Stop the presses--Auto industry wants higher gas tax

[afransen]

"Do remember, the automobile companies want the rebate provision removed because it serves as a means of identifying fuel-efficient cars!"

Why not tell people how much gas a car wll consume, like "This vehicle will consume approx. 18,000 litres of gasoline to travel 160,000 km." Make the fuel efficiency more meaningful to buyers?


"No one actually knows what happens in the world of alternate scenarios."

*sigh*

"And fuel taxes are not a solution to the problems of fuel efficiency"

Proof to that effect?

"Easy. There are more cars on the road than ever before."

I said all else equal, including the number of cars. That means, given everything else is the same as it is today, except gas prices were higher, what proof do you have that higher gas prices would not decrease consumption?

""Government decisons" have, for example, pushed automobile manufacturers to greatly improve fuel efficiency, reduce pollution emissions, improve safety and consumer protection."

But not to the extent they should have. Governments are too afraid and too slow to act, in general.

"Okay, gasoline is a good in that enables transportation."

No. Transportation is the good. Gasoline is just the means to the end. If there are two identical vehicles, but one requires twice the fuel as the other to travel a distance, the one that requires more fuel doesn't produce a greater beneficial effect. Excess fuel usage is just that: waste. We encourage conservation by increasing the savings of using the more efficient vehicle...

"Gasoline is more expensive and taxed more now than in the past. Yet there are more automobiles on the road per capita than in the past."

You don't get it... The price of gas isn't the only thing that determines car usage. Sure, car ownership increased while gas prices increased. Does that mean that fuel cost has no effect on car usage? In that case, gas could cost a thousand dollars a litre and car usage would continue to increase? Think about it--the argument you present is fallacious.

"Sulphur and lead were removed from gasoline by direct action; removal was not a product of tax-tinkering."

Sure, but that isn't to say that the same end could not have been achieved with a tax instead. A sufficient tax on lead in gasoline (so that removing the lead lead to a net reduction in cost of gasoline) could have lead to the same reduction in lead content.


As far as incandescent bulbs go, the real goal of that policy is to reduce demand for electricity. The same can be accomplished by increasing the cost of electricity, by rewarding conservation across the board, rather than just in terms of lighting.

As far as agreeing to disagree, I think you aren't quite grasping what I'm trying to say, so we wouldn't be talking about the same thing anyway.

 

[Hydrogen]

Why not tell people how much gas a car wll consume, like "This vehicle will consume approx. 18,000 litres of gasoline to travel 160,000 km." Make the fuel efficiency more meaningful to buyers?

No issue with that at all. The more information the consumer has, the better. How each one chooses to use this information is a different issue.

Proof to that effect?

Taxes don't improve fuel efficiency. Improving fuel efficiency improves fuel efficiency. It's direct action that's best served through technological improvement.

I said all else equal, including the number of cars. That means, given everything else is the same as it is today, except gas prices were higher, what proof do you have that higher gas prices would not decrease consumption?

Because you probably would have to raise taxes by a huge percentage in order to pressure such reductions in consumption according to your plan. As well, you can't provide any threshold as to when increasing taxes would alter consumption rates. You simply don't know when that would happen.

As for all things being equal, they aren't. There are plenty of people who have to use their cars who would be heavily penalized in your scenario. Transportation costs would increase as well, as would the cost other services such as taxis, just to name a few. By virtue that such a tax increase would have to be massive, these additional costs would be inflationary and would be passed on into the economy at large.

Previously, you've stated a belief that increasing fuel taxes would be brilliant, would be good for the economy and would raise government revenues. But then you've then gone on to remark that you don't trust the government with respect to decision-making concerning this issue. Yet you would allow them to take in all that revenue derived from massive tax increases. Nowhere in there is an effort to actually do anything directly to improve the technology to actually reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency. You've bought into the notion that the "markets" would solve the problem, but appear oblivious to the fact that the "market" is asking for government intervention by raising taxes! The "market" is doing so so as to avoid having government standards applied to their products.

The government has every right to set standards - particularly with respect to emissions - as those things affect the commons, and it is the governments responsibility to protect these goods for all. The surest way to do so is to push for improvement at the source: the technology itself.

You don't get it... The price of gas isn't the only thing that determines car usage.

Yes, I know. But this is one of the major points that you have focussed on. You have been arguing that increasing fuel taxes will reduce car usage.

Sure, but that isn't to say that the same end could not have been achieved with a tax instead.

No. The point is that it was done by way of regulation. Again, you want to fall into the world of hypothetical could-have-beens only to satisfy your argument.

As far as incandescent bulbs go, the real goal of that policy is to reduce demand for electricity. The same can be accomplished by increasing the cost of electricity, by rewarding conservation across the board, rather than just in terms of lighting

Sure, you could tax the daylights out of anything (and, of course, you should be aware that sudden massive increases in taxation are politically unpopular). But maybe the issue is that you have completely missed the idea that inexpensive energy has given us the quality of life that we have today. Inexpensive energy is a good. If you can't see that, then you've missed out of a good chunk of socio-technological history. There are many ways of reducing consumption, and they most certainly don't all require your ideas of massive taxation.

 

[Pep'rJack]

.
Related...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sake may power cars in the future

by Risa Maeda
May 11, 2007

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070511/sc_nm/japan_ethanol_dc


SHINANOMACHI, Japan (Reuters) - Japanese motorists may one day pump their cars full of sake, the fermented rice wine that is Japan's national drink, if a pilot project to create sake fuel is a hit with locals in this mountain resort.

The government-funded project at Shinanomachi, 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of Tokyo, will produce cheap rice-origin ethanol brew with the help of local farmers who will donate farm waste such as rice hulls to be turned into ethanol.

