Eugenio M.

I think you should make a list with all the ideas to save energy (with attribution) as a small section of your blog... that's really a good idea and an way to get people to participate to the 'creation' of your blog.

I would make it illegal for cars to go faster than 85 miles an hour.

Your ideas are correct of course, but...will people voluntarily adopt them? Yes if they are back to the wall with no other options available, and their children whining about hunger.

When I was in college I had a Fiat 600 (600 cc engine) it was a lot of fun to drive and it used so little gas I never bothered to figure the MPG, at $.32 a gallon even a poor college student could drive. Keep up your good work!

"I know this sounds like a bumper sticker, but it is nonetheless true that energy independence is National Security."

to me "energy independence" would be a very poor "bumper sticker" choice: since what if energy became nearly free? what would stop humans from using that energy to acquire other resources?

for example, cheap energy (relatively) could be used to clear cut forests and extract more minerals.

I certainly hope that people understand that there's no free lunch.

Nice article, as usual. However, a more appropriate title would be "Energy Independence Should Be National Security" since it obviously is not currently treated as such.

I have to respond to your article. Sorry to be pedantic, but the gearhead in me can't let this go.

The CVCC Compound Vortex Combustion Chamber was a great idea, but Honda hasn't produced an engine using it in some years. It's hard to nail down, but it appears 1988 was about it. Long boring technical explanation aside, basically modern fuel injection has provided the same clean burning with greater power and efficiency without the mechanical complexity of the CVCC head design.

I agree with your article, especially after having just returned from Europe where I spent two weeks driving around with 3 other people in a Hyundai micro-minivan that got 47 mpg @ $8.25/gal (diesel) and we were all comfortable. It would still go 85-90 mph (autoroute/strada/bahn speeds) and was pleasant, if a bit noisy, to drive.

If the US automakers put in the effort that they expended on the SUV craze, we'd have some stellar little cars. Of course it could be (and has been) argued that the US auto makers have lost the plot and are doomed to obsolescence in a few short years. How many American cars do you/your friends own? Not many I'd wager. The West coast is a lost cause for the Big 2.8.

"Please don't tell me it's impossible unless you're an engineer with Honda Motor Company, in which case I would ask you to look at your own company's vehicles from 1972."

.... or 1994, for that matter, when a Honda CR-X HF, with a 1.3l gas engine, easily got 40mpg on the bogus federal measurement standard and was well known to get 50+ when driven sanely.

But okay, you say, that car is too small to be safe..

How about a 2000's (say, a 2003) Volkswagen Passat TDI Wagon? 50mpg is easy in that, one of my co-workers averages 48mpg in the metro Washington DC area with one. It's plenty large enough to carry everything you own and your family.

But you say it's too slow?

Not really. Accelerates to 60mph in about seven seconds. Plenty good. Faster than your average 1970's car with a V-8 in it, anyway.

Hybrids are, frankly, bulls**t. Let's put a thousand pounds of fancy expensive laptop batteries in a car that can't exceed *any* performance metric that similar vehicles have been able to do for decades and charge more for it! Oh, and they're silent in cities, so blind people and bicyclists can't hear them. Oh, and they make the tools and knowledge barrier of entry even higher for your home mechanic.

Now why can't I get a 2.4l 4cyl turbodiesel 4wd pickup truck in the united states anymore? Toyota still makes the same basic truck they've been making since 1980 on the international market, but I can't even import one for *ANY* amount of money, unless it's from 1987. Makes me absolutely insane. Cummins even makes the engine you'd want for it right now.

(As an aside, yes; I'm betting on biodiesel and pure electrics. We're never going to make the trains run in any reasonable time schedule, and we're too dependent on keeping the trucks rolling. When the gasoline shortages and rationing come; truckers will still get diesel, even if you can't fill your car. Home heating oil as well.. we'll be (comparatively) awash in diesel fuel, but "gasoline" is going to be something only rich car enthusiasts buy for their occasional drive in their collector cars.

