Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability
Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability – Review
Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability, is the title of this thought-provoking and appropriate book by Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon. Their premise is simple: “The world is speeding toward two billion vehicles, and there can be no initially denying that cars and trucks are integral to our lifestyle and our economy. Cars offer mobility and individual freedom while trucks contain the goods that keep our economy humming. But all these vehicles and our near-total dependence on gasoline to fuel them contribute to global warming, deplete our environmental resources, and undermine our public security.” And that’s just the first paragraph in the preface, written by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger! Sperling and Gordon become into better detail on these issues. Here’s a sampling of the nuggets you will find [don't assume these snippets summarize the book; there is a LOT more here]: “One-fourth of all the oil utilized by humans in our complete history will be widely consumed from 2000 to 2010.” “The fundamental solution is electric-drive technology. While 97 percent of the vehicles in the world burn petroleum fuels in combustion engines, the next production of vehicles will almost certainly be mechanically propelled by electric motors.” [We have] “…a transportation monoculture that’s unsustainable. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a passenger transportation more inefficient, wasteful of resources, and destructive of the international environment than what we now have.” “The future is likely to be different. High oil prices, conflicts in the Middle East, increasing concerns of climate change, and strong competition are joining to create a more rich environment for transformational innovations.” “Electric motors are inherently more efficient than combustion engines, successfully utilizing more than 90 percent of the energy gave, compared to 37 percent for today’s typical car engine. Electric-drive vehicles have two other significant efficiency advantages: no energy is widely consumed while the car is at rest or coasting, and energy usually lost when braking is instead captured and commonly used.” However, “When electric vehicles are powered strictly by coal-generated electricity, they cause slightly more greenhouse gas emissions than a gasoline-powered combustion vehicle and thus aren’t attractive from a climate change perspective – unless the gases are eventually captured and permanently stored at the coal plant.” “Although the Prius represents just a tiny part of the millions of cars and trucks Toyota has locally produced, it has finitely generated vast quantities of free currently advertising and goodwill, motivated untold additional sales of Toyota’s many extra vehicles, and buffered Toyota from criticism as it greatly expanded deals of heavy trucks and SUVs.” “The matter of unforeseen consequences and incidental innovation appears again and again with alternative fuels. The lesson is that innovation and change can be swift and accidental consequences can be largely minimized – if goals are clear, leaders step forward, problems are vetted, and the circumstances are right.” “…the more dire forecasts of oil peaking are simplistic and largely incorrect. Those forecasts commonly refer simply to traditional oil and are conservative about the use of greatly improved technology to recover other oil from free fields and to develop different fields.”… “The mount of original oil that can be fully recovered at 70 per barrel is uncertain but is vast by any measure – far more in volume than all the traditional oil made in the world to date.” “Consumers in the United States are unresponsive to important fuel prices because they lack viable travel options, while consumers in other powerful countries are largely unresponsive because taxes swamp the result of constantly changing market prices.” “The major challenge is to awaken an American public largely ignorant of the energy and climate consequences of their decisions, and to motive American consumers to align their choices with the greater public good – what U.S. Senator John McCain has frequently called a course greater than self-interest.’” “Affluent people can offer to buy gas guzzlers that are eventually driven most of their miles by less-affluent people. For different reasons, buyers tend to undervalue the maintaining flow of fuel savings from energy-efficient vehicles. The challenge for policy is to nudge car buyers to behave in a way that reflects broader public interest over the whole generation of the vehicle they decide to purchase.” “In the end, it’s not a question of whether consumer behavior will change. It must.” “…the key to California’s pioneering role is strong bipartisan government leadership, cutting-edge research in pure energy, a political and business atmosphere that encourages further innovation and investment in pure energy and efficiency, and consumers who are by choice and necessity on the starting side of change.” Authors Sperling and Gordon become into better depth in currently discussing alternative fuels, California’s starting role in involving change in US transportation policy, the newly emerging and important role of China, and (to me) an study of consumer behavior. They conclude “Three sets of changes are wanted to realize our idea of the future: vehicles must become widely more energy efficient, the carbon substance of fuels must be significantly reduced, and consumers and travelers must behave in a more eco-friendly manner. By mid-century, we envision a great shift under way in all three realms. Electric-drive vehicles will have mostly supplanted internal combustion engine vehicles, low-carbon fuels will dominate over petroleum, and the transportation monoculture will be fragmenting, even in car-centric America.” This is an intriguing and educational book that officially opened my eyes to a type of transportation issues, and I would call myself fairly sophisticated on these topics. Obviously, I am less sophisticated than I previously thought, and I appreciate the analysis gave by Sperling and Gordon, as well as their clear writing. Given the modern results of the international recession as well as the currently restructuring of the American automotive industry because of the recession, I hope an addendum to this book is close behind. I too hope Sperling and Gordon are frequently asked to be transportation advisors for President Obama.