So we all want the world to be climate neutral, right? Yea, some people spit out numbers like 50% and 80%, but in the end we just want to get rid of fossil fuels for good. Those that claim that fossil fuels are going to be an important part of the energy mix for the world in the future are either ignorant, are not aware of what global warming is already doing, or are simply obsessed with fossil fuels. Sorry if it annoys anybody, but this is true. So, assuming we want a climate neutral world (with no net greenhouse gases coming from humans) or perhaps a climate positive world, we need to address sectors like electricity and transportation, among others. In the transportation sector, there has been a huge push for different fuels (biofuels) and for increased fuel mileage. Unfortunately, proponents of these seem to also be obsessed with fossil fuels and, particularly, cars.
Let’s start with biofuels. Ethanol and biodiesel are the big ones today. Ethanol from corn, sugar cane, and cellulose (which is far away into the future anyways), and biodiesel from vegetable oil from any source. Ethanol from corn is simply an extremely bad choice. First of all, there isn’t even consensus on whether corn ethanol is energy positive. The numbers range from slightly energy positive to slightly energy negative. The energy positive folks are simply supported more widely because people want to jump into the lucrative corn ethanol bandwagon. If positive, the small gains are extremely small and are largely outweighed by the fact that we’re depleting more farmland to do this. At the same time, it’s taking a huge amount of corn agriculture and shooting up prices like crazy, which may be good for the big food companies, but bad for people in Mexico and elsewhere. So those people investing in corn ethanol are investing in something that will come to an end. At best, they’ll cash out of the boom, but many will be left severely hurt.
Sugarcane ethanol is a different deal. It is clearly energy positive. It is helping create lots of jobs in Brazil (though it enslaves and removes others). Brazil is vying to become the Middle East for ethanol. The country requires that all gasoline is blended with 25% ethanol, and 40% of the gasoline-type fuel is ethanol. They are also exporting a lot of ethanol. The businesses doing this are making returns on their investments of up to 40%. And now, they’re looking into how to get into the U.S. market without the 50 cent tax that is currently imposed on ethanol imports. The Caribbean, of course, is a key player.
But what folks don’t say is that ethanol only meets about 8% of all fuels in Brazil. That’s right, only 8%. Diesel use is huge in Brazil. Regardless of this, it is a great thing to export for Brazil. It is also better than fossil-derived fuel. And the claim that it is taking away rainforest is not well founded, as sugarcane is only about 4-6% of total agricultural land in Brazil. Before blaming sugarcane, soybeans have to be blamed. But ethanol does not deal with the real problem, and that is mobility. We don’t just want to get rid of fossil fuels. We want to end the car obsession that is sprawling cities everywhere. Brazil, for example, continues to sprawl because of cars. Regardless of what fuel we use, the solution at hand should be ending high car use and making sustainable mobility mainstream. Sustainable city development is therefore a key to reducing emissions. Sprawled out cities increase emissions, regardless of whether people use an electric car or not.
Biodiesel is another one of those stories. First of all, biodiesel reduces emissions by about 70% in combustion. In the European Union, a lot of it comes from palm oil in Indonesia. The recent stories have all been the same. Palm oil is destroying Indonesian rainforests at the expense of “being green”. No biofuel that promotes car use can be called “green”, just like no car that is more efficient should be called “green”. Norway was right on making sure this was the case. Biodiesel is converting large tracts of rainforest into palm oil monocultures, sending countless species into threatened or extinct status. All of this to meet less than 5% of the EU’s fuel use. Biodiesel may be a good thing for some poor countries with depleted soils where drought-resistant plants like Jatropha can grow, but it’s only temporary because high car use cannot continue under a climate neutral world.