Out in the rural areas, I'm expecting a mixture of algae and thermaldepolymerization based diesel, probably generated on-site, and in town; pure electrics. and here's how I do it: You litter the city with those little Toshiba micro-nuclear plants {200kW for 40 years for a few million dollars a pop}, and you put a paddle charger like from the old EV-1 at every parking meter. You put an RFID tag in the car, and a reader in the paddle. You park anywhere in town, you plug in, you charge up, and you get a bill at the end of the month. Done.)

Anyway, 40mpg is simple in cars. You're setting the bar too low, unless that's a fleet average, and then, I think it's a little unfair. we need a "large truck and van" fleet with a 35mpg average (yes, this means replacing 8 and 10 cyl gasoline engines with 6 and 8 cyl turbodiesels) , and a "passenger car" fleet average of 50mpg, and we need it 5-8 years ago.

Comedy of the day: overheard two people complaining to each other about gasoline prices at the gas station. One was on a Kawasaki Ninja, and the other was on a Suzuki GSX-R. Sportbikes, both of them. MPG ratings in the high 40s.

Below are some of my comments on "Energy Independence Is National Security":

1. start supporting basic research on efficiency and alternative energy on a much larger scale.

I agree this is a good idea...

2. require all electronic/electrical devices to shut off rather than remain in power wasting "standby mode."

This is a bad idea (and will waste even more energy) since most people are happy with the "almost" instant on with standby mode. If the government bans stanby mode many people will just leave the items on all the time so they won't have to wait for them to warm up.

3. mandate another round of serious efficiency improvements in all appliances.

Another bad idea, people will ask for energy efficient appliances (just like they are now asking for energy efficient cars) if they want them.

4. raise the mileage standards of all vehicles to 40 miles per gallon effective next year.

Why not just make us ride mopeds since they get over 100mpg small light cars are safer than mopeds but they are not as safe as big heavy powerful cars (since they will be crushed when hit by a heavier vehicle and because they are not safe in the mountains since no vehicle today can take a family of 5 with gear for a weekend skiing up Donner Summit at the speed limit getting 40 mpg)

5. lower speed limits to 65 MPH and enforce the limit.

Why not let people drive as fast as they want if they pay for the tickets they get and pay for their own gas.

Like most liberals he Ross is not good at math.

He writes:

This is the easiest, most obvious way to boost mileage by 10-20%--lower speeds from 75+ MPH to 65 MPH. We'll all still get there, believe me. Just as an experiment, the last time I drove home from Los Angeles (380 miles) I drove about 65-67 MPH most of the way. I wasn't in a big hurry, though it certainly seemed like everyone else was; most of the vehicles whizzing past were traveling in excess of 80 MPH. (This was at night, by the way.) The slower pace added about 20 miutes to a 7-hour drive, but is this really the end of the world?

At 66 MPH it will take 5 hours and 45 minutes to drive 380 miles (if you didn't stop). At 75 MPH the drive time will drop by 41 minutes (a lot more than 20) and if you drive 85 (as he said most of the vehicles were) you will cut the drive time by about an hour and 15 minutes.

6. close entire streets to vehicles, creating safe, convenient bike lanes.

I ride about 100 miles a month on average (since I ride a lot less in the winter) but most people won't ever ride a bike (or do any kind of execrcise). I was just in the Wal Mart in Dixon and estimate that the average adult weight was well over 200 pounds. I did not see any women that weighed less than me at 180 pounds and all the women were well under my 6'2" height...

7. subsidize bus, train and subway rides with a $1/gallon tax on gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Bus, train and subways are already subsidised and the cost is not the reason that most people don't ride them. When I worked in Marin it would take me three hours each way to use public transportation (three buses and the ferry) or 12 minutes in the car. I could take the three buses and the train to my parent's house on the Peninsula 16 miles away and it would take close to three hours each way (including the mile walk from the closest bus stop) or 30 minutes in the car.

