Articles by Clark Williams-Derry

Is using trees for biomass a good idea?

I point this out not because I'm in favor of it, but because I think it's a trend worth watching: the Klamath Falls, Ore., newspaper, The Herald and News is reporting on a project to use biomass--namely, thinned trees--to generate electricity.

Here's what the article has to say about the greenhouse gas effects of the project:

A major wildfire would release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. But the controlled use of that same wood for lumber or electrical production would be positive in terms of "greenhouse gas" emissions. Future fires would not release the same amount of carbon dioxide, the wood that goes into building products stores carbon, and the biomass that goes into power production offsets the need to produce that energy from fossil fuels.

To be clear, I remain skeptical -- but since I don't really know anything about the specifics I'll keep my mouth shut, and let wiser or more informed people speak.

But over the long term -- and if future prices for natural gas are as high as they're expected to be (link goes to natural gas futures contract prices) -- I can't help but think that the pressure for this sort of project will intensify. And that seems to be a cause for concern. Deforestation rates over the past 30 years have been high enough just to deal with demand for timber and wood pulp; adding electricity to the mix is, well, troubling.

Washington Monthly considers peak oil.

Blogger Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly has a well-written, informative, and balanced set of posts of the so-called "Peak Oil" theory -- the idea that, while the world may not be running out of oil, exactly, we may be fairly close to the practical limit of how much oil can be squeezed out of the ground in any given year.  After the peak, goes the theory, oil production gradually declines, no matter how high the price might go. 

(By the way, oil production in the United States peaked in 1970.  Even with new production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, and billions of dollars invested in domestic oil production since then, the US still produces about a third less oil per year than it did at the peak.  The Peak Oil theory is basically the hypothesis that the entire world is about to do the same thing that the US did in 1970 -- reach a physical maximum of production, after which oil supplies gradually and continually decline.)

I've posted on the topic before, and have nothing new to add.  But I think it's definitely something worth familiarizing yourself with -- at a minimum, to put the recent rash of media stories on the subject in context.  The Washington Monthly series is a pretty good place to start.

Transportation choices are made as much with the heart as with the head.

This New York Times article from last Saturday echoed news that has been popping up all over recently. The headline sums it up: "America's Love Affair With S.U.V.'s Begins to Cool." Higher gas prices are apparently starting to shift people's car-buying patterns -- which seems to have caught most auto-industry execs by surprise, though it should hardly come as a shock to economists who (quite naturally) expect that price changes will eventually change people's behavior.

But what stuck out at me was this quote from a former SUV aficionado:

"I never wanted a car before -- never," said Tamika Cooks, a science teacher at Bellaire High School in Houston, in an interview Friday as she was signing the paperwork for her Chrysler 300C. "But this car has captured my attention. It speaks to me. It calls my name."

Increasing numbers are changing the cars they buy based on fuel economy.

From the Christian Science Monitor, evidence that consumers are beginning to think about gas prices as they make new vehicle purchases:

Last month, 49 percent of new-car buyers, the highest level ever, had changed their mind or were thinking strongly about buying a vehicle they would not have considered because of gas prices, according to a survey by Harris Interactive and Kelley Blue Book.

Over the short term, rising gas prices only affect consumption a little bit, because people have only so much flexibility to change their driving habits. Over the long term, though, people start making more fundamental changes -- where they live, what they drive -- can lead to more significant reductions in how much gas they use.

There's still plenty of room for skepticism. Sales of hybrids are surging now, but some industry analysts are predicting that demand will top out, with hybrids commanding a small share of the market. (Some of those skeptics, of course, are from car companies that don't produce hybrids -- so take those predictions for what they're worth.) But then there's this:

Even McManus -- the hybrid cynic-turned-believer -- has serious doubts about how big an impact even a massive surge in hybrid sales will have on reducing America's oil dependence. His analysis, for instance, shows a "rebound effect. For every 1 percent decline in the cost of fuel, Americans drive 1.85 percent more.

That number seems way too high to me, and this lit. review by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute seems to agree. Still, all else being equal, increased vehicle fuel efficiency does tend to reduce the cost of driving a mile, which in turn increases the number of miles people drive. Which leads to this seeming paradox: in a world of hybrids, we might drive more, but still use less gas.

In other hope-inspiring vehicle news, cleaner diesel vehicles may be on their way.