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Off the Top of My Head

Did Biden Shoot Himself in the Foot by Putting the Kibosh on Russian Oil?

by John Lawrence

If Putin wanted to ruin the US economy, he couldn't have done it more successfully than if he himself had refused deliveries of Russian oil. The US and European embargo on Russian oil has driven the price of oil on the world market sky high, and Putin is benefiting from the price increase! In fact he has made more money from the sale of oil this year than he did last year! No wonder Putin is smiling. He's laughing all the way to the bank as his war in Ukraine not only devastates Ukraine but drives inflation in the US, UK and the rest of Europe while US sanctions on Russia's economy does little or no damage. Do they really need imports from Europe or the US when China is the world's manufacturer of practically everything, and China is an ally of Russia? Not every financial transaction in the world involves the US dollar. Furthermore, Russia's blockade of Ukrainian grain is causing food prices to rise which makes for another increase in inflation. But even worse than that, countries that depend on that grain consumption will likely find their citizens going hungry further contributing to world political instability.

Biden's insane pandering to Saudi Arabia after declaring them a pariah country will not do much to lower the price of gas even if Saudi Arabia increases production to their limit. They don't have the ability to fully replace the potential supply of Russian oil. So win or lose the war in Ukraine, Putin is having a debilitating effect on the US economy while there is not that much of a debilitating effect on Russia's economy. Another reason this is so is that the Russian ruble is a fiat currency not pegged to the US dollar so the Russian central bank can spend as many rubles as necessary to keep consumers and businesses going. Even MacDonald's has been "Russianized" so that MacDonald's pull out has had little or no effect on the Russian preference for US fast food. Furthermore, Russia and China, among a few other nations, have been hard at work to limit the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) envisions a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty in the region. China's Belt and Road initiative also is furthering the cause of dedollarization of the world economy. However, China's currency is pegged to the US dollar so China needs to hold dollars in its account at the Federal Reserve, but Russia's currency is fully convertible. That's how it can demand that Finland pay for its gas in rubles thus supporting that fully convertible currency. Russia, therefore, is not dependent on the US dollar. It just needs to import anything that it doesn't produce domestically and China can provide that.

Meanwhile, the US is dependent on the supply chain from China which has been disrupted lately causing more inflation. Dependency on China for most of its products while trying to cast China as an adversary is not a very good idea. The proposed Cold War with China is only pushing Russia and China closer together. Meanwhile the war in Ukraine is becoming a money pit for the US government which is spending billions and billions to give Ukraine a never ending supply of weapons. This is also inflationary because, whereas the product is shipped to Ukraine, the money is spent right into the US economy via the US weapons manufacturers. To fight inflation money needs to be extracted from the US economy hopefully by means of taxing the rich and not taxing anyone making less than $400,000 a year as Biden has proposed. Whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Putin has proven that by withholding Russian oil from world markets, he can drive up the price of gas and cause inflation in car centric America.

As US Funds Pentagon Bloat, China Investments in Green Energy Soar

A staff member charges an electric bus at a charging station on April 1, 2022 in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

In the first quarter of 2022, China is expected to take 65% of the global market in new-energy vehicles.

 

Juan Cole

April 8, 2022 by Informed Comment

China is beating the pants off the United States in the burgeoning new energy vehicle market, out-producing and out-selling America with regard to plug-in vehicles by a massive margin. Whereas the Chinese government is supporting this new industry, the US government is still subsidizing fossil fuels and is spending $728.5 billion a year on the Pentagon at a time when the US is not even at war. The result is bloated and problematic engines of destruction like the failed F-35.

In 2021, about 4 million EVs were produced around the world. That year, China made 57.4% of them.

In the first quarter of 2022, China is expected to take 65% of the global market in new-energy vehicles, according to Yang Yang at China Daily.

China exported about 500,000 new-energy cars in 2021, 2.6 times more than the previous year,. China's EV exports to Europe rose fivefold to 230,000 units write Akashi Kawakami, Yohei Muramatsu and Saki Shirai at Nikkei Asia.

You know whose EV exports to Europe did not increase five times in 2021? America's.

In contrast, the US automakers accounted for just 12% of global EV sales in 2021, Nikkei Asia says, Worse, the US lost market share in this sector compared to 2020. We're not only not at the forefront of this industry, we are falling behind.

The US Republican Party and their plus-one, Sen. Joe Manchin, are preventing the US from becoming the dominant automaker in the world in this decade by consistently shooting down the green energy and transportation provisions of the now-moribund Build Back Better bill backed by President Biden.

The major Chinese automaker BYD announced Sunday that it now no longer even produces gasoline-driven vehicles using internal combustion engines (ICE). The US looks increasingly like a backward, lumbering dinosaur in this new, green technological environment.

Inside China, EVs had been 6% of new vehicle purchases at the beginning of 2021, but skyrocketed to 22% by the end of last year. That is an increase of 1.3% a month every month, Yang points out.

In absolute numbers, in January 2021, China sold 173,000 new energy cars. In January, 2022, 372,615 new plug-in vehicles were registered. That is more than double—115%.

This are incredible numbers.