"We want to present the next generation a preferable blue print -- a self-sustainable use of local fuels," said Yasuo Igarashi, a professor of applied microbiology at the University of Tokyo who heads the three year project.

If the project catches on with locals then it could pave the way for similar endeavours across Japan that will see Japanese cars running on Japanese-made biofuels in the future, he added.

Japan, the world's second largest gasoline consumer after the United States, is entirely dependent on crude oil imports and it has been hit by the surge in oil prices.

With hefty carbon emissions reduction targets to meet under the Kyoto protocols, Japan is turning to biofuels. Yet motorists in Japan are still far behind drivers in Europe and the United States in their consumption of green fuels.

Some analysts say Japan is at a major disadvantage as high prices for local farm produce mean locally-made green fuels are exorbitantly expensive.

Added to that is a lack of support from the country's powerful oil distributors and a failure by the government to provide policy incentives such as mandatory usage.

That is where Igarashi and his team come in. They hope to show that biofuels are feasible and inexpensive by developing a low-cost fuel and encouraging a local community of about 10,000 people to take part in producing that fuel.

SWEET AROMA OF BIOFUELS

Production has just begun at the facility at a former high school field in Shinanomachi and a sweet, sour aroma, similar to that of unfiltered sake, wafts into the air.

"We like the idea," said Shigehiro Matsuki, the mayor of Shinanomachi.

"The new fuels are renewable... instead of fossil fuels which are running out."

Unlike spacious sugar cane plantations in the No.1 ethanol exporter, Brazil, family farming is dominant in Japan, with a majority of farmers working regular jobs and growing rice, the staple food, on their weekends.

There is plenty of potential to develop biofuels from agriculture waste and abandoned farmland, Igarashi said.

The project will test its biofuel on a "flex-fuel vehicle," which can run on any mixture of gasoline and green fuels and which is gaining popularity in the rest of the world as the battle against global warming heats up.

But Japan has no flex-fuel vehicles even though Japanese car companies Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp. produce them for the market in Brazil. So the team imported a red Ford Focus from Britain for the project.

With one 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of rice needed to produce 0.5 litre of ethanol, the main challenge will be creating a low cost biofuel that can compete with ordinary gasoline, which is now sold at around 135 yen ($1.13) a litre, including gasoline related taxes of some 56 yen.

($1=119.75 Yen)
.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

i don't like the idea, biofuels = trojan horse. there are still emmisions, farming & all its ills to deal with.

the future is in electric cars powered by LI batteries recharged by efficent solar panels.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster

 

[EnviroTO]

I think that electric cars (and biodiesel hybrids in the interim) are definitely more important than biofuels like ethanol. I really don't see how farming which for the most part is making the most out of cleared farm lands as it is will be able to ramp up to produce ethanol via one harvest of corn per year to power all our vehicles for example. To be able to feed the population of the planet and be able to fuel cars as they are with ethanol produced from farming would require serious increases in both fuel efficiency and farming production. Clearing forests for more land for farming would hardly be environmentally friendly. I also can't see the farming + harvesting + refining + distribution to local gas stations being more efficient at delivering energy as sending it down a wire. If Biofuels are to be used it would seem more efficient to me that they fuel power plants and get efficiencies of scale rather than having trucks deliver biofuel across the country to pumps and have millions of car engines consume the fuel in a process likely less efficient than power plants.

 

[afransen]

It is possible to produce ethanol from cellulose, which means waste products can be used rather than things that tend to be useful (corn, wood, etc.). Thus, we can use crops that grow in marginal soil such as hemp, grasses, etc. rather than crops that require intensive farming.

Of course, there isn't nearly enough waste biomatter to produce enough ethanol for fuel.

 

[EnviroTO]

Concern for global warming is probably happening at just about the right time as far as saving our economy goes. If we rush to switch to a wholly electrical distribution system, ramp up wind power, improve solar power technologies, ramp up geothermal and tidal power, and increase transportation efficiency (through things like regenerative breaking on everything from rail to elevators and by switching to high volume transportation modes like transit and very-large-aircraft) we might be able to maintain some semblance of normalcy if the oil production peaks in the next decade. If we don't wean ourself off of fuels then we may very well be the last generation to afford vacations on the other side of the world for a while.

Solar technologies are probably our greatest hope but would require great improvements in solar cell efficiency, electrical storage, and possibly the power distribution network. Biofuels require plants which get all their energy from light... so the most efficient solution is to get the power directly from light if solar technologies can be made as efficient as plants in capturing light energy.

Fuels require more energy to create than they return when burning them... it is simple conservation of energy. I was reading that there is more energy in the natural gas which is burned to extract oil from the tar sands than is in the oil extracted from the tar sands. The only reason that this can occur is that our currently implemented transportation technologies and fuel distribution systems can only use oil (or most oil goes to non-fuel products which isn't currently the case)... we are locked in by our past decisions... our cars do not accept natural gas and most gas stations do not offer natural gas making it a tough cutover. Electricity is the way around this lock in. Natural gas can be easily used at power plants and energy distributed over the normal power grid the same as every other energy source can. We really shouldn't be burning an energy source to create an energy source that has less power in it than the original energy source. A fuel like hydrogen may some day become an efficient rechargable battery but it will never be a fuel source since there is no existing large source of pure hydrogen gas... it needs to be produced or filtered out with the input of energy.

When companies and government get behind new automotive fuels such as ethanol they are really getting behind maintaining the status quo of cars requiring more maintenance and parts, a job creating fuel distribution network, and protection of the oil companies.... not energy efficiency.