June 07, 2009
It's not easy being green
While the Obama Administration wants us all to drive hybrids and ditch our SUVs, the reality is that mass transit may not actually be better for Mother Earth. As a matter of fact, that humongous SUV just might have a smaller carbon footprint -- if you believe in any of that stuff -- than the trains and buses we're all supposed to be riding.
Now, those who have drunk deeply of the Moonbat Kool-Aid tell me that having a smaller carbon footprint is better than having a big one, and that driving my GMC diesel-powered leviathan is an act of ecocide, one that has me stomping on Gaia with size 14 Air Jordans.
As it turns out, though, the authors of a new study say it's all a little ... complicated.
These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple "tailpipe" tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip.
Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges.
In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city -- even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups -- rather than take a suburban train. It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport.
[...]
The pair give an example of how the use of oil, gas or coal to generate electricity to power trains can skew the picture.
Boston has a metro system with high energy efficiency. The trouble is, 82 percent of the energy to drive it comes from dirty fossil fuels.
By comparison, San Francisco's local railway is less energy-efficient than Boston's. But it turns out to be rather greener, as only 49 percent of the electricity is derived from fossils.
The paper points out that the "tailpipe" quotient does not include emissions that come from building transport infrastructure -- railways, airport terminals, roads and so on -- nor the emissions that come from maintaining this infrastructure over its operational lifetime.
These often-unacknowledged factors add substantially to the global-warming burden.
In fact, they add 63 percent to the "tailpipe" emissions of a car, 31 percent to those of a plane, and 55 percent to those of a train.
And another big variable that may be overlooked in green thinking is seat occupancy.
A saloon (sedan) car or even an 4x4 that is fully occupied may be responsible for less greenhouse gas per kilometer travelled per person than a suburban train that is a quarter full, the researchers calculate.
"Government policy has historically relied on energy and emission analysis of automobiles, buses, trains and aircraft at their tailpipe, ignoring vehicle production and maintenance, infrastructure provision and fuel production requirements to support these modes," they say.
So getting a complete view of the ultimate environmental cost of the type of transport, over its entire lifespan, should help decision-makers to make smarter investments.
For travelling distances up to, say, 1,000 kilometres (600 miles), "we can ask questions as to whether it's better to invest in a long-distance railway, improving the air corridor or boosting car occupancy," said Chester.
Hmm, politicians ignoring the costs associated with the construction, manufacture and maintenance of their favorite modes of transit. I'm astonished that our Political Overlords could possible promulgate the policies that control the tiniest nooks and crannies of our lives, based on incomplete and often inaccurate data.
Not.
We're in the very best of hands.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 7, 2009 09:28 PM
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