Leaving biofuels behind, we enter the Prius world. Toyota came out with its very “successful” Prius, a hybrid vehicle that achieves very high fuel efficiency compared to other vehicles in the U.S. market. What nobody talks about is how much congestion or road costs increase when these new vehicles (any vehicle, really) is sold in the market. In New Jersey, where I’m from, congestion is an endless problem. We keep building more and more roads, and the cars just keep coming. Because of that, we are one of the most sprawled out states in the country, and soon enough, by 2015, we are set to have no more developable land. All because of cars!
If you go to any car-obsessed city, you’ll see something weird. Cars taking up more space in the city than people (outside of homes). It’s incredible; there are more parking spaces and parking lots than what you can imagine, and more are on the way. And all of this is because of cars. We are wasting so much city space that could be used for open space or business all because we can’t think of anything else to move ourselves other than cars. So, those of you who gave a “yes” vote to the piece in the Energy Bill that boosts CAFE standards are supporting congestion. If you support more fuel efficient cars as a solution (the hybridists and such), you are supporting unsustainable development, costly congestion, and high individualism. Bill McKibben and others have emphasized the fact that global warming will not be solved without a comeback of “community”. Cars don’t promote “community”. They promote sprawl and more sprawl and the waste of space and money. The U.S. bill for congestion is more than $200 billion a year! That’s enough money a year to change the world’s transportation system to one of new mobility!
New mobility! That’s what we need. Instead of cars, why not spend on light rail and personal rapid transit (an overhead, modernized, on-demand rail system). Personal rapid transit (PRT), in particular, has the huge potential of eliminating congestion and making our cities way more livable. These systems are automated and on-demand, taking you from location to location within a large city at the fastest mobility rate possible. Theoretically, studies have confirmed that it saves time, money, and it is cheaper. The plus is that it uses electricity, not fuels! It can thus be electrified with solar, wind, whatever renewables we use to electrify the world. I say theoretically because PRTs have not been deployed, though a lot of R&D has gone on since the 80′s. The theoretical cost is about $10 million per mile, with prospects of much lower costs as economies of scale take effect. These systems need right of ways, and with a car- and road-obsessed society, right of ways are not easy to get. A couple of examples will come around in Europe, and there is work to hopefully get one for Ithaca, NY, Seattle, the Mall of America in MN, and other places. Nevertheless, PRT-type systems will need to be larger to accomodate people in a community setting and will need to deal with any of the real issues the theoretical models don’t take into account. In any case, on-demand mobility is promising.
A climate neutral world can’t keep counting on cars. Cities without cars have so much more space for walking, biking, green space, more businesses, and a higher quality of life, not to mention the elimination of smog (one of the types of pollution recently blamed for 40% of all world deaths). People in the climate movement cannot keep talking about CAFE standards without talking as seriously and as much about light rail and PRTs. People need to start attacking cars and promoting the true, sustainable solutions to sprawl- and congestion-causing transportation. I don’t care if you’re from some lowly densely populated state and congestion is not a problem for you. It is a problem for the 50%+ people who live in cities. So don’t promote higher CAFE standards. Promote NEW MOBILITY!
Thanks for this post Carlos.
In the discussion of solutions to the climate crisis, we are often visionary and far-sighted in the discourses around things like generation, design, and efficiency. Unfortunately, I’m often frustrated by either the limited scope of transportation solutions or over reliance of a auto based framework. We talk about the great opportunities associated with the greatest challenge of our generation – global warming – and a shift away from an auto-centric US & greater world is definitely a possibility that should be discussed in the ranks of an end to coal, green jobs, and more secure foreign policy. In fact, I would argue that less cars – even if zero emission – is essential to building the tighter, more localized communities necessary to tackle global warming.
It has been exciting to see a number of posts on IGHIH that talk about solutions beyond “green” cars. I hope these discussion continue as we utilize the clean transportation options we already have at our disposal – like bikes & public transportation – while dreaming big and envisioning our future that shifts the balance of power in our transportation hierarchy.
As I pedal away…
Matt
PRT has great potential to make commuting faster and more energy efficient. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
That PRT Wikipedia page was written by PRT promoters.
