The True Cost of Gasoline

What are you paying for gasoline now? Around $3 a gallon, give or take a quarter? Yeah, us too. Pretty cheap isn’t it? You don’t think so? Think of the effort needed to produce it. The crude oil has to be retrieved, loaded into transport vehicles, and taken to a seaport. Here it has to be pumped into tanker ships, which have to carry it from the middle east (or wherever, Mexico, Venezuela, pick your favorite unstable region) to a US seaport, where it is off-loaded into tanker trucks and taken to a refinery. Here huge amounts of energy are expended refining the crude oil into various products that we can’t do without: gasoline, diesel, kerosene, engine oil, asphalt. Then the gasoline is loaded into trucks and distributed to the network of filling stations around the country. And it’s only $3 per gallon? That’s cheap! How can they sell it so cheap you might wonder. Well, its because the government subsidizes the oil industry. In other words, the government pays part of the price so that the oil industry can sell it cheaply to us. Because of course we wouldn’t buy so much of it if it were more expensive, would we? But the government wants to keep us all trucking along in our vehicles, spewing CO2, because it’s good for the economy for us to be out on the roads. The bottom line here is that the price we pay is artificially low—it is fake.

Suppose the government stopped paying subsidies to the oil industry. The price of a gallon of gasoline might double (just a guess) to $6 or so. Would we still pay it? We’d grumble, but we’d pay it. It would cost about the same as a gallon of fancy bottled water. But we still wouldn’t be paying the TRUE cost of that gallon of gasoline. There are a lot of things that are not factored in to the price we pay at the pump. Some of these are:

1)The cost of environmental damage due to CO2 emissions during extraction of crude petroleum.

2)The cost of environmental damage due to CO2 emissions during transport of crude petroleum.

3)The cost of environmental damage due to CO2 emissions during processing of crude petroleum.

4)The cost of environmental damage due to spills of crude petroleum, either at the drilling station (recent Gulf of Mexico incident) or during transport (Exxon Valdez).

5)The cost of environmental damage due to CO2 emissions resulting from burning gasoline in automobiles.

6)The diminished quality of life for future generations who will have to survive on a diminished, depleted, hot earth. The diminishment/depletion is a direct near-future result of our continued insistence on using gasoline to support our selfish lives of constant consumption. This is a huge economic issue, but is even more a moral issue. We are committing crimes against future humans. If they were living now, we would be subject to a massive class-action lawsuit.

If we were to factor in all of these ignored costs (called externalities by the fossil fuel industry), the price of a gallon of gasoline would probably be 10 (or 20? Or 100?) times higher than it is now. So let’s consider ourselves lucky. We get to keep on ruining the planet and it won’t cost us much at all!

Wind Energy

Today, driving east on I-40 through the panhandle of Texas and the body of Oklahoma, I saw 3 wind farms. The two in Texas were moderately sized, perhaps 50 turbines each, and the one in OK was larger, somewhere between 100 and 200 turbines I'd guess. This is an ideal locale for wind farms, flat, treeless, and windswept. The turbines are magnificent: each blade is longer than the trailer on a flat-bed 18-wheeler. It was great to see those turbines facing into the wind and turning at uniform speed, generating clean electricity!

I've heard complaints to the effect that the turbines destroy the appearance of the landscape, but I find them much more appealing than the erector set towers that support the high-tension power lines of the grid. The fact that they give us non-polluting, non-CO2 generating electricity makes them beautiful.

Each turbine generates about 2 megawatts of electricity, so I saw about 400+ megawatts of electricity being produced today. Probably enough to completely power a small town or two.

There's plenty of room in these two states and in other states for wind turbines. Lets start installing them! Kudos to Texas and Oklahoma, both oil states, for moving in this direction.

Very Unusual Weather

Have you noticed, as I have, that in this fall and winter of 2010 we have had and are having "unusual weather events" with increasing frequency? Here are some examples:

Right now, there is a very unusual deep freeze covering about half of the geographical US and extending all the way down to Florida, where it is endangering the citrus crop. This deep freeze is accompanied by extensive snowfall in the midwestern states. Meteorologists admit that a cold wave like this so early in the winter season is unusual. In Minnesota, meteorologist say that it is the most powerful storm to hit Minnesota in "a long time." Within the past 2 weeks there was 3 feet of snow In Buffalo NY in a period of (I think) 48 hours, and 16 inches of snow in northwest Indiana.

There have been 2 recent incidents of cruise ships caught in intense storms causing huge waves that tossed cabin contents and people around in their rooms for as long as 2 days. One occured South of Cape Horn involving a ship returning from an Antarctic cruise, which experienced 45-foot waves. The other involved a ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in which there were hurricane force winds and huge waves. The latter has been called "unprecedented."

