea level will rise, which is the only credible source of widespread cost from the increased CO2. We do not know if new costs will emerge — mass extinction of some species, human sudden death from CO2 over 400 ppm syndrome, death from being bashed on the head or burned at the stake by catastrophists who think that you are destroying the Earth Itself if you toast marshmellows over a campfire. Finally we have no possible way of measuring global average temperature (or the temperature “anomaly”) within 0.01C, let alone within 0.003 degrees C or fewer. Frankly, we can’t even estimate the current temperature anomaly within 0.1 C or the current global average temperature within a whole degree C. The variance in the temperature day to day, year to year, anywhere is some three orders of magnitude greater than the expected change in the mean.
If they are correct about the “temperature anomaly savings” of the proposed measure — which I seriously doubt — the more accurate way to state things is that nobody on Earth would ever be able to tell under any circumstances that a measure had been taken to “reduce global warming” back in 2015. Not even with a fairly accurate thermometer. Not even at a single point on the surface of the globe.
We do not even have good ways of making estimates for these things, as the estimates we have for “costs” or “benefits” are highly politicized and are predicated on the believability of models that are actively failing (at least — many of us would say that they have already failed and are proven to be nearly useless for predicting any sort of climate future at all).
Just MEANINGLESS!
And the sad thing is, the EPA should know better. Not only meaningless but silly. Absolute, political public incompetence.
rgb
rgbatduke
Don’t take the bait. This is about introducing a social cost of carbon (SCC). See my note above. They have arbitrarily assigned a social harm of $5 trillion to 3.2 degrees of projected warming. The details of avoided CO2 are not important. The SCC is. Forget about fighting fossil fuel burning, that is assumed to be a given. It will be used, for example, to assign a ‘benefit’ to the avoidance of ‘unsustainable’ burning of biomass even though it is carbon neutral. ‘Unsustainable’ can be arbitrarily defined for the convenience of any program.
After realising something was afoot at the ISO I asked one of the seniors about this suggesting, “They plan to introduce a social cost of carbon, don’t they!” He replied, “There are many agendas.”
This is quite an announcement and it is only tangentially related to vehicle emissions. I am sure it was chosen as the most publicly saleable justification ‘vehicle’ to drive the SCC forward. I wondered how they were going to do it. The silly little numbers will be inverted to show the massive benefit of regulating CO2 emissions. We are going to hear about that, not miniscule numbers. They are expecting you to be diverted with discussing the little numbers while they talk about the big ones.
“Show your work.” Fat chance. 🙂
The SCC calculations use three different discount rates: 2.5%, 3% and 5%. 3% is most often used as the central estimate and 1 metric ton of CO2 emitted per annum is estimated to generate net costs of about US$40 (in 2014 dollars). This will be about US$42 in 2015. Note that this figure is the estimated GLOBAL net cost. If only net costs to the US are estimated (ie. the local SCC) they are approximately US$8.50 per ton. The practical implication of using a global SCC figure is that the EPA is saying that US citizens should wear the cost of benefits that accrue to non-US citizens (ie. China, India, Australia, Germany, the rest of the world). This is contrary to normal cost benefit analysis practice which requires the US costs of a regulation should be outweighed by US benefits before being allowed to proceed. The application of a global SCC figure in country-specific CBAs is a grey area and whose ramifications have not been fully explored as yet.
It is a benefit to the bureaucrats at the EPA, that’s all they really care about.
But what about the ‘feel-good-about-yourself’ factor?
I’m going to keep my wood-fired Tacoma on the road – turns heads here in progressive, green Vermont – but I really doubt I’ll still be rolling in 2100 with p<.001
“I’m going to keep my wood-fired Tacoma on the road”
Hmm, so instead of Rolling Coal on a VT Subaru, you’ll be Rolling um…Cord wood?
They’ve got a full load anyway.
I think of it more as a pant-load.
You overstate the projected temperature increase in your commentary. The published increases are 2.6 to 6.5 thousandths of a degree, not 26 and 65.
You are overstating EPA’s limited temperature effect by a factor of 10. The amount of .0026 to .0065 is 26 to 65 ten thousandths of a degree; not 26 to 65 thousandths of a degree. I didn’t have time to check if the .0026 to .0035 is correctly copied from their report.
Who in the real world would even talk about 2.6 thousands to 6.5 thousands as a calculated range for temperatures which cannot be measured any where near that accuracy and then assign $ benefits to the impact. This demonstrates how sick the minds are at the EPA grasping at straws.