In 2021, about 4 million EVs were produced around the world. That year, China made 57.4% of them. This year its market share is increasing significantly.

Chinese firms are aggressively invading formerly Japanese-dominated car markets such as Thailand, Nikkei Asia says. The country's largest producer of automobiles, SAIC Motor, sells its MG EP new-energy car in Thailand for 30% less than the price of a Nissan Leaf EV.

---

© 2021 Juan Cole

Juan Cole

Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His newest book, "Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires" was published in 2020. He is also the author of  "The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East" (2015) and "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East" (2008).  He has appeared widely on television, radio, and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. 

Off the Top of My Head

China Leads the Way on Electric Vehicle Production

by John Lawrence, September 19, 2020

A Chinese company has developed an electric car that can go 438 miles without recharging. They have developed an infrastructure of charging stations. China surpassed the United States to become the world's largest automobile market in 2009 with a record 13.9 million vehicles sold in the country, compared to 10.43 million cars and light trucks sold in the United States. China leads the world in deployment of electric vehicles. At the end of June 2019, almost half the electric cars and 99% of the electric buses in the world were in China. China reached its goal of 5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2020. China is both the largest manufacturer and consumer market for electric vehicles in the world, accounting for more than half of all electric cars made and sold in the world in 2018. China also makes 99% of the world's electric buses. China manufactured and sold about 1.2 million plug-in electric vehicles in 2018, which was more than three times the sales in the US. China has become the fastest and largest growing market for electric vehicles in the world. New electric cars had a market share of 4.2% of new cars sold in China for the entire year of 2018. Big cities like Shenzhen and Beijing are rapidly adopting electric vehicles -- for example, all of Shenzhen's 16,000 public buses are now electric, and soon all of its 22,000 taxis will be electric cars as well.

You see, dear reader, the US needs to play catch up. That's exactly what Joe Biden wants to do. China subsidizes its electric vehicle industry and subsidizes the purchase of electric vehicles by the public which can be purchased for $30 to $40 thousand US before subsidies of $8000 or so making them very cost competitive with gas guzzling vehicles. So China has an industrial policy which is so far anathema in the US. For the US government to have an industrial policy or to subsidize certain industries smacks of socialism. But without Joe Biden's plan or some other plan, the US will fall far behind China in electric vehicle production and for the necessary R&D and infrastructure. China's EV production is also part of their plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They also need to replace their numerous coal fired electricity generating plants with renewables.

The number of EV charging stations in China is growing rapidly. In January 2019, the Chinese Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Agency (EVCIPA) reported 808,000 EV chargers in China (an 80% increase in one year). Of these, roughly 330,000 were public chargers, and 480,000 were home chargers. China has hundreds of auto manufacturers, many of which are owned in whole or in part by provincial or local governments. According to some reports, as many as 200 Chinese auto manufacturers have produced electric vehicles. In 2018, 1527 fuel cell electric vehicles also were sold in China, bringing the country’s total fuel cell electric vehicle fleet to 3428.

But it's not only China's government or SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) that are investing in China's EV market. It's China's private sector as well. In 2019 Evergrande, a Chinese firm believed to be the biggest real estate company in the world and backers of electric vehicle startups like Faraday Future and NEVS, announced a massive $23 billion investment in the production of 1 million electric cars and 500 GWh of batteries per year. With a valuation at more than $100 billion and revenues of over $40 billion, Evergrande is now looking to expand into electric vehicles. After acquiring large stakes in two electric vehicle companies, Evergrande claims to have “acquired key technologies in the sector” and now plans to launch its own production of electric vehicles in China in a big way. So why aren't American corporations making investments like these? They still seem committed to producing gas guzzlers. The Trump administration even has challenged California's attempts to set higher emissions standards. Trump revoked a longstanding waiver that allows California to set higher fuel emission standards than the federal government. The US is going backwards on greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the earth burns and floods.

The waiver revocation is also part of the Trump administration’s longstanding attempt to roll back federal fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. Californians buy more cars than people in any other state, which means the emissions standards it sets for itself have big repercussions on the US economy as a whole. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have also adopted California’s vehicle emissions rules. So the California waiver was a big impediment to the Trump administration’s larger goal of rolling back regulations that were implemented to combat climate change. As a global warming denier, Trump is committed to dumping more rather than less greenhouses gasses into the atmosphere.

China's economy is a fusion of a socialist and free market economy so it's somewhat unique in the world. Like the US Federal Reserve, the Chinese central bank, the People's Bank of China, can print yuan, the Chinese currency. The Chinese market is more devoted to manufacturing for both internal sales and export while the US economy is now focused more on financialization which means making money off of money or betting in the Wall Street casino. The US is devoted to making money by any means necessary which has led to increasing inequality. The Chinese market is more devoted to making money from sales of actual goods and services and is less financialized. So US capital doesn't go so much into manufacturing as it goes into financial markets. China is more dedicated to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions while the Trump administration doesn't even believe in global warming and is a full steam ahead fossil fuel supporter.