Over the past few years there have been increasing numbers of increasingly strong tornadoes, not only in the usual places (midwest) but in unusual places (like Arizona). Similarly, hurricanes seem to be increasing in number and strength. The worst year was 2005 when there were 27 named tropical storms (a bit more than our alphabet can handle). Katrina hit in August, then Rita in September, then Wilma hit in October. All were very destructive storms hitting various Caribbean areas. We all know the Katrina story.

Over the last few winters, large snowstorms have been happening in the northwest, where conditions are usually pretty mild in winter.

There are persistent droughts in large regions of Africa (Sahel region in particular), while in other places (recently Pakistan) there are deluges of rain and floods.

In 2003, a long heat wave in Europe resulted in the deaths of 30,000 people (this number varies according to where you read it, so I have picked the smallest estimate of deaths)

The decade of the 1990s was the hottest on record. How about the decade of the 2000s?

In Alaska, average yearly temperatures have risen 5 degrees Fahrenheit in summer and 10 degrees Fahrenheit in winter since the 1970s. Wonder what effect this has on the livlihoods of Alaskans?

California has experienced a very large number of very destructive forest fires. This is a result of drying out of the forests, which is in turn weather related.

Huge swaths of mountain forest in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming have been devastated by the pine bark beetle (Cathryn and I saw this during an RV trip this past summer-both campgrounds in Rocky Mountain National Park looked like RV parking lots full of stumps). This also is weather related in two ways. First, the trees had dried out enough to make a comfortable temporary home for the beetles. Second, the reproductive effectiveness of the beetles has been enhanced by warmer average temperatures in the mountain regions.

What is responsible for this escalation in severe and unusual weather? Actually, this is one of the predicted (as early as the 1980s) consequences of the gradual and persistent increase in average global temperature caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is called global warming--you all know about it. Many of you don't "believe in it", asking things like "How is a cold wave in the midwest consistent with global warming?" The answer is to be found in understanding the difference between weather (a daily, local phenomenon) and climate (average weather over the entire globe and over a relatively long period of time, usually a year or a decade).Global warming refers to the average temperature of the surface of the earth over, say, the period of a year. Weather in a given location varies widely from season to season, even day to day, as it always has, and is unpredictable. Climate, on the other hand, is quite predictable, precisely because it is an average of weather over a long period of time. You can read about this.

Rising average temperature has consequences, many consequences. One of these is that oceans warm up. This of course means more rapid evaporation of water from the oceans and soils. This means more water vapor in the atmosphere. This means more precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, hail). This also means more intense hurricanes and tornadoes, both of which gain energy from the heat released when water vapor condenses. Larger amounts of water vapor mean more available heat to fuel storms. It all ties together in a way that is quite logical at the same time that it is quite scary. Even if we completely stopped producing CO2 right now, average global temperature will continue to increase gradually for at least a century, due to the time lag involved in the huge oceans to heat up to the point that the earth gives up energy to space at the same rate that it receives it from the sun. This means things are going to get worse weather-wise even if we stop CO2 production cold right now. As the oceans warm up, they will release come of the CO2 that is now dissolved in them (gases get less soluble in water at higher temperture), exacerbating the greenhouse effect. This is called a positive feedback (phenomenon A causes phenomenon B causes phenomenon C which enhances phenomenon A).

Just more food for thought as you continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere by driving (very bad), using your cell phone, using your computer, turning on a light, running your washing machine and your dryer (very bad), your refrigerator, your microwave, your oven, your stove (very bad), your toaster, your power tools, your TV, your sound system, your radio, your shower, your lawn mower, your dishwasher, your flashlite, your motorcycle, your automatic garage door, your vacuum cleaner (very bad), your coffeemaker, your coffee bean grinder, your electric carving knife, your blender, your toaster oven, your ipad, your kindle, your...

Is there anything we can do that does not make our situation worse?

Some Things We Should Do

Hope you read my earlier post, and told your friends about it. If you tell 10 friends, each of them in turn tells 10, and so on, it only takes 6 iterations to reach 1 million people (10 to the 6 power). This is a significant number of people!

This is one of those times that tempts us to think that because the problem(s) are so huge, there is nothing that little old me can do about it. Well, let's scrap that thinking. There are things you (and I) can and must do. First, read and FORWARD this email. Second, begin to educate yourself. Go on YouTube and look for Chris Mortenson, then watch his videos and read what he has to say. Then look at all the other videos etc that come up along with it. Read some books. I will shortly send you a must-read list, two of which are particularly important: Prescription for the Planet (Tom Blees), Fossil Fools (Joseph Shuster). If you read these, you will realize that the problems that we have are very solvable. All that stands in the way is the government. Yeah, I know, we're all busy. Sorry, but that's no excuse. This is so important that it trumps everything.