” The amount of .0026 to .0065..”
If that was in inches, it would be about the thickness of newsprint.
I bet that resolution isn’t even possible for temperatures, so silly.
0.0026 C is 2.6 thousandths, not 26 thousandths. 0.0065 is 6.5, not 65.
you can measure thousandths (.001) of an inch with a “feeler gauge”. you cannot measure 10 thousandths (.0001) of an inch.
but they will be eye-balling a mercury thermometer, so surely … /s
Really? Because I used to have 0.0005″ shim stock that I used as a feeler.
When I was a boy, my father had a really neat feeler gauge with a dozen or so blades that could be combined to give a wide range of thicknesses. His spark-plugs and glow-plugs were always finely tuned. I am pretty sure there was one of 0.0005″, as LeeHarvey (August 20, 2015 at 12:36 pm) mentioned. Mind you, when we started playing with it, those small thicknesses were a bit too wild to appreciate, and Dad always made sure we didn’t do anything to kink those blades.
Depends how small your “feeler gauge” is.
0.0005″ shim stock that I used as a feeler
============
sure, but you couldn’t really tell if what you were measuring was 0.0003 or 0.0007. Any grease or imperfections in the surface would overwhelm the drag. The difference is why engine rebuilds can be done fairly reliably but transmissions are a challenge without special equipment.
For insignificance, take a look at “Table VII-37—Impact of GHG Emissions Reductions on Projected Changes in Global Climate Associated With Proposed Phase 2 Standards for MY 2018-2024”
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0827-0002
What a sick joke .
The press release: “to be reduced by 0.0026 to 0.0065 °C,” And you stated in words “this is between twenty-six thousandths and sixty-five thousandths of a degree of future global warming.”
It is worse than that. .0026 is 26 TEN-Thousandths, .0065 is 65 TEN-Thousandths of a degree.
Pat and Chip – A very informative post.
EPA regulating CO2 as a pollutant also means, based on the “right to know” on air pollutants, that federal groups, such as GISS, presumably must provide answers to queries on their models and data.
We discuss this issue with respect to traditional air pollutants in
Cochran, L.S., R.A. Pielke, and E. Kovacs, 1992: Selected international receptor based air quality standards. J. Air Waste Mgt. Assoc., 42, 1567-1572.
https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/r-167.pdf
The relevant text reads
“In compiling this information, we found it easier to access the regulations from some countries as opposed to others. There is a major political difference between public rights to air quality information. In the United States, for example, the federal law mandates a “right to know,” while the Seveso Directive (#67/548) of the European community permits access based on a “need to know.” This fundamental difference provides further impetus for an ambient based standard, in addition to emission based standards, since the public and other interested parties could monitor air quality at the property boundaries of an industrial facility.”
Best Regards
Roger Sr.
” vanishingly small.”
Try incalculably or more correctly, non-existent.
The more I see output from the various US bodies, White House, NASA, NOAA, EPA etc. , the more i am reminded of Monty Pythons “Ministry of Silly Walks”
CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by 1.1 to 1.2 part per million by volume (ppmv), global mean temperature is estimated to be reduced by 0.0026 to 0.0065 °C, and sea-level rise is projected to be reduced by approximately 0.023 to 0.057 cm.
When did they prove the CO2 connection to Temperature and sea level. I know this was hypothesized but, other than a few worthless models where is the signal.
Do the math, small changes in CO2 at this level are meaningless.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran.html
Maximizing the CO2 impact using no clouds, 400ppm and 70 km altitude, outgoing radiation is 289.288 W/M^2 changing it to 401.2 ppv resulted in 289.288 W/M^2. The change is so insignificant it doesn’t get by the rounding of the calculator. This is no joke, check the numbers yourself.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran.html
All, please understand that this rule is different than some of the others. Phase I of this rule has already improved fuel efficiency of heavy trucks by about 10%. Phase II will more than double that. EPA did an excellent job of working with…with…industry to develop this rule, and it is supported by all of the major truck manufacturers and trade associations. When fuel efficiency gets better, everybody wins.
As part of the industry, I worked directly with the team at EPA, and the folks who developed the Truck rules were not zealots. They listened carefully and worked with us to make the rule workable and effective.
This is how rule-making should work, and how it did work when EPA was still about a science agenda in the public good. Lately it has become an instrument of policy, with many bad decisions.