PRT is really a hoax… a stalking horse to spread disinformation about LRT and commuter rail.
Does anybody really think that people (real people, not the digital mannequins that inhabit the computer-generated simulations on PRT websites) would cut down half the trees on their block for an elevated structure with a clear view into their bedroom window?
PRT is an infeasible transportation concept that has a 30-year record of controversy and failure.
The biggest supporters of PRT are the usual anti-rail transit suspects (MN Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, MN Representative Mark Olson, CETA member Emory Bundy…Google those with PRT and see what you get).
Here’s a You Tube video about the PRT fiasco in Minnesota:
once again carlos, a great post. i really enjoy your uncompromised perspective, and never really understood the buzz about CAFE standards anyway, since even the loftiest CAFE goals don’t come anywhere close to really addressing the problem.
hey,
awesome post. I’m from Bangalore, India. It seems that the State government of Karnataka (the state of which Bangalore is the capital) is constructing an MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) system which uses both elevated and ground rail systems. I personally do not see this system as the perfect solution to fossil fuel based transport as most of our electricity still comes from coal and, Nuclear Energy is still being offered as the ‘manna from heaven’ kind of solution in India. Even then, Electric transport is way better off and definitely requires our attention. However in India, we seem to face a very peculiar problem. Even though some cities offer excellent MRT services, which include ground based, underground and in one instance overhead systems, the number of cars on the road do not seem to reduce. I personally believe that the reason behind this is simply the massive media attention that is devoted to cars, as also an incorrect interpretation of cars as status symbols; implying every person who can, should go get a car. Then there is the completely flaky leadership which is willing to lower the emission standards so that companies like Harley-Davidson may sell their bikes here in exchange for the great gift of an increase in the amount mangoes India is allowed to export to the US. All this while recorded data indicates rising temperatures and unstable precipitation are actually leading to loss in Mango production! Among the most ironical facts is that an electric car conceived and created in India has found greater acceptance in Britain. One wonders why….
Read about one of Ken Avidor’s greatest misses:
http://innovative-transit.blogspot.com/2007/04/see-how-nothing-he-writes-can-be.html
I like the PRT idea a lot, and think it would be more pleasant and cost-effective than heavier rail and buses. I don’t know about Avidor, but I would be happy to have a PRT guideway running along my street, especially if it meant there would be fewer or no diesel-smoke belching buses, of the type that now travel my street regularly. I’m sure guideway routes can be chosen to minimize whatever “aesthetic degradation” people like Avidor imagine.
I think that the amount of land and resources (not considering fuels) that we devote to personal autos is unfortunate, and PRT has the potential of freeing up some of those resources, especially the land, as well as making our streets safer.
I add, however, that if everyone switched to electric cars, we would be most of the way to a “climate neutral” world, insofar as personal transportation were concerned. An electric car that gets its electrons from hydro-, wind-, solar- or other sources that do not involve greenhouse gas emissions is not part of the problem. Even if the electrons come from greenhouse gas emitting sources, I have seen analyses which show that, even taking the losses of electricity transmission and battery charging into account, an EV still gets more miles from a unit of fossil fuel than does a combustion engine designed to burn that fuel in a personal vehicle.
Other than “increasing emissions,” how does “sprawl” defeat the goal of a “climate neutral” world? People need their space. Living in too close proximity to others (or having to work or travel in crowded circumstances) causes stress, anxiety, and conflict. I’m all for reducing the need to travel, but am not sure that greatly increasing population densities is the way to do it. It makes sense to me to reduce the need for long-haul commuting where we can, to reduce the emissions involved in such commuting — or in local travel, for that matter — where we can, and to reduce the amount of land necessary to support personal vehicles where we can. I’d also like to see any society that wishes it be able to break free of petroleum dependence. I think PRT can help us achieve most of those goals, which is one reason I support at least the continued examination and exploration of the idea.
