Turning off your car at traffic lights

About three years ago I had a chance to drive a Prius. Once I was in the car and driving it, I realized that the single biggest thing the Prius did to save fuel was to have the engine turned off when you do not need it.

I decided to adapt one aspect of this to my driving - I turn off my car at traffic lights. When I am driving in the city I am amazed at how long I sit at lights. There are some rather long ones in Victoria and the benefit is clear - I can save as much as 300 ml at some of the lights.

This issue was the subject of an editorial on CFAX today with the station coming out against the idea because it would make no difference.

I have been doing this most of the time for about three years now. I have not seen any issues with my starter, that was my initial concern. I estimate that I am saving about 200 litres a year doing this at the moment, more than enough to buy a new starter every six months at current prices.

I turn on my car an extra six times a day on average because of this. Without this I would be turning the car on average six times a day total.

I have researched the issue as much as is possible - google hypermiling for extreme tips on how to save gas. I have not found any data that points to what I am doing as being bad for the car or not being useful in saving fuel. The only issue I can not answer with certainty is the time one needs to have an engine off to save an fuel. I have seen all manner of estimates, the best I can find is that anything more than five seconds will save you fuel.

One argument against it is that I am not in control of my car - well, I am in control, it is not moving. No stationary car has ever caused or been the reason for an accident. All accidents are caused by moving cars. Slowing your car down and coming to a stop is always the best option in a dangerous situation - yes, I am sure someone can come up with some odd situation where this would not be the case, but they are reaching and I am sure I could solve the same situation by stopping the car.

Capture and Storage

The only direction that anything is going to go with global warming is towards capture and storage.

The hair shirt brigade has to wake and see that the future means more cars, more trucks, more holidays overseas, and more everything. The concept of voluntary simplicity is not going to happen on a large scale and no government is going to force it on us.

The only answer is capture and storage. The task is huge, but it is doable.

The process is a relatively simple one. One would force companies to capture all of their green house gases or pay a fine/fee to have the same amount removed from the atmosphere.

This process would offer a real price to the cost of producing GHGs. A company could decide to either reduce their emissions, capture their emissions or pay the government to capture a like amount of emissions. A market would be created offering options and real world prices for each option - there is no need for a carbon tax.

As Carbon Capture and Storage takes off, the technology to do it will dramatically improve and the costs will fall. The companies best at CCS would get market advantages and make good money.

The government can use the fine/fee as a last case option and thereby set the upper price.

Initially there would be a large cost to develop technologies and build the infrastructure. The first years would likely see high prices for CCS, but these would quickly fall.

The biggest problem will be for produces of methane and other GHGs that have a much higher impact than CO2. Meat production could take a really big hit unless producers figure out how to deal with cow farts. I have heard there is work in Australia being done on a vaccine that is supposed reduce cow farts......

Another Solution

Here in BC the biggest source of greenhouse gases is from driving, though if we had account for the cow farts et al of our meat consumption, that would be up there.

When it comes to cars we have to keep in mind that we need to work on ways that assume we will keep driving. Assuming we are going to quit driving goes against the global love affair that comes with the freedom having a car offers.

What can be controlled is how much CO2 a car produces. Better fuel efficiency for new cars helps, as does educating the public in how to maintain and drive their cars to reduce demand. Higher gas prices will promote these things. But we still need to do more to encourage less gas being used.

The biggest source of high gas use by a driver is from driving fast. The faster you go the faster you suck the gas out of the tank. It is time to make it much less appealing to drive over the speed limit.

First off, there needs to be a return to photo radar. The chances of being caught with photo radar are much higher than the status quo and therefore people will take the threat of being caught much more seriously.

Second, the time has come to make the fines for speeding hurt. Since most people rarely get caught speeding, when you get a speeding ticket, the cost is amortized over tens of thousands of kilometres. The cost per kilometre driven is so low as to be pointless. The fine for speeding should be high enough to hurt and make people think again about driving. The fine should be in in the range of $500 for up 10% above the posted speed and then another and then another $100 per 1% over the posted limit with no end fine. For a second fine within five years, double the amounts.

With high enough fines and a real threat of being caught, the marginal cost of speeding becomes too high and people will slow down.

If you can get the traffic slowed down 10% on average on highways, there would be a drop in the amount of fuel purchased in BC and therefore a drop in CO2 emissions. Knock benefits would be that the cost of gas would fall as demand falls. Traffic problems at major choke points like the Port Mann would also be eased as the traffic coming into the problem area would be arriving slightly slower.

A quick note on traffic choke points such as the Massey Tunnel or the Port Mann bridge. Translink should introduce variable speed limits based on volumes of traffic. If traffic is building up, slow the traffic coming into these chokepoints and the traffic will move through the chokepoint at a reasonable speed. High speeds and stop and start are two of the worst situations for gas use in a car. Getting all the traffic through the Port Mann at 40 Km/H would reduce fuel use.

Better Gas Mileage - Ban Air Conditioners

Here is a quick and easy solution for Canada to reduce gas consumption - ban air conditioning in cars.

Air conditioning has a huge impact on gas consumption at low speeds and a mixed impact at highway speeds. On balance a car with air conditioning uses more than a car without.

This is Canada, I have lived in the hottest place possible in the country, Lillooet BC, and lived there without air conditioning in my Subaru - it can be done. First step was to avoid driving during the hottest time of the day. Second step was to make sure the car was parked so that it did not get direct sun on it and if it did to cover the windows with cardboard.

When I was a kid, my parents often took us on trips to the Okanagan. We went from Vancouver to the Okanagan about five times a year, many of them in the heat of the summer. My parents dealt with the heat issue by either leaving early in the morning or in the evening. It worked then, it can work now.