But this rule is not one of them.
Wow, are you a sucker.
The notion that the manufacturers of heavy trucks would not have achieved those fuel economy improvements on their own is pure fantasy. If your trucks get 10% less fuel economy than the trucks someone else sells, and fuel is the biggest operating expense by far in the trucking industry, do you suppose that you will be able to sell many trucks? Your competition will eat your lunch!
You’ve bought into the notion that the EPA regulations drove the increases in fuel efficiency when in fact those inefficiencies would have happened anyway simply due to normal competition between manufacturers. All that happened was the EPA took credit for something someone else did. Shocking, I know.
Wow, you really don’t know any thing at all about this subject. Leave policy to the grow ups, sonny.
If you want to counter my argument with reason and logic, or bolster yours with additional facts and information, by all means do so.
If the best you can muster in rebuttal is to imply that I am a child, then the weakness of your position is exposed for what it is. Simply an appeal to authority defended by ad hominem attack.
You started from a position of ignorance, and compounded it with zero facts and weak logic…plus you started the name calling, junior!
Aw… he did it first.
I’m sorry I called you a sucker.
If you choose to believe that fuel economy of heavy trucks would have stood still without EPA intervention, you are free to believe it and any term you wish to choose to describe your belief system is just fine with me. You’ve stated down thread that “spin” is OK with you, so spin away.
Rules like this entrench companies (makes their competitive moat bigger), as it makes it very hard for new competitors to comply, because they don’t yet have economies of scale. That’s why companies like these trucking companies support rules that are achievable – but only at the scale of those large companies (who can afford the
bribistslobbyists, lawyers, accountants and extra engineers, etc.)I take Elon Musk as the exception that proves the rule.
Peter
What I would like to know, is how the EPA is certain that trucks will still be using internal combustion engines in 2100 to achieve this wonderful $100 billion total savings over that time period. Seems a lot like the folks in the early 20th century worrying about the accumulation of horse poop in city streets that was sure to occur over the next century. We should have flying cars and trucks by then… they’re seriously overdue as it is.
DT-How much of the cost-benefit found by the EPA was due to fuel savings? Wasn’t it entirely due to reduced CO2=reduced GW? “When fuel efficiency gets better, everybody wins” is true if the EPA didn’t exist. The rule itself may be good, that’s not the issue. The issue is, and I can’t say it any better than rgb@duke, they made up these numbers. Glad you had a good experience with an EPA team, but don’t you wonder why their cb didn’t say “10% less fuel times total cost of fuel=benefit of $$$”? As others surmise, it seems the EPA is applying this calculation here to quietly establish it for future use.
Paul C…I like a good puzzle, but I would not try to reverse engineer the EPA calculations on the social benefits of carbon reduction! The very idea of doing that gives me hives.
What I can assert is that the societal benefit of fuel reduction is real, and generally achievable with known technology. The biggest challenge will be getting it into the market in economic volumes and delivering commercial payback for the industry. As I said elsewhere on this thread, we shall see.
We shall see?
We won’t see. It is not measurable. It can’t be calculated. All we will see is increased production/maintenance costs as associated with increased the greater fuel efficiency; the tradeoff is not established. If you can show a societal benefit then show it, don’t just assert it.
Now if we think we can calculate the temp as being 0.003C less because the 1 ppm co2 reduction, it seems reasonable that we can extrapolate/calculate the increase in crash mortality because of a 0.0065 lb weight reduction in the 6,500 lb trucks…. And some yutz would try to make a case that, based on the data it would be negative (benefit) to society and others would say it is not measurable.
if the temperature of the planets falls by .0026 of a degree, the USA profits by 100 billion dollars a year. Have I got that right ?
So these volcanoes that can affect the temperature by as much as a couple of degrees should stand out to economic historians.
the Pinatubo eruption benefitted the USA by ( half a degree/ 0.0026 * 100 billion) = 19,200 billion per year.
yes EPA. and my @ss is a cream donut
I love cream donuts! $100 billion should buy us lots of them!
Nicely reduced to absurdity. We’d better start adding sulphur in atmosphere, since it produces huge profits.
Except that noone expects it, not even these suckers who think that increasing temperature causes huge losses. Their logic is that the temperatures have been stable for several millennia, so any change (upwards or downwards) causes dramatic losses. They are not sure, but they try to play safe by exaggarating the losses and try to make a change in public opinion.