Off the Top of My Head

A Jobs Program for Inessential Workers
by John Lawrence, April 30, 2020

Turn inessential workers into essential workers by putting them to work building green infrastructure. This is essential work that is not getting done. Much of the previous inessential work they did is better left undone even in a recovery. It is still inessential. It'll always be inessential compared to what needs to be done in creating and building green infrastructure. Building out solar and wind renewable energy could employ thousands if not millions of people. Repairing roads, bridges, waterways, clean water systems, airports, railroads and all other infrastructure could employ millions. This is essential work that has remained undone despite the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given the US a D rating for infrastructure. High speed rail needs to be built. The widespread adoption of electric cars has to be mandated, and construction of a national electric vehicle charging network to power them has to be built.

Unemployed people still need jobs. Mark Cuban said on CNN this morning that there should be a jobs program similar to that of the New Deal. He is exactly right although he didn't make the necessary connection about the essential work that's still being left undone and the inessential work that doesn't need to be done even in a recovery. Forget Cuban's sports and entertainment enterprises. I hate to tell you that they are basically inessential. What is essential is greatly expanding the public health undertakings of the Federal  government which has been totally behind the curve in this pandemic.

We must ask ourselves what is essential and not go back to a new normal in which all the inessential businesses of the past are brought back just in order to provide employment to the millions who have lost their jobs. The pre-pandemic economy was 70% consumerism. The economy post epidemic should be much less a consumerist economy and much more an investment economy. The four components of gross domestic product are personal consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports. Of these government spending must be ramped up to provide the essential jobs in infrastructure building as well as in the areas that the pandemic has made clear are indeed essential: health care, education, transportation, agriculture.

Government spending must go up; personal consumption must go down. It's as simple as that. As for business investment, it's a lost cause as business will only do what's profitable for itself as has been made abundantly clear. Investment in fossil fuels and plastics which the big oil companies are making is only destructive to a green economy, not constructive. As far as exports are concerned, the dollar has already been weakened as much as it could possibly be by zero interest rates, so increased exports, although desirable, are not likely to happen any time soon.

Private enterprise knows only one thing in terms of the economy "reopening": get back to consumer spending. It ain't going to happen. People are still afraid of the virus. The pandemic is not over. They will use their money to pay off debts instead of going in debt to the hilt like they are used to. People will save their money instead of entertaining themselves to death. Why? Maybe they have learned their lesson that a high employment economy predicated on the fact that people will always have a job and always have a prepensity to consume is just a chimera. Rather than living paycheck to paycheck, I hope people will understand that there may come a rainy day, and they need to save for that. That lesson has really been brought home by the coronavirus pandemic.

The true heroes are essential workers not the military. The military itself was brought to its knees by COBID-19. There is a lesson there. It's more important to spend our collective money on preparing for the coming pandemic of global warming than on a bloated military. It is more important to house the homeless and guarantee the economic rights of shelter and health care to all Americans as in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. It is more important to help people all over the world escape from extreme poverty because poverty breeds health crises which then can spread all over the world. It's more important to make peace with our rivals rather than try to control them with military threats and sanctions.

May the next President (and I hope to heaven that it's not Donald Trump) see the light of a more rational, compassionate and humane world, one more concerned about the health and welfare of all the world's peoples. I hope Governor Cuomo's values of being tough, smart, disciplined and most importantly loving spread to every corner of US and world society, and we get on with essential business instead of the inessential business of amusing, entertaining and consuming ourselves to death.

Off the Top of My Head

How to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Almost 50% Immediately

by John Lawrence, March 9, 2020

Remember when there was the gas shortage, and you could only get gas on even numbered days if your license plate ended in an even number and odd numbered days if it ended in an odd number? That was in the 1970s. What if the President declared that you could only drive your car on odd numbered days if you had a license plate ending in an odd number and vice versa for plates ending in an even number? Since most GHG emissions are due to car tailpipe emissions, this would cut the GHGs going into the atmosphere by almost 50% here in the US at least.

On alternate days people would have to car pool to work or take public transportation or work from home as many are doing due to the coronavirus. Shippers would have to adjust their schedules and use more shipping by rail. Shipping by rail is much more efficient than shipping by truck. It could be done, but would any President ever have the guts or the balls to do it and incur the wrath of the car centric American people? That's what it really comes down to. If the US is ever to diminish GHG emissions in a radical way, meaning in a way which might actually do some good and have a significant effect, cars would have to be gotten off the road, gas consuming cars at least. Electric car production could be ramped up with government subsidies. Instead the government is still subsidizing fossil fuel production. It just goes to show that people aren't serious about the reduction of global warming. In effect we're a nation of global warming deniers led by the global warming Denier-in-Chief, Donald Trump. He's only concerned about "the economy" not about saving earth for future generations.

The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes. Over 90 percent of the fuel used for transportation is petroleum based, which includes primarily gasoline and diesel. Electrified trains would burn no fossil fuels except those burned in the production of electricity. Electricity production itself generates the second largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately 62.9 percent of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal and natural gas. So electricity production from renewables must be ramped up. Again government subsidies or complete government control could eliminate fossil fuel electricity generating plants in short order depending on how great a commitment there was to do it.

Also plants which absorb carbon dioxide need to be planted on a massive basis. New forests need to be created and logging industries must be controlled. It's not exactly laissez-faire capitalism, is it? In the interests of saving a planet that is habitable for humans and other animals, government must intervene in the free market system because the market will continue to use fossil fuels if it is let to do so.