Third, we have to exert our power as consumers, and just flat stop buying from the companies that ignore and/or exacerbate our problems. Consumer power speaks very loudly in the US of A. Please do NOT purchase anything from any of the following companies, which are ignoring the problem and, worse, actively engaged in trying to downplay it and hide it from us:

Exxon-Mobil. Let's drive them right out of business. Use BP/Amoco or Shell instead, b/c they are making efforts in the right direction (not fast enough, and not intense enough, but in the right direction). Please do not buy any gasoline from Exxon-Mobil, no matter how cheap it is. Also don't buy the generic stuff b/c probably most of it comes from Exxon-Mobil. And don't believe their glorious tv ads about making hydrogen from oil. That's an absolute dead end.

Don't buy any more gas guzzling vehicles, and as soon as you can get rid of the ones you have. This will mean buying Japanese, and not American. Nothing that gets less than 35 mpg should be allowed on the road. There are good hybrids, well worth the price, and even fully electric cars now. I'm afraid that Ford, GM, and Chrysler are hopelessly out of it, and do not deserve to any longer be in business. If you stop buying from them, they will get the message and start following the example of the Japanese.

Don't buy anything that is encased in multiple layers of plastic, which you just throw away (come on, admit it--you don't recycle it!). It goes immediately back into the environment where it will sit undecomposed for millenia, crapping up our oceans, lakes, rivers, parks... And just where does all this plastic come from, anyway? You guessed it! Tell me, why does a box of tea have to be encased in plastic on the outside, then inside there is another plastic wrapper, then each tea bag is individually wrapped in plastic! Unbelievable, and a pain in the butt to open when you must have that tea in the morning.

Fourth, write a bunch of letters to your newspaper. The media is doing a very poor job of educating the public about the major problems that we face. Why? Because if they start connecting severe weather events (admit it--there have been an awful lot of them lately) with climate change, they will lose their advertising revenues from the companies causing the problems. These are big revenues. There are numerous documented examples of news organizations that have essentially been told to shut up or else. Get email addresses for the meteorologists on your local TV channels and bombard them with email. Enough email will get a reaction.

Enough to do for now? Great, please go do it, starting with forwarding this to at least 10 of your most important people.

A Look at the Problems

A complex, urgent situation faces us as citizens of the United States and more importantly the world. I ask you to read this message, then get the message out to all of the people who are important in your life. It is crucial that we spread the word about the situation that we are in so that necessary changes can begin as quickly as possible. The consequences of our failing to act will fall upon our children and grandchildren. When they realize what we have done to them, they will not think favorably about us!

Here are the main elements of the situation:
1) Our economy (and those of other nations such as India, China, Japan, etc.), focussed on continuing and escalating growth, is using up the resources of the world at an exponentially growing rate. These resources are finite and in many cases reaching their limits.
2) To sustain growth, we are incurring exponentially growing levels of DEBT. We are now somewhere between 45 and 75 trillion (!) dollars in the hole, and getting more so every day. (A trillion dollars is a stack of $1000 bills 67 and a half miles long). Who will have to pay this debt?
3) Continued economic growth of the type we have had in our lifetimes is impossible because it is driven by the burning of fossil fuels. We are now at what is called "peak oil". This means that petroleum and its products are now being produced at the maximum possible rate, and that from now on this level of production will decline. How then can the economy keep growing if we continue to rely on these fuels?
4) Burning fossil fuels is destroying our environment in a variety of ways. First, much destruction is done in digging it up (especially coal, which provides half of our electricity in the US, and a greater proportion in China and India). Second, burning it (esp coal) pollutes the air with soot, mercury, arsenic, lead, sulfur dioxide (acid!), and radioactive materials. Many people die every year from the effects of coal soot so that we may turn our light bulbs on, use our computers and cell phones, and heat our homes. Third, burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide, which accumulates in the atmosphere and causes the earth to warm up. Just as an example, every time you burn 1 gallon of gasoline driving around in your car, you put 17 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. If we look around, we can already see some of the consequences predicted from this warming (weird weather, more and stronger storms, melting ice, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, forests dying from bug infestations, so on). This is only starting.
5) Exponentially increasing world population (7 billion now, 10 billion within 30 years) means more demand for stuff which means bigger economies, which means more fuel burning, which means....

Basically the three E's (Economy, Energy, Environment) and their interdependence are entwined in a situation of some urgency, requiring immediate attention by our government and those of other nations. This will only come if WE insist upon it; if our voices become more numerous and louder than those of big business, in whose pockets our politicians sit and whose short-term economic bidding the politicians do. We can shout loudly via the internet. PLEASE send this on to people you care about, whether or not you agree with all of it, because they may agree with it and join in the chorus.

In a future posts I will give you some resources that you can look at to start educating yourself in these matters (assuming you are as ignorant and confused about it all as I was!). A great place to start is "Crash Course" by Chris Martenson, which you can find on YouTube.