Categories
-
Recent Posts
- Electrifying freight trains in the U.S. is a bad idea
- Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
- Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
- Why fusion power is Forever Away
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- Homes & Buildings
- Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
- Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
- Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
- “More and More and More” one of the best books on energy ever written
- The staggering destruction of knowledge by Christians in the Roman Empire
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
Category Archives: Automobiles
How Much Oil is in an Electric Vehicle? by Nicholas LePan
LePan shows how plastics, made from fossil fuels, make up so much of a car, plus lighten the weight so the car can go further on gasoline. Since fossil fuels are finite, many assume we’ll just make them out of … Continue reading
Automated vehicles: more driving, energy wasted, & congestion
Preface. My main post on this is: “Why self-driving cars may not be in your future“. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Efficiency
Tagged automated vehicle, AV, cars, efficiency, self-driving
8 Comments
If we really cared about CO2, we’d reduce car size and weight, not make electric cars
Preface. Since my book “When trucks stop running: Energy and the future of transportation makes the case that it’s trucks that need to be electrified to keep civilization going, since biofuels don’t scale up, natural gas and liquefied coal are … Continue reading
Review of “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” by Steve LeVine
Preface. This is a book review of Steve Levine’s 2015 “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World”. If you ever wondered why batteries are still not even close to powerful enough to replace fossil fuels, … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Batteries, Energy Books
Tagged battery, electric car
Comments Off on Review of “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” by Steve LeVine
Natural gas is a stupid transportation fuel
[ My comment: The only reason natural gas has come up as a transportation fuel at all is the false belief that there is 100 years of natural gas (even this article does, but natural gas may last far less … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Natural Gas Vehicles, Transportation
Tagged cars, natural gas, transportation
Comments Off on Natural gas is a stupid transportation fuel
Electric truck & car range less in cold weather
Preface. What follows are two articles. The first has excerpts from Calstart’s study of the effects cold weather had on lithium and Sodium Nickel Chloride e-truck batteries. The second article is from Consumer Reports, which says that half of driving … Continue reading
Most energy efficient: passenger bus, rail, or auto?
Preface. Weight reduces energy efficiency, so one way to make transportation more efficient is to light-weight rail cars, buses, trucks, and cars. For every 10% reduction in weight, up to 7.6% more fuel efficiency can be gained (Joost 2012). While … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Mass Transit, Railroads
Tagged auto, bus, car, efficiency, energy, mass transit, passenger, rail
Comments Off on Most energy efficient: passenger bus, rail, or auto?
Reduce vehicle fuel consumption to increase energy security
[This is a really interesting House session that discusses U.S. energy policy, the need for consumers to be educated about why they should buy more fuel efficient cars, and push-back from the auto industry (see the full 140 pages for … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Congressional Record U.S., Transportation What To Do
Comments Off on Reduce vehicle fuel consumption to increase energy security
David L. Greene, ORNL: Raise cafe standards and gas tax
Excerpt from: U.S. House. February 9, 2005. Improving the nation’s energy security: can cars and trucks be made more fuel efficient? Committee on science, House of Representatives, Serial No. 109-3. 140 pages. DAVID L. GREENE, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, CENTER … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Congressional Record U.S., Conserve Energy, Transportation What To Do
Tagged cafe standard, energy security, gas tax
Comments Off on David L. Greene, ORNL: Raise cafe standards and gas tax
CAFE standards: 54.5 mpg cars exist, but public prefers gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks
[Passenger vehicles sold in 2025 in the United States are supposed to get 54.5 miles per gallon on average. But they won’t. It will be closer to 35.4 miles per gallon, as the Union of Concerned Scientists explains in Translating … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles
Tagged cafe standards, china, Europe, japan, korea, mexico
Comments Off on CAFE standards: 54.5 mpg cars exist, but public prefers gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks