New CAFE rule will change the way industry operates

[MrMopar]

Breeder reactors have one major problem -- as "fast" neutron reactors they typically use liquid sodium as a coolant

All reactors have problems, but sodium coolant can probably be handled if the benefits are great enough. Or we could use lead-cooled fast reactors or gas-cooled fast reactors.

 

[waltzconmigo]

wow---this thread has been drifting a little but in a very interesting direction.

genesis--- I have a few questions regarding these reactors. All of this stuff is far above my head technically, i would be qualified to do nothing more than work on the construction of the reactor, so please keep this in mind. I am not trying to hassle you but this is your link so i thought i would direct my questions to you. Others please feel free to chime in as well.

Assuming everything in the link is true, I have no reason to doubt you, there would be some relevant hurdles to be overcome. First, i support more nuclear so this seems to be an energy source i could get behind. Considering this, how do you propose to get around the NIMBY crowd. I do not think we have build a nuclear reactor in 30+ yrs. (btw, i see the disaster in Japan as a design flaw, the unforeseen happened. the flooding of the generators, from my understanding, caused the major problems not the damage caused by the earthquake. I could be wrong here so please correct me if the analysis has changed.)

When you say reactor the NIMBY crowd will be out with their picket signs before they even understand the technology/process. We have had local problems with thorium, I do not know how common this is. I know that this has nothing to do with your proposal but it gives the anti-anything crowd more ammunition to lead those with blindfolds. (for more info. on this search DuPage county IL. specifically West Chicago and Lisle, I believe.) So when you say reactor and thorium there will be backlash from the get go, wether this is valid or not.

Secondly---We have not built or run one of these in decades according to the link. I am guessing there is no permitting/licensing procedure to build a reactor. As you are aware, nothing happens quickly in this country, so this would take years to fully accomplish at a minimum. How long would construction of such a reactor take, I believe it takes around 5 yrs. for a nuclear reactor.

If i put all of this together, a few years of a public relations campaign + a few more years of debate about the actual permitting/licensing process + building one or more reactors, i would guess this is somewhere between 10-15 yrs. down the road. Right about when Cafe would be rising. This is all assuming that you can get some sort of public support and that the current environment in DC/country has tempered back a bit.

So we are left with a proposal that is a decade away at least with no assurance of ever coming into being or Cafe, which is current policy and will go into effect at about the same time. I think you are forsaking the better for the perfect. Like I said, if thorium reactors are everything you say they are then why not support both. At the very least we will get a greater variety of cars sooner or later and maybe auto companies will begin offering things sooner to slowly roll the public into the mindset of the cars that will help with there Cafe numbers.

Just a few thoughts,
Thank you for your time,
ciao,
waltz

 

[kjclow]

(btw, i see the disaster in Japan as a design flaw, the unforeseen happened. the flooding of the generators, from my understanding, caused the major problems not the damage caused by the earthquake. I could be wrong here so please correct me if the analysis has changed.)

My understanding from what I've read/heard is that the Japanese failure was due more to poorly maintaned back-up equipment and procedures. IIRC, some of the back-up pumps were set up to run on supplied electricity instead of individual generators. If the plants down, where is the power coming from? The idea of using sea water as a quick supression for a runaway reactor, again was good in concept, but failed in implementation. Not enough power to run the pumps and not quick enough decision to use them. Also salt water is much more corrosive than fresh water, which even if used correctly it could have lead to later failures.

In Charlotte, we have two reactors, one at the north end and one at the south end of the city, plus at least two coal plants and three hydro plants. Our biggest issues have been with water levels in the lakes getting too low to cool the reactors. Not sure that any of these different design plants would not have the same issues.

 

[specsalot]

...just a realist on our current situation and don't want to see our government auto-pilot us into a death spiral by waiting until we are in crisis before taking any action...

Great thread, lots of thought provoking comments out there. I struggle to remain an optimist, because I believe that technology and common sense tends to solve issues over the long haul.

Markets are very good at making certain types of decisions, solving certain types of problems. That said, resulting solutions may not always meet expectations. As we've learned in the past 5 years markets are not perfect and can make serious mistakes in asset allocation when conflicts of interest shape the process.

Unfortunately my take is that the current generation of politicians (Dem/Rep - doesn't matter) have recognized that it's much easier to drive agenda's during crisis. Political brinksmanship and Realpolitic gave the world WWI. Unfortunately fools never seem to learn from history.

While I do not agree with much of the political commentary in the book, I would recommend for group, Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". Some of her examples are a bit stretched, but it paints a picture that this type of conduct is becoming the pattern of play.

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/the-book

In the case of vehicles and fuel economy, there's no real magic fix required. When fuel prices go up, people will buy more fuel efficient cars.

The high technology quotients required to support emission requirements and fuel economy standards favor advanced designers / producers who can deliver the goods. Over time, this will price vehicles out of reach of some consumers. Its all part of dealing with real (or manufactured scarcity) of energy. If you are a believer in peak oil theory (debatable) rationing will occur whether we like it or not.

Best I can see, Bosch is still king of the hill when it comes to delivering low emission solutions. Despite the current HPFP issues, it implies VW (and the rest of the German contingent) will hold leadership in autos for the foreseeable future.

Not sure if this adds to the discussion here, but like all postings - it feels good to speak one's mind. Best to All.

 

[tikal]

I agree with other posters that 'cleaner' diesel technology is unfairly restricted in the US due mainly to ignorance in my humble view (big difference between heavy-duty diesel transportation and non-commercial light-duty diesel vehicles).

The electrification/'hybridiation' will not be an efficient solution for the size of what the American consumer likes to drive. I am not talking about Suburbans/Escalades/Hummers but more like a medium size SUVs: Ford Explorer, Mazda CX-7, etc. Cleaner diesel is the answer for the average American sized car.

Electrification of cars require further 'dirty' mining to extract the rare minerals to make the batteries. The environmental impact needs to be calculated as part of the future CAFE equations/regulations (mining is also unsafe in many countries supplying raw materials for batteries).

I see that continued instability of the world+speculation will keep pushing fuel prices higher and force the consumer to ask for more efficient vehicles. This combined with some balanced CAFE standards (see above) will further accelerate increasing our national fleet MPG IMHO.

 

[specsalot]

This article on Wiki looks like a decent summary of what happened in Japan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

After the fact, its clear that none of the designers seriously considered the potential for tsunami's in their disaster planning. This is indirectly another example where "markets" do not make good decisions. Developing site plans that were more tsunami resistant probably raised total installation costs to a point where construction was not feasible. Putting all their eggs in one basket (location) was probably a NIMBY issue.

The US is lucky because much of our Nuclear technology began with US Navy developments. ADM. Rickover understood that there could be no nuclear incidents or the program would have been scrapped. The same safety culture developed in US utility commercialization.

What is really scary at this point is the accelerated development of nuclear reactors in China. In the US plants were built with 3rd generation skilled craft labor under rigorous quality standards. In China they will be built by folks on the "learn while you earn" program. I suspect safety / quality will wind up taking a back seat to economics.

Read up on the Chernobyl disaster. It's pretty mind numbing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Even the events at TMI are not at all reassuring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

I was in my senior year in college studying engineering when TMI happened. My class went on a field trip to a research lab / think tank on Long Island the week after TMI. We got a first hand briefing from BNL folks who consulted with TMI folks on the transient. None of us in the briefing could believe that the facility had one entire tier of emergency core coolant equipment tagged out for maintenance at the same time. I'm glad this truth made it to the light of day.

What's not in the article which the BNL folks highlighted was that the B&W design was prone to "turbine trips". So much so that B&W designers elevated the time delay between turbine trip and reactor scram to 7 seconds. Most other reactor designs scram within 1 to 2 seconds of a turbine trip. This change probably played a role in the sticking of the pressurizer relief valve which was the proximate cause of the rest of the issues there.

 

[tditom]

I agree with other posters that 'cleaner' diesel technology is unfairly restricted in the US due mainly to ignorance in my humble view (big difference between heavy-duty diesel transportation and non-commercial light-duty diesel vehicles).

The electrification/'hybridiation' will not be an efficient solution for the size of what the American consumer likes to drive. I am not talking about Suburbans/Escalades/Hummers but more like a medium size SUVs: Ford Explorer, Mazda CX-7, etc. Cleaner diesel is the answer for the average American sized car.

Electrification of cars require further 'dirty' mining to extract the rare minerals to make the batteries. The environmental impact needs to be calculated as part of the future CAFE equations/regulations (mining is also unsafe in many countries supplying raw materials for batteries).

I see that continued instability of the world+speculation will keep pushing fuel prices higher and force the consumer to ask for more efficient vehicles. This combined with some balanced CAFE standards (see above) will further accelerate increasing our national fleet MPG IMHO.

The emission standards being adopted in 2014 in Europe will be almost the same as those we have here, so I don't think it has anything to do with the clean air standards and everything to do with what marketing folks conclude about current American attitiudes toward diesel passenger vehicles.

I think the new CAFE will lead everyone to conclude that diesels are a viable option for this market.

 

[specsalot]

... I see that continued instability of the world+speculation will keep pushing fuel prices higher and force the consumer to ask for more efficient vehicles. This combined with some balanced CAFE standards (see above) will further accelerate increasing our national fleet MPG IMHO.

Oil pricing is managed by the faulty pricing mechanism based in part on manipulation of key global bench mark rates. Manufactured political instability helps support the over development in the Gulf that buys domestic political stability among producers. Now that China is no longer able to hide the contraction of their economy, pricing could likely revert to the $50 level which probably more actually reflects true supply / demand relationships. No real surprise that War with Iran is now getting more and more air play. After all western banks who manage middle east real estate development need to make money too.

I know I sound like one of those "tin foil hat" kind of posters here. But if you do a little digging you will probably draw some of these same conclusions.

 

[specsalot]

...
I think the new CAFE will lead everyone to conclude that diesels are a viable option for this market.

Very true. In the end things like CAFE help sort of "guide the way" for producers. Much better than CARB which as others have point out here appears to be obstructive as much as constructive.

In the end we all wind up with high technology quotient vehicles that by their nature become expensive to maintain. I guess it's all part of the rationing process. Doesn't me we have to be happy about it or like it.

I'm as much of an environmentalist as the next person. But after a while it's a little tiring to always have the government out in front pretending to be smart enough to tell the rest of us what to do.

 

[GoFaster]

This article on Wiki looks like a decent summary of what happened in Japan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

After the fact, its clear that none of the designers seriously considered the potential for tsunami's in their disaster planning. This is indirectly another example where "markets" do not make good decisions. Developing site plans that were more tsunami resistant probably raised total installation costs to a point where construction was not feasible. Putting all their eggs in one basket (location) was probably a NIMBY issue.

The US is lucky because much of our Nuclear technology began with US Navy developments. ADM. Rickover understood that there could be no nuclear incidents or the program would have been scrapped. The same safety culture developed in US utility commercialization.

What is really scary at this point is the accelerated development of nuclear reactors in China. In the US plants were built with 3rd generation skilled craft labor under rigorous quality standards. In China they will be built by folks on the "learn while you earn" program. I suspect safety / quality will wind up taking a back seat to economics.

Read up on the Chernobyl disaster. It's pretty mind numbing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Even the events at TMI are not at all reassuring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

I was in my senior year in college studying engineering when TMI happened. My class went on a field trip to a research lab / think tank on Long Island the week after TMI. We got a first hand briefing from BNL folks who consulted with TMI folks on the transient. None of us in the briefing could believe that the facility had one entire tier of emergency core coolant equipment tagged out for maintenance at the same time. I'm glad this truth made it to the light of day.

What's not in the article which the BNL folks highlighted was that the B&W design was prone to "turbine trips". So much so that B&W designers elevated the time delay between turbine trip and reactor scram to 7 seconds. Most other reactor designs scram within 1 to 2 seconds of a turbine trip. This change probably played a role in the sticking of the pressurizer relief valve which was the proximate cause of the rest of the issues there.

How much do you know about the CANDU reactor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

All reactors in Canadian nuclear plants are the CANDU design, and it is my understanding that these reactors have inherent safety features compared to the light-water design used in US reactors - and they require less uranium.

The only issue that I know of has been that the long-term maintenance cost has been high, but this may have been due to the plants literally running them into the ground before fixing anything, thus necessitating a major overhaul ...

 

[waltzconmigo]

kjclow & specsalot---- thank you for your input on the japanese failure... the wikipedia description of events at chernobyl would be almost comical if not for the catastrophe results.

i should leave any comments at that for now as it is late and i do not wish to violate forum rules. no political comments...

good night,
ciao,
waltz

 

[LiLredTDI]

His point is that there are already tens of thousands of Suburabans, Escalades, Hummers, etc... and nothing is being done to retire them now. It's "sit and wait until they can't be driven any longer"... which can be 20-30-40 years. Not exactly a "proactive approach that will more quickly reduce consumption and will stretch the remaining supply longer."

Gee...............So let us just bury all of these offenders in the landfill and build new ones

How about all of the abuse of natural resources to mine, manfacture, recycle etc. to build new stuff?

Wish we could mine and sell good common sense it would be worth the effort spent. Mandating all of the ultra high efficient vehicles will only result in HIGHER fuel prices as alot of money used to repair roadways is from fuel taxes. Our government ALWAYS has their hand out for more do-ray-mi!!! It will be forgotten and not brought to consumers attention that these vehicles will also be much, much lighter so road repair should be much less.

 

[RNDDUDE]

...pebble-bed reactors.....google it.

 

[Genesis]

There are a whole bunch of linked issues here that have to be dealt with as what they are -- linked issues.

We've spent a literal 40 years screwing around with energy policy and tying it to defense, which has led to terrible distortions in both areas. That has to stop but it's not easy to stop, because there are very-entrenched interests that like it the way it is.

Second, it takes a LOT of energy to produce a vehicle. Simply scrapping the existing ones means you pay twice -- you throw away the investment in the existing vehicle's production (in terms of energy) that you never amortize out and then you spend again to replace the transport capacity. That's actually pretty dumb when you add it all up.

Fukushima happened for a number of reasons; one of the more-serious problems was that their switchgear got flooded and there were no spares nor access to them in prompt fashion. Without switchgear you can't power the pumps and without pumps you're dead in a conventional nuclear plant. Losing grid-tie was part of it, having their generators flooded out (with the exception of two) added to it, and then the destroyed switchgear was the cherry on the cake. All of this was avoidable but humans make mistakes and the "rule of 3s" got them -- the first error rarely kills you, the second is bad news, and the third is normally the one that takes you over the cliff.

LFTRs are not a perfect technology but they solve two problems at once -- fuel supply and waste reduction. They also produce much-higher quality process heat. One of the very serious problems with traditional nuclear power is the quite-low quality heat they produce; this is caused by the use of water as a moderator and thus you are limited by the critical temperature (~374C.) While it's theoretically possible to go beyond that there are serious control and moderation problems that arise when you reach that point, so existing designs all stay away from it on purpose. A PWR, for example, runs at an exit temperature of about 315C, leaving a roughly 50C margin between operating temperature and critical temperature.

The problem is that this low-quality heat sucks. It leaves you with Rankine-cycle turbines for generation, which is why these plants need ridiculous amounts of cooling water and are thus all sited near huge fresh or seawater heat sinks (big rivers, lakes or oceans.) That of course exposes them to serious "natural event" risks (e.g. tsunamis.) It also is why the thermal efficiency is typically in the 30% range; the rest of the energy is literally thrown away. Thermodynamics, in short, sets the limits beyond which one cannot operate, just as is true for vehicle engine efficiency.

Incidentally, the Canadian CANDU design is a derivative of the standard PWR that Canada developed because it can run on unprocessed natural uranium and is capable of being refueled while in operation. Canada went this way due to not having access to enrichment technology at a reasonable cost when they were developing their nuclear program. The price of doing what they did is that CANDU uses heavy water as a moderator which is god-awful expensive.

The are also gas-cooled and liquid-metal-cooled designs out there but they have problems as well; Fermi I was a liquid sodium commercial power-producing plant but the others have been experimental, fuel-producing or research in their operational goals. There are a number of reasons why these designs have not turned into commercial successes with some of the most-serious being positive-temperature-coefficients in some of them, the potential to assemble a prompt critical mass by accident (theoretically possible in all breeder designs and most fast-neutron designs) and thermal conduction issues (common in gas-cooled designs) that limits the rational output that one can obtain via scaling up for commercial use.

The LFTR was originally designed with the intent of attempting to power an AIRCRAFT with a nuclear reactor. That didn't work out so well but the technology is wildly different and has a number of very attractive features compared to the traditional uranium/plutonium fuel cycle. You must reprocess online with an LFTR to remove neutron poisons, which is one of the "greenie weenie" objections; the NIMBY folks target reprocessing because without it all nuclear power systems will eventually choke on their own waste and have to be shut down. The LFTR, however, produces only about 5% as much high-level waste as does a traditional uranium-cycle plant as it inherently avoids producing much in the way of transuranics and what it does produce it burns up quite efficiently, extracting the energy instead of wasting it in a used fuel pool or burying it in a mountain somewhere. It also runs at a process temperature of about 650C which is of dramatically higher quality than any water-moderated reactor, and this makes for much higher thermal efficiency. Combined thermal efficiencies approaching 50% are very much within the realm of reason for such a plant, where you simply can't get out of the 30s with a PWR or BWR design. This in turn means that the plant's thermal output is about half of what an equivalent PWR or BWR requires, which in turn means it burns less fuel over time. It too is fueled online and is passively safe; since the moderator is in the reactor vessel and the fuel dispersed in the working fluid in an emergency simply draining the working fluid into containers of sufficient linear space allows passive cooling of fission byproduct heat and an unattended, no-machinery shutdown. Because the fluid does not boil there is no need for high-pressure-rated piping and containment systems, simplifying the design. If there is a pipe break the affinity of the fluoride salt for other elements will tend to bind the reaction products rather than release them into the environment and in addition once the fluid cools it solidifies and is thus much easier to clean up and contain than a water release. One material negative is that due to the reactivity of fluorine Hastelloy is required for the reactor vessel and piping, and it's expensive, but the material itself is a known quantity and is regularly used in chemical processing plants today for its corrosion resistance (in other words its expensive rather than being an engineering problem to solve.)

There's a lot more but I'm probably boring people here...

(Yes, I'm somewhat of a physics and chemistry wonk in addition to other things... my next-door neighbor, during my childhood, was one of the plant physicists at Fermi I and I developed quite an interest in the technology behind nuclear power in my youth and have maintained that interest and investigation over time...)

 

[kjclow]

Great write up with lots of info. Thanks

 

[thebigarniedog]

Again, the idiom is rejecting the good for the perfect and accepting the status quo. The status quo needs to end. Nothing that burns fossil fuel is going to emit pixie dust and flowers, despite the desire of CARB to achieve such perfection. Their tenacity on achieving such results has stymied the US market to a triage of a hobbling together the same crappy engines that were available with different sheet metal on top from five years ago into new craptastic offerings for model year 2013. An object at rest tends to stay at rest and the automakers are perfectly content with these offerings, irrespective of the cost of fuel or the additional cost of hobbling these engines with further fairy dust converters.

We might as well dispense with the window stickers that declare vehicles ULEVs, since SUVs that get crappy MPGs bare them with pride. I am not advocating throwing out the baby with the bath water (ie scrapping all SUVs, Trucks, and sport cars). I am advocating the removal of the lack of movement on bringing into this Country engines that get great mpg. I am hopeful that CAFE will light the proverbial fire under the arses of some to force movement, because everything else has failed.

The upcoming mk7 redesigned Golf is a good example of why this needs to happen. Look at the engines that will be available for launch in Europe vs the proposed engines that will be available in US. It is of no comfort to me that the 2.5 is the proposed engine for the US. Indeed, it exemplifies why CAFE is needed.

 

[MrMopar]

In the end things like CAFE help sort of "guide the way" for producers. Much better than CARB which as others have point out here appears to be obstructive as much as constructive.

I wonder if we will ever reach an "equilibrium" point with CAFE and CARB locked in balance: CARB being restrictive of the diesel engines we need to meet CAFE regulations.

Gee...............So let us just bury all of these offenders in the landfill and build new ones

They will probably recycle the materials from the vehicles as they are scrapped.

It will be forgotten and not brought to consumers attention that these vehicles will also be much, much lighter so road repair should be much less.

The heavy trucks that do over 90% of the road damage aren't going to disappear.

 

[truman]

^However as our economy adjusts to the new normal, we will buy less, which will result in fewer large trucks on the road. Additionally, high fuel prices shifts more of the load to rail.

 

[thebigarniedog]

^However as our economy adjusts to the new normal, we will buy less, which will result in fewer large trucks on the road. Additionally, high fuel prices shifts more of the load to rail.

High fuel prices shifts more of the load onto the price of goods and services we all buy, including food.

 

[bhtooefr]

But if it creates investment in rail, that could be a temporary issue.

Or, it would shift demand to locally-produced goods, improving the local job situation and reducing fuel usage from shipping foods across the country.

 

[nickeasy]

I think we could change that with some pre-emption laws for vehicle emissions. Many states have firearms law that prohibit cities or counties from passing laws more restrictive than state law. No reason the Feds couldn't assert sovereignty over emissions laws like that via the Commerce Clause.

According to Article 1, Section 8.3 of the Constitution of the United States, Congress shall have power....."To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes:". Emissions laws are not commerce. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

 

[bhtooefr]

The commerce clause has been abused for much less, though.

 

[nickeasy]

The commerce clause has been abused for much less, though.

Yes, you are right bhtooefr. There must have been an early problem with understanding States Rights versus Federal and we were given the 10th Amendment to clarify the staus of the states.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

 

[bhtooefr]

Although, EPA is on the borderline of not actually being an abuse of the commerce clause, actually. Emissions from one state can certainly affect commerce in another state.

 

[thebigarniedog]

But if it creates investment in rail, that could be a temporary issue.....

Unlikly. The proverbial bolt was shot in 2009 with all that spent stimulus for infrastructure that went down a rat's hole. With a 16 trillion national debt, and a 1.1 trillion deficit this year, this Country is not in the position to spend on such projects in the near-term or for that matter even pay our bills it seems. The "hated Private equity" would have to step in and attempt to make "hated profits", to accomplish this task. New Rail lines, however, require eminent domain proceedings (which requires public money) and new lines require long term planning. In summary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ

I blame Bob ........

 

[MrMopar]

According to Article 1, Section 8.3 of the Constitution of the United States, Congress shall have power....."To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes:". Emissions laws are not commerce. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

The Constitution no longer matters, it seems. To pass a law all you have to do is say "The Constitution guarantees Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness. This law helps people achieve that."

But if it does have to be Constitutional:

Gonzales v. Raich

Wickard v. Filburn

Supreme Court ruled that commerce activities conducted solely within the borders of individual states altered supply/demand in other states, and thus was "commerce among the several states" that is subject to Congressional control. CARB meddling with emissions alters demand for vehicles within the borders of individual states, and thus can affect other states.

With a 16 trillion national debt, and a 1.1 trillion deficit this year, this Country is not in the position to spend on such projects in the near-term or for that matter even pay our bills it seems.

Yes, we are now snowballing. The United States is now "that guy". We are that guy that makes interest only payments on loans. We are that guy who can't even make the minimum payment.

 

[kjclow]

I'm not sure that we are even making the interest payments. Interesting to think that CARB regulations may be unconstitutional. Although, at least in the paint industry, the regulations, which follow close to the CARB outline, adpotion is still up to each individual state.

 

[MrMopar]

We developed technology in the 1950s and 60s that we refused to exploit at the time due to our desire for nuclear weapons.

All the plutonium for nuclear weapons came from the Hanford Site. Those were water-cooled reactors that produced zero electricity, running solely for the purpose of plutonium production and dumping waste heat into the air and Columbia River.

We already had plenty of nuclear weapons when breeder reactors were experimented with in the 1960s. Commercial power generation came to BWR and PWR designs for simplicity, ease of use, and the benefit of not having to use heavy water.

 

[Pat Dolan]

Problem is that not enough of the public gives a damn for anyone that comes after them.

There is a finite amount of oil. You can't wait til you are almost out to switch over to new technologies. Forcing conservation is an effective way of stretching the supplies we have left while we are converting to other means of transportation.

There IS a far better way to get the results and still leave market forces to shape things: put the true full life cycle costs of ANY energy source on the table, and make the supply system pay up front. This is diametrically opposite to the brain-dead subsidies for truly stupid fuels (ethanol, I might mention) or the free pass given to petroleum crude oil (first producers high-grade the reservoirs with very low cost of production - losing the gas cap, often damaging the reservoir and NEVER paying the costs of emissions from process and remediation of the damage caused on the way through). People will not stop wasting energy until they are faced with a represntative bill for what they squander - and that only government has the power do do (note: the power, not the brains).

BTW: in automotive world, the real issue should be why do we drive most trips at all, never mind how much fuel we waste doing so. Cities designed to force people into hour++ commutes from the 'burbs are more significant than just about anything else - ESPECIALLY when 90% of said commutes produce zero wealth or product of any kind - just pollution and resource waste.

 

[MrMopar]

^However as our economy adjusts to the new normal, we will buy less, which will result in fewer large trucks on the road.

I'm not a terribly materialistic person but the US (and world) economy revolves around people buying things. Trade is what makes an economy. A "new normal" of people buying less is a death spiral for the USA. It's a luddite dream that has us back to zero growth, riding horses everywhere.