Get me out of here!

You’ve probably heard of peak oil, and maybe even peak fish. But have you heard of “peak middle-aged people”?

That’s right: The Census projects that the aging of the baby boomers is sending the population of 45- to 54-year-olds in the United States into reverse. In fact, that age group reached its near-term peak in 2010. Even as the overall population is expected to grow, we’ll actually have fewer 45- to 54-year-olds in 2030 than we do today:

This demographic shift will almost certainly affect driving trends.

There’s some good news in BP’s most recent Statistical Review of World Energy: in the US, total greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels fell 1.8% from 2010 to 2011. And in even better news, total US emissions have fallen by more than 7 percent from their 2005 peak. (Note that Barry Saxifrage recently spotted the same trends in data from the International Energy Agency.) But there’s also some really, really bad news. In fact, here’s the most frightening chart I’ve seen in weeks, created by Sightline pal Devin Porter, showing total climate-warming emissions from fossil fuels consumed in the US and China: Just as …

A version of this article originally appeared at Sightline Daily.

Photo by Michael Edson.

I’ve been thinking about upgrading to an electric car for awhile now. And in today’s market, there are plenty of models to choose from.

But having a lot of options makes for a complicated decision! Each model of electric car has its own unique mix of efficiency, charging time, and driving range -- and since buying a car is a big decision, I want to find the model that makes the most sense for my family. To add to the confusion, there doesn’t seem to be any single, unified source of information on the many electric car options out there.

So, for my own convenience -- and hopefully yours -- I pulled together a table with basic stats on the major electric and plug-in hybrid cars:

Click to embiggen. (Sources include the manufacturers’ websites, Wikipedia, FuelEconomy.gov, and Motor Trend Magazine.)

Cars -- who needs 'em? (Photo by André-Pierre Bodson.)

Cross-posted from Sightline Daily.

In a story about the decline of youth car culture, The New York Times quotes an advertising exec on the feelings of today’s youth toward the auto:

“They think of a car as a giant bummer,” said Mr. Martin. “Think about your dashboard. It’s filled with nothing but bad news.”

True dat. I’m not young anymore, but looking at my gas gauge is one of the biggest downers of my day. Though as I’ve argued before, a big part of waning interest in cars among young people stems from economics rather than cultural shifts: Gas and cars are expensive, youth unemployment is high, and young peoples’ wages are down. And besides, new licensing laws have made it more difficult and costly for many teens to get a license, while making driving a lot less appealing. (When I was 16, the lure of cruising around with friends was a major impetus for getting my license -- but today licensing laws in many parts of the country forbid teens with new licenses to drive with a bunch of friends.)

Regardless of the reasons, the latest figures show that driving is continuing to decline -- not simply among young people, but across the board.

Photo: Cyril PlapiedCross-posted from Sightline Daily. Tuesday's news carries a story that I've been expecting for a while: Connecting Washington, a task force convened by Washington's governor, has called for $21 billion in new transportation investments over the next 10 years. I haven't seen the recommendations themselves, only the news report. But it looks like the money would get spread around a bit -- with some for ferries and some for transit -- but from what I can gather, most of the money would be slated for roads. So in the upcoming months, I expect we'll be hearing a lot …

Photo: Joost J. Bakker IJmuidenThis post originally appeared on Sightline Institute's blog. Here's an interesting study (not free, unfortunately) by University of Washington engineering professor Stephen Muench, reviewing the literature on the energy and CO2 impacts of road construction. His study looks mostly at the construction phase itself, rather than the use of the road. In a nutshell: Manufacturing roadway materials generates somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of the CO2 emissions associated with road building. Transportation of equipment and materials to the job site accounts for 10 to 30 percent, and construction activities at the job site itself account for …

How do the Leaf's emissions stack up?Finally. If you don't like being dependent on oil -- but find that you do need to drive -- you've got at least one decent option. The Nissan Leaf is the first mass-produced, mass-market electric vehicle to hit the U.S. sales floors in ... well, essentially forever. (Yeah, I know about the Tesla and the EV1. But the former is too expensive to be in the range of most families, and the latter was never really offered for sale -- you could only lease it.) The Leaf's a bit pricey, but for many families …

Don't be confused, we've got some good news.Photo: Corie HowellCross posted from Sightline's Daily Score blog. Great Scott, how did I miss this? Late last month, the EPA released a draft greenhouse gas inventory, showing that net climate warming emissions from the U.S. fell by a whopping 15 percent from 2000 through 2009 [PDF]. A 15 percent decline? Wow. Just wow. But the story gets even more dramatic. Over the same period, the U.S. population grew by about 9 percent. Combining the two trends, net per capita greenhouse-gas emissions fell by 21 percent over the decade. And most of that …

Photo: Steve RhodesCross-posted from Sightline Daily. [CORRECTION: As mentioned in the comments under this post on Sightline, this discussion of the "Coase theorem" contains several errors -- most notably, that Coase himself did not present his arguments mathematically. In fact, according to a number of sources, there really is no single "Coase theorem" -- instead, there are several different and somewhat conflicting notions that followers and interpreters of Coase have presented as theorems. For more, please read the comments on Sightline.] Those inclined to be uncharitable might see the phrase "free-market environmentalism" as somewhere between oxymoronic and greenwashing. But I'm …

Cross-posted from Sightline Daily. You might think that vehicle safety studies are all about the crash dummy tests you see on TV, with simulated collisions. But those kinds of tests don't tell you how often collisions occur. A car that does well in a simulated crash test might not actually be all that safe in the real world, particularly if it's bulky and hard to maneuver on on the road.  And that's what Dr. Tom Wenzel of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has pointed out repeatedly over the past decade: Bigger vehicles like SUVs aren't always safer vehicles.  There's a …