This is laughable, because exaggaration makes one loose one’s credibility, and thus undermines their own goal.
What we need is honest science trying to establish natural variation and its consequences.
If you could drive a truck that got 8 mpg or the same vehicle at 25 mpg, which would you choose?
Are they talking about 3x the mileage? I think not.
False choice. It wouldn’t be the same vehicle.
Won’t be 3x, but it might be 40% better by 2025 or so. Average heavy line haul truck burns about 20000 gallons of fuel per year, times about 2.8 million trucks on the road, growing to about 3.3 M by 2025. Call it 60 billion gallons per year, round numbers. Take away 40%…that’s a lot of fuel from an energy policy perspective.
So the savings will be 60 billion x .4 = 24 billion gallions. But we’re told by the EPA this will save 100 billion dollars or $4 per gallon? Or is the 100 billion not per year but the total from now to 2100 or so? If so, the net benefit per year is trivial. And the cost in terms of redesigning and producing the more efficient trucks is going to be more than that. Either way I think something is wrong with the figures.
I have no idea how the agency calculates the societal benefit. The figures I quote were per year, at today’s fuel prices about $50B/year savings.
daved46…erratum…the unspoken assumption in my figures is that the fleet achieves the target economy as a whole…almost never the case, but represents a good upper bound on the dollar benefit.
The sea level will be reduced by .023 to.057 cm by 2100. That equates to about 0.4 mm on average. Dividing that number by 85 years gives a net reduction of .005 mm per year between now and the end of the century. The average human hair has a diameter of .025 mm, so the net reduction per year is the equivalent of the thickness of 2 human hairs. Wow!! That’s really cool! Can I watch the confirmatory annual measurement while it’s being done? I presume the sea will be fairly calm on that day.
Sea level has been rising naturally since the end of the last glaciation over 10,000 years ago. The current rate of rise (last few thousand years) is/has been about 9 inches per century. Thus the natural rise by 2100 should be 0.85 (85 years to go) x 9 inches x 2.54 cm/inch = about 19.43 cm. And they are crowing about reducing that number all the way down to 19.43 – 0.04 (avg. of the given range) = 19.37 cm. Hey, I’d pay $100 billion for that. If they can show me that reducing CO2 affects temperature at all.
At that pace, in 10,000 years, the natural rise would be 19.43 meters (63.7 feet) which this policy would reduce by 4 cm, or about 1.6 inches. Beyond that, don’t worry, we will entering the 80,000 year period of dropping temperatures from which the next glaciation will arise, and sea levels will probably drop by 300 feet or so.
Give me a break.
0.0026 degrees eh? I din’t know about you but that sounds dooable. I mean, 385 similar legislative implementations and you have a whole degree of cooling………..
Please, Dave! Don’t give them ideas! 🙂
“don’t”….. wish we had editing facilities.
It’s really very simple: Every human activity causes CO2 to be emitted; the EPA can regulate CO2 emissions; therefore the EPA can regulate every human activity.
Get used to it.
You may choose to get used to it, but I an not and the next election may change things or our courts may weigh in who have frequently slapped down the administration.
When we owe 18-20 trillion…
..does everyone realize how small 100 billion really is?
@DataTurk
I’ll go along with that. But it is not the increase in fuel efficiency and so on which is really at issue in this post. Rather, it is the vacuous spin which surrounds it and the assumptions upon which it is based.
Thus, there is the underlying assumption that a certain amount of CO2 ‘saved’ from the atmosphere will result in a particular reduction in temperature. This assumes a particular CO2 sensitivity and, as everyone knows, that is not part of the ‘settled’ science. At this point of time it is unknown with ‘guestimates’ over a wide range of possible values (which might indeed all be wrong).
Secondly there is the fact that the degree of heating purported to be saved cannot be measured. That is not to say that it does not exist, just that it cannot be seen.
If I had the energy I might go on to ridicule these puffed up purveyors of pulp fiction, but…. well, they are just too pathetic for me to be bothered!
Nonetheless, if the effect of the rule is beneficial in some respects, what does the spin matter?
If you could buy a burger in one place that was cheaper than a burger in the other place, why have a rule setting the price of burgers.
what does the spin matter?
So… you’re not only saying it is OK to give them credit for something they didn’t actually do, you are also saying since that something is beneficial, it is OK for them to lie about other stuff? Wow. Just wow.