Off the Top of My Head

Boofin' and Spoofin'

by John Lawrence, September27, 2019

In the never ending saga of the media's never discussing anything of real importance, but instead talking only about Trump and his transgressions, we are treated to the latest travesty by a sitting President - that of asking a foreign President for dirt on his political opponent. So when are we going to discuss Trump's war on California? Trump said California has the "worst air quality in the United States". So what is his solution? To make California's air quality even worse by revoking California’s right to set stricter pollution limits on cars and light trucks than the Federal government requires.

Why does the President of the US even have the right to unilaterally do this without the consent of Congress? Because the Congress is gridlocked and dysfunctional and Trump is making a bid to create the Imperial Presidency ... in other words Fascism. Just last week, the EPA joined the Transportation Department in revoking California’s right to set stricter pollution limits on cars and light trucks. This could put billions of dollars in federal highway funding at stake. Federal officials have the right to halt that money if they determine that a state is not taking sufficient steps to show how it aims to cut air pollution such as soot or smog-forming ozone. But that is precisely what California is leading the nation in doing.

The Washington Post reported:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a statement Tuesday that he and other state officials “won’t be intimidated by this brazen political stunt.”

[EPA administrator Andrew] Wheeler’s letter, Newsom said, “is a threat of pure retaliation.” “While the White House tries to bully us and concoct new ways to make our air dirtier, California is defending our state’s clean air laws from President Trump’s attacks. We won’t go back to the days when our air was the color of mud. We won’t relive entire summers when spending time outside amounted to a public health risk.”​​

Former EPA officials said the letter was an unusual step for the agency to take. “I’ve never seen a letter like this before,” said Janet McCabe, who served as acting assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation under President Barack Obama. “It’s ironic that EPA is taking California to task for not solving the air quality problem when for decades the state has been moving forward with the most aggressive clear air rules and programs in the nation.”

So let's get this straight. California leads the nation on stricter standards of pollution control than the Federal government requires. Yet Trump is threatening to take away billions of dollars in highway funding if California doesn't reduce its standards to the less stringent Federal levels? This is through the rabbit hole illogic worthy of Alice in Blunderland. Trump has a vendetta against California so the way he is taking out his spite is to demand that California pollute more. Otherwise, they won't get billions of dollars in Federal highway funding. Does this make any sense at all? Well, it might make cars and trucks somewhat cheaper if they don't have to comply with California's standards. Many states follow California, not the Federal government, and car manufacturers just manufacture to California's standards since the majority of the nation's cars and trucks are purchased here.

The Los Angeles area and other parts of the mountainous state have long struggled with smog. Trapped by mountains on three sides, the car-clogged Southern California region forms a basin in which dirty air pools. Smog levels rose so high there in the 1950s and ′60s that Congress gave California a special status under the Clean Air Act to set its own pollution standards. ... Bill Becker, president of Becker Environmental Consulting, said in a phone interview that it did not make sense for the administration to punish California for not addressing air pollution in the state when it was simultaneously blocking its efforts to cut down on vehicle emissions.

Trump's solution to every environmental problem is to pollute more, reduce environmental standards. You want clean water. Heck no, let's reduce clean water standards. Trumps administration could be called "Pollution R Us." How dare California have stricter standards than the rest of the nation! The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been leading the world in reducing pollution from automobiles and trucks. Of course, Trump wants to throw a monkey wrench in California's progress. In the 50s and 60s, LA was totally inundated with smog and pollution. Today you can actually see the sun and blue skies.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB or ARB) is the "clean air agency" in the government of California. Established in 1967 when then-governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford-Carrell Act, combining the Bureau of Air Sanitation and the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, CARB is a department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency.

The stated goals of CARB include attaining and maintaining healthy air quality; protecting the public from exposure to toxic air contaminants; and providing innovative approaches for complying with air pollution rules and regulations. CARB has also been instrumental in driving innovation throughout the global automotive industry through programs such as its ZEV [zero emission vehicle][ mandate.

One of CARB's responsibilities is to define vehicle emissions standards. California is the only state permitted to issue emissions standards under the federal Clean Air Act, subject to a waiver from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Other states may choose to follow CARB or federal standards but may not set their own.

Well now, according to Trump's mandate, California can no longer set emission standards, but must pollute more. Whether it's clean air or clean water, Trump is against it. Screw the environment. Let's have more smoke stacks and take those catalytic converters off of cars so they can freely pollute. Why pay more for a catalytic converter? Trump's mumbo jumbo and bizarre thought process might actually appeal to his base which doesn't believe in climate change or clean energy. Their motto is "Burn more coal and drill, baby drill"

Off the Top of My Head

California's Goal to Get Gas Guzzlers Off Roads Conflicts With Consumer Tastes

by John Lawrence, January 26, 2019

California has set tailpipe emissions standards higher than required by the Federal government. In general the EPA sets uniform standards that all states are required to meet. California's standards are stricter, however, and up till now, Congress has granted California a waiver to depart from the uniform EPA standards required of all states. Several other states have followed California's lead voluntarily. This is what the Trump administration is trying to do away with - California's stricter standards. Since California's market is so large, many auto and light truck manufacturers have only produced cars and light trucks that meet California standards.