One thing you should bear in mind is that the climate has always changed and will always change. Even if there were no humans, the climate would eventually turn nasty for some organisms and friendly to others. It happened long before we arrived and will continue long after we are gone. So the real question of concern to us is how to maximize our own happiness and ability to thrive with minimum disruption of ongoing natural processes. Also, how to adapt to the inevitable consequences of those natural processes when we must, and not delude ourselves into thinking that we are modifying or hastening them, much less that changing our behavior can disturb well-established trends in climate change.
Here are some facts you need to know:
-About 3% of America is covered over in residential urnbanisation – hence, vast room for low-density expansion. The American population can be stabilised by reducing net immigration.
-ULTra PRT is being installed in Heathrow airport right now – low costs are confirmed with full-scale prototypes.
-At-grade ULTra applications are extremely cheap, and have enormous potential for new “eco” property developments.
-PRT systems, such as ULTra, can be platooned (vehicles operate very close, like a train) – eliminating capacity concerns.
-Electric cars can be built to be as much as 4x more energy-efficient than public transport (at an extreme).
-Contrary to incessant propaganda, modern cars, on avererage, are as energy-efficent as buses and trains (trains are terribly over-rated).
-Sprawl does not create congestion iin itself – population-growth does. Sprawl helps to keep the progressive development of congestion under control by helping to localise new travel-demand to the city fringes.
-The missmatch between modern origon-to-destination travel-demand and public tranport (linehaul) is diabolical.
-The far-reaching growth-potential with linehaul systems is hopelessly limited – for the most part, they can only support CBDs.
-High-density cities are not more energy-efficient in terms of transport. Though distances covered are less in high-density cities, high-density cities suffer from worse congestion and therefore create inefficient stop-and-go travel (eg. New York). This is a fact (though sadly never advertised).
-Private, fast, convenient on-demand travel is inherently more attractive to the consumer – and this fact has nothing to do with “habits”.
-The future will be ULTra developing, over time, into a fully automated transportation network that also operates on roads.
-Future property development will be low-density ultra-efficient true garden cities (with very little roading, due to the use of the at-grade PRT format) that promote intensive replantation.
-Communites based on forced-associations are often “polite”, but are not real.
-Cars provide “private” communities, which is what everyone really wants – that is, both privacy and good social access (to friends, family and kinky sex-partners that they meet online etc.).
-There is nothing wrong with “individualism” so long as the individual respects others and plays fair on a give-and-take basis.
-There is much wrong with telling people how to live their lives (not to suggest you’ve done that – just making a point).
-With modern technology we can have our cake and eat it too.
-The truth will prevail – in time!
How about less horizontal transportation and more vertical? To go a block on a street you have to walk a couple hundred feet; to go a block on a stairway you only need to go maybe 20.
Miniaturization. Complexity. Arcosanti:
http://www.arcosanti.org/media/publication/hyperBuilding.html
To answer the sprawl is not inherently bad, population density is not inherently good people, I would like to give an example from Florida, where I live currently, also one of the most sprawled out places I’ve ever seen.
Suburban sprawl, as practiced here, results in a huge amount of habitat being lost, 6 lane roads as the norm, creates a transport environment where buses are incredible time consuming and frustrating and biking is a brush with death. Gated communities are also the norm and create a sense of fear and isolation. There is no sense of community, because instead of seeing fellow humans face to face as you go about your daily activities, you merely see the car in front of you.
Strip malls filled with chains and big box retailers dominate the landscape. Housing segregation intensifies. Loneliness and a lack of community becomes the norm.
This sort of development is not good for people or the environment. Come down to North Miami or the increasingly built up West Palm Beach area if you want to see this first hand. There is a 300 mile strip on the east coast of Florida where there is unrelenting sprawl. It looks exactly the same from Palm Beach to Miami. It’s not a good place to live. And an incredibly diverse and endemic ecosystem has been swallowed up.
This model of development is not the way forward. Higher density development which reduces the dependence on cars and impact on the land is inherently preferable to this.