DataTurk
The spin matters because the government spent their subsidies to improve the environment in which case the money was not properly spent; so they have to lie about the benefits, and many of us are tired of wasting tax dollars. I am not an expert on truck engines but I did read somewhere that the feds were giving subsidies to certain engine manufacturers, I don’t remember the amount.or who. Do you know how much the government spent in subsidies?
One question: is Phase 2 economically viable or just a false hope like the renewable energy programs and subsidies for electric cars. As I recall the administration edict ed that cars get 56 mpg in the near future which is difficult except in very small vehicles.
As an engineer, I am always interested in greater efficiency engines and large diesels may be a good target, but one also has to keep in mind the cost of purchase and maintenance. I know for a fact that the modern engines do not last as long as the older engines especially in boats where the engines work hard most of the time. this has to do with getting more and more HP out of less cubic inches. The economics needs to consider everything and hopefully that is the case especially if new technology is mandated before it is proven.
Catcracking…the answer to your question is pretty much TBD. The EPA tried in this case to provide a 2 year payback for line haul trucks, which burn the most fuel. I think the estimates of technology cost can be a little optimistic, but they are trying to guess how the costs will come down as new tech is deployed in volume. 2 year break even is generally ok with truck fleets here in the U.S., since they generally turn over their fleets at 5 years of age, give or take.
We shall see. New wide single tires, trailer aero treatments and powertrain improvements are already having an impact, and in general, the cost for these things is pretty low. It will be tougher to make each incremental target as the rules get more restrictive. We shall see.
Catcracking…your first question: you may be thinking of the Supertruck program, which was part of the economic stimulus package in roughly 2008-2012. Teams of truck makers and engine-makers were challenged to develop trucks that were 50% more fuel efficient. These were cost shared programs where the mfr and the government each paid roughly half. If I recall there were 3 or 4 teams, and each produced a tech demonstrator truck that was tested for efficiency. I know that several of the trucks tested into the 10-12 mpg range, vs 6-8 mpg for current designs. Lots of hard technology there, but the data says it’s worth going for, in my view.
Not sure that link works…http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12845
Why spin? Why exaggerate?
If someone feels a need to exaggerate then they must feel that there is something wrong with their point of view.
Why do you think EPA did nothing? In fact, trucks have mostly been stuck at 6 mpg for 20 years, in spite of the competition you cite above, mainly because truck drivers like to drive big, chromed-out non-aero monsters, rather than more modern designs. The whole industry needed a nudge, and actually helped EPA deliver it.
You may think you understand this business, but it clear you don’t want to. There endeth the lesson.
Having worked directly with multiple trucking companies operating over 1,000 heavy trucks each to improve their bottom line profitability, I call BS on your lesson. I’ve also worked with R&D organizations busting a gut to improve the efficiency of their engines and over all drive trains. Why do these trucking companies and manufacturers spend so much time on efficiency?
Because it directly impacts their bottom lines and their market share with or without EPA intervention!
That’s why.
lol. Truck drivers are prepared to pay x for y. and that just aint on, according to agency A. So we have a rule..B
And the rules for setting the rule don’t matter. They are clearly not economic rules, otherwise the truck drivers would act differently
Gosh, you win…I yield to your obvious grasp. You have the big picture for sure. Never mind me pointing out that the frame is too small.
DataTurk:
‘…trucks have mostly been stuck at 6 mpg for 20 years, in spite of the competition you cite above, mainly because truck drivers like to drive big, chromed-out non-aero monsters, rather than more modern designs. The whole industry needed a nudge, and actually helped EPA deliver it.’
It seems to me I’m detecting a bit of a bias, if not outright prejudice, in the statement above: ‘truck drivers like to drive big, chromed-out non-aero monsters, rather than…’ Am I detecting it, DataTurk? You do realize that many of the independents virtually live in their trucks. How austere a home would you wish for? And, maybe your concern is more about fuel consumption than their concern is. But, could it be that they have lots of other concerns as well? Let’s see how well those fuel saving single tires handle snow and water compared to the doubles?
I particularly enjoyed your statement about how the ‘industry needed a nudge.’ How soft and gentle sounding. But you and I know what that really means, don’t we?
TomJ…that’s rich…you lecturing me. I was pointing out one of the reasons that trucks don’t change fast in the U.S. For another thing, some truckers do spend a lot of time in their trucks. To further educate you on the architecture of a truck, “in” means inside. Outside is where the aero happens. The two are not really related.