Meanwhile GM is discontinuing many sedan models as consumer tastes gravitate to pickup trucks and large SUVs which can't by their very nature get as good gas mileage as sedans. They have even discontinued the Volt, a plug in hybrid model that gets 53 mpg. It's also discontinuing the Cruze, the Impala, the Buick LaCrosse and the Cadillac CT6. So while consumer tastes are running towards fuel inefficient gas guzzlers which emit more greenhouse gasses (GHGs), California is requiring more fuel efficient non-gas guzzlers to be sold.

In 1990, the Clean Air Act was amended to define federal emissions standards that took full effect in model-year 1996. These were known as Tier 1 standards. Today Tier 2 standards are in effect. Tier 2 slashes allowable emissions to much lower levels than Tier 1, but more significantly it requires that vans, pickups and large SUVs be subject to the same emissions regulations as passenger cars. California's Air Resources Board (CARB) is even more stringent than Tier 2. However, the fly in the ointment here, in addition to Trump's wanting to not let California have more stringent regulations than the Federal government, is that other states can sell SUVs and pickup trucks that don't meet California's standards. Those vehicles can be bought in other states and driven to California. In this way California could end up with as many high polluting vehicles on the road as any other state.

In order to combat global warming the Federal government needs to set stricter standards for car and truck sales in every state, effectively adopting California standards at the national level. This will not happen under a Republican administration that doesn't even believe in global warming. However, if the Democrats are successful in 2020 in getting a Democratic President and Senate in addition to the House, a Green New Deal could be ushered in so that an EPA director could be appointed who would carry out the stricter standards. For our grandchildren's sake, let's hope so.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Tries to Tell California What to Do

by John Lawrence, January 14, 2019

The oceans are getting hotter than we thought. This has dire consequences for extreme weather as warmer oceans mean more violent hurricanes and typhoons. The ocean has absorbed a lot of the excess heat in the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gasses, but it can only do so much before it reaches its limit. Warmer oceans also mean faster melting of the arctic and antarctic ice sheets, and that means more sea level rise. New York City, Miami, London and Tokyo could be underwater in a few years. They already have huge flooding problems when tides are high or from storm surges.

The New York Times reported:

A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.

“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study. “As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”

As the planet has warmed, the oceans have provided a critical buffer. They have slowed the effects of climate change by absorbing 93 percent of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere.

“If the ocean wasn’t absorbing as much heat, the surface of the land would heat up much faster than it is right now,” said Malin L. Pinsky, an associate professor in the department of ecology, evolution and natural resources at Rutgers University. “In fact, the ocean is saving us from massive warming right now.”

But the surging water temperatures are already killing off marine ecosystems, raising sea levels and making hurricanes more destructive.

The US as a nation has ceded leadership on this issue to California which is doing its best to curb climate change despite the Trump administration's doing its best to stand in its way. California has set a goal to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The Air Resources Board is responsible for implementing the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) in order to meet the 2020 emission reduction goal. California wants to drastically reduce tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks, and the Trump administration is fighting them to not do that. California has sued the Trump administration over its efforts to limit California's ability to set tailpipe emission standards for cars within its own state. State's rights, anyone?

The Sacramento Bee reported:

The Trump plan is also a direct assault of sorts on California’s unique ability to set stricter-than-the-nation guidelines on air pollution, as spelled out in the 1973 federal Clean Air Act. The Trump administration has said it wants to revoke California’s authority.

The Trump plan is also a direct assault of sorts on California’s unique ability to set stricter-than-the-nation guidelines on air pollution, as spelled out in the 1973 federal Clean Air Act. The Trump administration has said it wants to revoke California’s authority.

It also wants to thwart California’s “advanced clean car” regulations, which will require automakers to dramatically increase sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in the state, from about 420,000 on the road today to 1 million in 2025.

California officials said they’re ready to defend the state’s authority to impose strict limitations on carbon emissions.

As things stand now, the plan would reduce tailpipe emissions by one third over the next seven years. That would also increase average fuel economy from 35 miles per gallon to more than 54 mpg; as a practical matter, building lighter cars with better gas mileage is the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But in August, the Trump administration said it would freeze those standards at 37 mpg. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the relaxed rules will save new-car buyers an average of $1,850 per vehicle. But California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the stricter rules would more than pay for themselves through improved fuel mileage; he argued that purchasers would save $1,620 over the life of their vehicle.

Makes sense, right? If you get 50 mpg instead of 20 mpg, wouldn't you be willing to pay a little more for a new car up front? I did. I got a 2018 Toyota Camry hybrid that gets about 50 mpg which saves me a lot on gas. Trump doesn't care about consumers or the environment. He just cares about the quarterly profits of the fossil fuel industry.