8. make building in the distant suburbs/exurbs either impossible or extremely expensive, and make building more low-rise housing in the city and inner ring essentially quick and cost-free to developers, non-profit and for-profit alike.

Why not let people live where they want. I bet liberals would hate it if the government made them live on rural farms and grow (or kill) their own food (rather than a block away from the hip book store, coffee shop and City Car Share)...

I don't agree with much of this post.

First, I don't think self-sufficiency in energy is a good goal. I don't think self-sufficiency in *anything* is a good goal. Trade is good and allows people to specialize, increasing the wealth of the entire world. There's nothing wrong with sending money to people who have something you want, and expecting them to send money back to you for something you make that they want. The problem in this particular area is that so much of the world's oil production is in the hands of governments, which don't act for sensible, economic reasons, but do all sorts of deranged political things. Also, the high percentage of the economy of the Middle Eastern oil states dedicated to one industry distorts the incentives (non-oil portions of the economy are neglected.) If it were a more equal arrangement, like trading American grain for Japanese cars, I'd be all for it.

Second, you are asking for contradictory things. You want higher efficiency via small cars, inner city residences, and lots of bicycles. That would drop the price of oil by lowering demand. But if the price of oil were lower, no one would want any of those things. People *like* McMansions with yards in the suburbs and big SUVs to drive. The price of oil will go up until they can't afford those things. The demand will back off just enough to maintain the balance between supply and demand. This is how a free market is supposed to operate.

And by the way, biking to work in the California sunshine is one thing. Doing it in the snow and cold in the Northeast is another. Living in a civilized neighborhood with upscale markets in walking distance is one thing. Living in roach-infested studio apartments in neighborhoods with blaring music, street racing and constant crime is quite another.

Third, your whole argument here is to cut down on people's freedoms to enforce your agenda. As if you are the only one who wants to do that! You'll be competing with all the other busybodies out there who think they have the one and only ANSWER. I dread the Democratic agenda we'll get from Obama and company if he gets elected. There's going to be a lot of people who think, like you seem to, that they can wave their legislative wand and solve all problems.

If you didn't have this bizarre anti-market bias that's so common, you'd work with the economy instead of against it. Instead of raising the costs of building in the suburbs, you'd lower the costs of building in the city -- most of those costs are related to government regulation. Instead of passing laws against low-mileage cars, you'd allow imports of high mileage cars, like the European diesels and Japanese minicars. You'd keep the states from each insisting on their own grades of gasoline, so that three or six grades would satisfy the whole country, instead of the 30 or something we use now. And you'd cut the regulations that prevent the building of nuclear plants, refineries, oil wells, etc. We're shooting ourselves in the foot there, and blaming foreigners for it.

Finally, I kind of resent that whole comment to the effect that everything good is developed by the government, or universities. It's especially annoying when people say that "government invented the Internet." DARPA put out a request for proposals for reliable network *protocols*. TCP/IP was the system that Berkeley built in response. There were other commercial alternatives even at the time. Since TCP/IP was done on government contract, it was released free of charge. The people at Bell Labs (private company) put it into Unix. Unix was also distributed free to universities, which built up a large group of programmers familiar with TCP/IP. Even so, commercial systems almost won the battle, since they were in use on so many more computers. In the 80's, people thought that CompuServe or IBM or someone would set the future direction. Eventually, there was a TCP/IP package written for Microsoft Windows 3.1, and that tipped the scale. The Internet really took off when cheap modems became available.

Your "government invented the internet" story is really an open-source success story. If TCP/IP and Unix hadn't been free, something else would have won for sure. The government had almost nothing to do with it. They put in probably $20,000 or so for the initial grant, and ran ArpaNet for a few years. All the rest of the billions of dollars of hardware and software that has made the Internet what it is was spent by private businesses.

You are just deluding yourself if you think that private incentive is marginal and can be replaced by government action. If that were the case, the old Soviet Union would not have been an economic basket case.