New, aerodynamic trucks are bigger and far more comfortable than the old square nosed behemoths with external air cleaners, visors, and 8in chrome straight stacks.
Glad we cleared that up.
For the record, I know professionally and professionally respect many, many truck drivers….but some of them of them are attracted to shiny objects, and they don’t always make the best business decisions.
That’s not bias, it’s just reality. If you don’t know that, you don’t really know them at all.
DataTurk,
Just what laws of physics are you planning to repeal to get more than incremental improvements in fuel economy? Reducing aero drag only goes so far, you’re still left with rolling and grade resistance. Improving the efficiency of the engines is a real long shot with the ever tightening emissions limits. “dmh” called it exactly right.
These regs also make me wonder even more as to whether anyone at the EPA has any grounding in engineering.
Actually, I’m a big fan of the Laws of Physics, which you seem to feel are exhausted in this case. I do not agree. There are huge opportunities in just doing better engineering and selectively adding technologies that make sense.
I don’t really expect this to help, but here is some light reading that may enlighten you on the true state of play. If you already have all the answers, I would strongly suggest you not read it:
http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12845
Not sure that link worked http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12845.
DataTurk,
Not much in the report that I didn’t know already.
FWIW, the easiest way to get a dramatic reduction in long distance trucking is to use domestic containers and do the long distance hauling by rail. Shipping by rail vs truck results in both dramatic reductions in rolling resistance (typical rolling resistance is 0.2% of applied load) and aero drag. It’s also much easier to run a train on non-fossil fuel resources by putting a wire over the tracks, but that involves major capital expenditures (a large fraction of the costs are raising road and highway bridges over the tracks to provide clearance for the catenary).
Erik M…I agree with you about the general efficiency of rail or intermodal transport, and I really like catenary railways as an alternative to big diesels.
One of the reasons trucks carry 70+% of the dollar value that is shipped anywhere in the U.S., is that trucks are better at getting high-value or perishable freight from A to B in the shortest possible time. That’s their value proposition vs rail, and the cost is far lower than air freight. That’s why the vegetables picked in Texas or CA can be on your plate in Chicago in less than 48 hours. At the moment, rail can’t do that, and you would not like the price of air freighted cabbage!
If we were able to rethink the entire system, we could probably come up with a better way, for sure.
I skimmed the document and noticed the first line in chapter 6 (or there-abouts).
“The costs and benefits of particular measures to reduce fuel consumption can be estimated with some degree of precision”.
Who gives a shit how precise they are in their estimates. They either don’t know the difference between accuracy and precision, and as such shouldn’t be tasked with such a project. Or they do know the difference and are honestly saying “we don’t care about the accuracy, we got the same answer in a few different projection scenarios, so we are precise, to some degree; we are not going to talk about the accuracy”.
I stopped reading after the first line of chapter 6 (or there-abouts).
‘Through the magic of the social cost of carbon, the EPA transforms 0.003°C of avoided global warming into $100 billion of economic benefit …’.
============================
When was the perfect climate, what is the ideal global average temperature?
If every increase in GAT no matter how minute gives rise to a net cost then there must be some theoretical GAT which is perfect where any increase causes a cost and any decrease also.
Good question. Don’t expect an answer any time soon. Nobody knows. But that doesn’t stop them. The greatest harm in this world is not caused by lack of knowledge but by people who pretend to know when they don’t. (Somebody smarter than me said that)
For DataTurk
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason simply entrenches ignorance and superstition. Essentially, it is an irrational approach to decision making.
Inevitably it leads to unjustified decision making or, in other words – doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason.
The EPA is a Government Bureaucracy.
What else would you expect?
It was given authority (for a “good cause”) with no accountability. It was only a matter of time before the “good cause” became political rather than science-based environmental.
Since when did
Big Brothergovernment become interested in saving business and industry, or for that matter, individuals, money?Oh wait, they aren’t.
My big brother used to beat me up on a regular basis. Sheez. Some things never change.
he he, thanks.
(Either that’s funny, or I am just getting tired)
Just for the record, you should also be slamming the USDOT, who were co-developers of the Phase I and Phase II rules, along with Kenworth, Peterbilt, Volvo, Freightliner, Navistar, Cummins, Eaton, the American Trucking Association, and on and on.
For Kohl…I think they did the right thing for the right reason at the “get it done” level: reducing fuel consumption. It’s possible the front office got a little carried away with the GHG spin, I will grant you! Not for the first time…or, sadly, the last. 🙂