 

Off the Top of My Head

GM To Cut 14,000 Jobs in Ohio and Michigan

by John Lawrence, December 5, 2018

Oh, what tangled webs we weave. One of them is US trade policy. Trump is loading up China with tariffs so GM decided to shut down production in the US and move those jobs to China. Why? Because GM sells more cars in China than it does in the US. It is a global enterprise with production facilities all over the world. So rather than make the cars in the US and export them to China, they will make them in China and sell them in China in order to escape the tariffs that China has imposed on aluminum and steel in retaliation to Trump's tariffs. Make sense?

GM is discontinuing some sedan models as the market is shifting towards trucks and SUVs and away from sedans. It is discontinuing the Cruze, Volt and Impala. Ford may follow suit so the layoffs may continue. Vox reported:

The exportation of work on small cars, like sedans, was a concern for some economists when the new US-Mexico-Canada trade bill was signed earlier this year. According to the Washington Post, there were also concerns “that automakers might not make as many cars in North America to export to China and elsewhere overseas because costs would be higher in the USMCA region than making the vehicles in Asia.”

The types of changes GM is making are not unique in the auto industry. In April, Ford announced it would end all production of sedans in North America. Newer companies such as Alphabet, Apple, Tesla, and Uber are also in the race, trying to build the cars of the future.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) expressed his disappointment in GM’s decision, tweeting that “Ohio taxpayers rescued GM, and it’s shameful that the company is now abandoning the Mahoning Valley and laying off workers right before the holidays.”

Yes, remember when US taxpayers bailed out GM during the Obama administration? Some wanted GM to go bankrupt, but Obama decided to save GM. Now that it's profitable again, it has demonstrated that it has no regard for American workers, only for corporate profits. It has no allegiance to the US or its taxpayers, only to its shareholders. Trump has let the genie out of the bottle. Now let's see if he can get those 14,000 worker/voters back into the Republican camp ... the ones that GM recently "let go."

Off the Top of My Head

Why Are There So Many Pickup Trucks on the Road?

by John Lawrence, September 17, 2018

The simple answer is that pickup trucks don't have to meet the same standards for fuel economy as do cars. Therefore, they can be manufactured and sold cheaper. Also in recent years they have added a rear seat so whole families can fit in them and other features to make them more comfortable. The bottom line, however, is that they are gas guzzlers that can be marketed to the American male to make him feel more macho.

In 1979 the government under President Jimmy Carter was concerned about high energy prices and the effect that CO₂ emissions were having on the environment. Jimmy Carter was prescient in a lot of ways. He even put solar panels on the White House which President Ronald Reagan prompyly took down when he became President. Jimmy Carter's government came up with the CAFE standards. CAFE (short hand for Corporate Average Fuel Economy) came as a result of the 1973 oil embargo, as a means to mandate fuel economy targets for cars and light trucks. As a result a vehicle classified as a truck didn't have to meet the same standard (and was therefore less expensive) than a car. Voila! The proliferation of pickup trucks, the cheapest and most gas guzzling vehicles on the road which could be marketed to American males as something inherent to their maledom.

In 1979, while there was a concern over high energy prices and to some extent the environment, there was not the concern about global warming and the fact that pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via tailpipe emissions was not a good thing. Nevertheless, global warming deniers and fossil fuel advocates have paid no heed to the dire consequences of global warming some of which are being visited on the Carolinas todfay. There's also a destructive typhoon in the Philippines which makes Hurricane Florence seem like a tropical storm, albeit a tropical storm capable of dropping 40 inches of rain on a drainage system incapable of handling that much water in a short period of time. Hence, severe flooding.

The CAFE standards have caused the auto industry to morph into something that allows the same gas guzzlers to be manufactured and the same fuel emission standards to be bypassed. They are seen as something to be more honored in the breach than in the observance. The Trump administration openly flaunts and mocks environmental standards that would tend to alleviate global warming. They want more fossil fuel production and more tailpipe emissions. They want the good old days when cars got 10 mpg. They want no fuel economy standards whatsoever. Global warming be damned as far as they are concerned. But they and others like them including the whole planet Earth will reap the consequences of ignoring and trying to subvert Mother Nature. She will have the last word.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Wants to Deny California the Right to Set its Own Tailpipe Emission Standards

by John Lawrence, August 4, 2018

Trump wants more pollution for gas guzzling cars. The Federal government is lowering tailpipe emission standards for the whole nation. At the same time they are in the process of denying California the right to have higher standards than the rest of the nation. Governor Jerry Brown has vowed to fight. What right does the Federal government have to tell California that it must have more pollution. California has set the standard for lowering pollution and fighting global warming as well it should. The state is burning up from causes related to global warming.

It's all about states' rights. California has the right to join the rest of the civilized world and try and do something about global warming which is caused to a great extent by the pollutants emanating from your car's tailpipe. The carbon dioxide coming out of there is a greenhouse gas. The earth is becoming a greenhouse trapping huge amounts of heat in its atmosphere. The heat is causing massive wildfires in California and elsewhere.  But Trump wants to deny the science and say "full steam ahead with pollution."

Fortune magazine reported:

The tit-for-tat continues between President Trump and the state of California.

On Thursday, the administration proposed freezing vehicle fuel economy requirements at the 2020 level and revoking California’s authority under the Clean Air Act to set more stringent tailpipe emissions rules in the state.