We should also consider getting rid of air conditioners for houses and buildings - this is Canada and it should not take rocket science to keep a building cool in the summer in the coldest country on earth.

Carbon Tax Starts Tomorrow

The first carbon tax in Canada starts tomorrow. The amount it adds to the cost of fuel is not much, only a bit more then 2 cents per litre, though eventually rising to about 8 cents a litre. The idea being to put a cost on the carbon dioxide being produced.

While I think that this is a good way to go, I wonder if it is enough to make a difference? Will a cost of $30 a tonne of CO2 be effective? Is the intent to use the money to get rid of the CO2 or is it to get people to drive less? What happens if a fuel company can legitimately show they are carbon neutral, does the tax come off of their product?

I have a lot of questions about the carbon tax.

Ultimately I see the tax being successful if it causes industry to change its behaviors, it if it makes it economically worthwhile for an oil company to capture and store CO2. But for that to happen, the tax has to be applied based on the CO2 footprint of the fuel producer and not be the same across the board.

I am still stunned that the NDP is opposed to taking action on greenhouse gases. Carole James has made herself the leader of the brown movement in BC and only highlighted how much of a green leader Gordon Campbell is.

If people realy believe in Global Warming.....

There are some easy and quick steps people can take if they want to have an impact on their carbon footprint.

1) Drive slower - drive 5 km under the speed limit. On the highway most people are still driving 10 to 20 km over the speed limit.

2) Reduce the temperature in your house - set the heating in the house to about 18 degrees unless you heat with electricity and therefore already have no carbon impact.

When I see people driving slower and driving in such a way to reduce their use of gas, then I will believe that people take global warming seriously.

It is all so complex.....

Cut your carbon footprint … take the car
NEIL REYNOLDS
Globe and Mail Update
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May 7, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
British environmentalist Chris Goodall asserted last year, in his provocative book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, that driving your car to the supermarket could be better for the environment than walking there.
It all depended, he said, on the food you use to supply the energy for the stroll. He cited a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometre) jaunt as an example. Consume 100 grams of beef and your car – “a typical car” – would be four times better for the environment. Drink a pint of milk and it would still be better. Eat a potato, though, and you could walk with a clear conscience – assuming you cooked the potato efficiently.
For Mr. Goodall, this calculation was simple science.
“It makes more sense to drive than to walk if walking means that you need to eat more to replace the energy you have lost,” he said. “Walking is not zero-emission. We need food energy to move ourselves from place to place. Food production creates carbon emissions.”
Some people found the proposition absurd. (University of Michigan economist Mark Perry proposed that all exercise be considered eligible for trade in carbon offsets.) Yet the Goodall heresy continues to garner support.
University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, co-author of the best-selling and contrarian Freakonomics, has written sympathetically of Mr. Goodall's argument. (“When it comes to saving the environment, things are often not as simple as they seem at first blush.”) And New York Times science columnist John Tierney, on his blog, has described Mr. Goodall's argument as “an interesting challenge” to conventional wisdom. (“Mr. Goodall takes into account something that a lot of environmentalists don't,” Mr. Tierney says, “[such as] the human energy expended in averting fossil-fuel use.”)
Now the Pacific Institute, an international consulting company based in Seattle, has published a scholarly critique of the Goodall hypothesis, which concludes that, in the end, it all depends.
The institute found that there are too many variables, requiring too many arbitrary assumptions, to conclude that driving is environmentally superior to walking – but found that, in some instances, it can be.
Researchers Michael Cohen and Matthew Heberger, authors of the report, calculated that walking 1.5 miles at a moderate pace (three miles an hour) requires 123 calories – equivalent to the calories in 67 grams (2.4 ounces) of sirloin steak. They calculate further that the calories burned by walking this distance would be equivalent to 1.9 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.
The real problem arises with assumptions adopted – a particular feed, a specific fertilizer. On balance, however, the researchers concluded that between 1.3 kg and 2.4 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions are produced “to raise, process, store and transport the sirloin that powers a 1.5-mile walk.”
Further, substituting ground beef for sirloin, they calculated that between 0.79 kg and 1.5 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced to power the 1.5-mile walk. Substituting eight ounces of 2-per-cent milk, they calculated that between 0.23 kg and 0.66 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced. Substituting a large apple (237 grams), they calculated that between 0.07 and 0.17 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced.
“Under these assumptions,” the researchers concluded, “[Mr.] Goodall's numbers pan out. Using Japanese agricultural statistics, a person who eats sirloin would generate double the greenhouse gases by walking compared with driving the 1.5 miles. A person who eats ground beef would generate 30-per-cent more emissions by walking rather than driving. Even using lower British [statistics], the sirloin eater generates 16-per-cent more GHG emissions by walking rather than by driving.”
How do cars compare? Mr. Goodall based his conclusions on the assumption, officially used by the British government, that “a typical car” produces 0.29 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions a mile – roughly comparable to the consumption of two or three apples. The Pacific Institute researchers based their conclusions on the quite different assumption that “a typical car” emits more than 1 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent, roughly the equivalent of the sirloin steak. (They also assumed that all cars get 17.4 miles a gallon.)
Environmentalists have accused Mr. Goodall of ignoring the “life-cycle” costs of driving a car. Mr. Goodall insists that his calculations fully incorporate these costs. Life-cycle costs of cars and gasoline, he says, are not enough to affect even remotely the conclusion “that car travel is less carbon intensive than walking [in all cases in which] the walker replaces lost energy with animal products.”
These calculations miss an important point. Cars are rapidly getting more efficient. Within a few years, “a typical car” will average 35 mpg, or more, on greener energy. You won't dare walk to the supermarket – unless you have bought carbon offsets from your virtuous vegan neighbours. The fuel in your own tank will be as environmentally important as the fuel in your car.