But California, a state that has long prioritized lowering its emissions—even going so far as beating its 2020 emissions target four years early, will not take these changes lying down. California governor Jerry Brown vowed Thursday to “fight this stupidity in every conceivable way possible.”

“For Trump to now destroy a law first enacted at the request of Ronald Reagan five decades ago is a betrayal and an assault on the health of Americans everywhere,” Brown said. “Under his reckless scheme, motorists will pay more at the pump, get worse gas mileage, and breathe dirtier air.”

Since such a huge number of cars are sold in California, car manufacturers have to gear their production to California standards. They could make cheaper, dirtier cars for the rest of the nation, but it is not worth it. That's why Trump wants to insist on California lowering its standards so car manufacturers can lower them for everybody. They then can sell a cheaper, dirtier car.

The article continues:

California has previously sued the Trump administration over its auto policies, and the state announced plans for a new lawsuit following Thursday’s announcement. California attorney general Xavier Becerra announced that he would lead 19 attorneys general in a new lawsuit, saying that “California is about progress and 21st century innovation and technology. We’re not about backsliding.”

“The earth is not flat and climate change is real. Can someone please inform the folks at the White House?” he added.

A number of California lawmakers demonstrated their own intention to combat the administration’s proposal, with Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein introducing a resolution in the Senate that would allow California to remain autonomous in its clean air policies. A similar measure was also introduced in the House.

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, also condemned the administration’s policy, noting that it was Reagan who had first requested California’s waiver. On Thursday, he tweeted that “this is a stupid policy and no one asked for this,” adding that “if the president thinks he can win this fight, he’s out of his mind.”

So we have a head-in-the-sand stupenagel for a President, and he has brought in other stupenagels to be members of his administration. He's put them at the head of every department. He's hell bent on making America not Great Again, but on the contrary the Laughing Stock of the world. But to some extent we get what we deserve. This is supposedly a democracy after all. If the Democrats ever get control of the government again, let this be a lesson to them. They will have to undo everything Trump has done just like he is endeavoring to undo everything Obama did.

Will the Price of Oil Collapse Within a Decade, Driven Off Cliff By Electric Vehicles?

Published on Monday, July 09, 2018 by Informed Comment

A million electric vehicles on the road reduces demand for petroleum by roughly 16,666 barrels a day

by Juan Cole

 

4 Comments

 

"We now have a pretty solid estimate for the beginning of the end of oil: 2030 at the latest." (Photo: mariordo59/Flickr/cc)

One of the reasons that Saudi Arabia’s plans for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on its ARAMCO oil have not actually materialized is that investors are not dummies. Saudi Arabia’s oil is an asset with no future value, and the future in which its price collapses is nearer than the oil companies think. (I would argue that if you figure in the cost of coming climate lawsuits, oil already has a negative value, but is certainly already worthless).

A new report by Carbon Trackers gives us some key metrics.

A million electric vehicles on the road reduces demand for petroleum by roughly 16,666 barrels a day.

The world is now producing about 99 million barrels a day, but the price per barrel fluctuates wildly depending on demand swings of as few as 2 million barrels a day. In 2014, for instance, China’s annual rate of economic growth seemed set for a long term reduction from 10 percent a year to 6 percent a year, a result of a maturing economy. That reduction and its ripple effects through the world economy contributed to a fall in demand for oil of about 2 million barrels a day, which caused the price to plummet from a high of $110 a barrel to less than $50 a barrel.

A serial process goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … etc. An exponential process goes 1, 2, 4, 16, 32, 64, 128 . . . etc. Electric car adoption will be exponential, not serial. China sold 680,000 electric vehicles last year. But by 2020 it hopes to be selling 2 million a year, and then to go on up from there. That is, China alone will likely put more electric vehicles on the road than the oil companies expect the entire world to, by 2030. I also think analysts underestimate India’s drive to a national electric vehicle fleet, in part driven by the urban politics of air pollution in cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Europe will buy about 300,000 EV passenger cars this year, up 40% from last, and new, ambitious European carbon goals will almost certainly cause that market rapidly to take off. A key turning point will come when EVs are actually cheaper with regard to sticker price than internal combustion cars– possibly as soon as 2023. This milestone has already been reached in Norway as a result of tax policy, and the results are clear.

Carbon Tracker points out that internal combustion engines will also become much more energy efficient over the next decade, another way in which petroleum demand will be depressed.

So every 60 million electric vehicles on the road causes oil demand to fall by 1 mn. barrels per day. And Carbon Tracker (which collaborates with King’s College London) estimates that by 2027 or so there will be 120 million EVs on the road. They note that the automobile companies vastly underestimate the speed with which consumers will turn to EVs.

The process is already well under way. The International Energy Agency says,

• “Over 1 million electric cars were sold in 2017 – a new record – with more than half of global sales in China. The total number of electric cars on the road surpassed 3 million worldwide, an expansion of over 50% from 2016.”

Let me put this in perspective. A lot of trouble has been caused between Baghdad and Erbil over Norwegian development of Iraqi Kurdistan oil fields, which were licensed initially without reference to Baghdad. A Texas judge even refused to let Kurdistan offload its oil in the US because of Iraq’s objections. One of the fields at issue is Peshkabir, which produces 16,000 barrels a day of petroleum.

If we use Carbon Tracker’s estimates, it means that just in 2017 alone, enough EVs were sold to make the Peshkabir field redundant.

And at 3 million EVs now on the road, world demand has been reduced already by 50,000 barrels a day, enough to make redundant the initial production of 50,000 barrels a day by Brazil’s offshore environmental boondoggle, the undersea Libra field. To take 2 million barrels a day off the market, EV sales just have be be exponential this way, with 2017 being 1:

1, 2, 4, 16, 32, 64, 128.

This progression is unrealistic as such. But add in 4 or five more years and it is perfectly plausible. The IEA expects 120 million EVs on the road by 2030, and points out that if government regulation mandates them, the number could be twice that by that year.

My guess is that as more catastrophes like the 2017 hurricane season or the current worldwide heat wave (which is killing hundreds of people) accumulate, there will be enormous public pressure during the coming decade on governments to mandate EVs and to put in the infrastructure to fuel them from wind and solar.

After 2027 (or maybe even 2025, only 7 years from now), the number of EVs will rapidly accelerate, as virtually all new vehicles bought will be electric (an effect of rapidly falling battery and other component costs and of the fuel for electric cars being essentially free; you can power one off your rooftop solar array).

So, we now have a pretty solid estimate for the beginning of the end of oil: 2030 at the latest. After that, it is a long or short spiral down to a cost set by the world need for hydrocarbon-based fertilizer and other lesser uses of oil (none of which come near to generating volume and prices similar to gasoline for automobiles).

The end of oil will be huge for US politics, economy and foreign policy. Stay tuned.

And if your retirement fund has a significant position in Big Oil, get out of it.

© 2018 Juan Cole

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's EPA Head Rolls Back Tailpipe Emissions Standards

by John Lawrence, May 2, 2018

Just what the climate needs now - more carbon dioxide coming out of the tailpipes of cars. More pollution, more global warming. Scot Pruitt, Trump's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is protecting the environment by mandating that more tailpipe emissions go into it. That means that cars will be sold with lower mileage standards, and you will buy more gas to keep them running. But who cares as long as the oil and gas companies are in a position to sell more gas and make more money. The US is the biggest climate polluter in history. It set the stage for polluting even more when Trump walked away from the Paris accords on climate change. Now they are reducing tailpipe emissions standards so car makers can relax and not have to engineer cars that get better gas mileage.

California is fighting back. Long a leader in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution, California is suing the Trump administration which insists that California lower its emissions standards according to Pruitt's dictates. The New York Times put it this way:

California and a coalition of 16 other states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its plan to roll back greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars, trucks and S.U.V.s.

The move comes days after reports that the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department plan to dramatically weaken federal auto emissions rules. California, which holds a waiver under the Clean Air Act that allows it to set its own standards for vehicle exhaust pollution, has pledged to stick with stricter Obama-era targets.

So the Trump administration which formally doesn't believe in global warming is insisting that all the states follow its dictates and pollute more. Of course states rights, which are always insisted upon by Red states, don't figure here. They are only taken seriously when the Red states want to do something which is counter to a Democratic administration. California has always wanted to have stricter rules regarding auto emissions standards. The Obama administration brought Federal guidelines into compliance with California's higher standards only to have Trump and Pruitt mandate that all the states including California pollute more. “My message to the E.P.A. and administrator Pruitt is simple: Do your job. Regulate carbon pollution from vehicles, defend the clean car standards, don’t tear them up,” Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, said in a press conference.

California wants to get 5 million zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2030. It is doing all it can to prevent a global warming crisis. The Trump administration wants to hasten that crisis. It doesn't care about global warming. In fact it could care less. If California outlaws the sale of gas guzzlers in the state, will Californians have to go out of state to buy their SUVs. Stay tuned.

Off the Top of My Head

I Wouldn't Trust a Self Driving Car

by John Lawrence

As an Uber and Lyft driver, I know that the navigation app leaves a lot to be desired. Sure it gets me to most pick-up locations and most destinations. But most isn't good enough. It has told me to pick up somebody or drop them off in the middle of the freeway. It has told me to turn right on a street where there was no right turn. It has told me to turn left on an impossibly busy street where turning right and then doing a U-turn was the only safe option. Then there are the streets and private roads without any names. It has led me into blind alleys and taken me on wild goose chases.

For the most part San Diego freeways are well laid out and the signage is excellent. The same can't be said for some of the back streets and private roads. Some streets come together at oblique angles and some navigation requires one immediate turn after another. There are all kinds of situations that befuddle humans and probably automated machines as well. Then there are other drivers on the road who driver aggressively, speed or do crazy things. A self driving car could only do so much to compensate for them, and in some situations compensating for the craziness of other drivers would be impossible for humans or machines.

For a self driving car there would be no way to compensate for a crazy or destructive passenger who was intent on vandalizing the car from the inside or the outside. I suppose if they threw up in the car, an automated self driving car would possibly be able to analyze that. If there were a medical emergency, would a self driving car know what to do or would it continue merrily on its way. There's no way to know, and passengers would probably have to sign there life away in the small print.