Blessed by the Potato

I just got one of those chain letters about boycotting Petro-Canada* to force gas companies to lower prices.

* – by the way, who gets to pick which station to boycott? When will chain letters start coming with a “this letter was started by [Person X] at [website/email], see [website] for any updates that may be relevant to this chain letter (such as the drug in question being off the market for a whole decade, the basic premise of the boycott being unsound, a change in the company’s policies, an apology was received, or the stupid kid died of cancer anyway, and every card you send drives his mother into hysterical fits of tears) as well as a statement of bias.” Of course, until that time I guess there’s always Snopes.

Unfortunately, these ideas never work. Primarily because:

[…] teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace . . . . . not sellers. […] Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas.

is a contradiction. Buyers can’t control the marketplace as long as they’re not prepared to stop buying gas (or at least reduce usage enough that gas stations are left with excess product). There’s no leverage in that position.

Beyond that, the idea would require extreme organization by consumers to work at all. If Petro-Canada did start having some drop-off in sales, all they would have to do is lower the price a fraction of a cent to get the customers who aren’t participating in the boycott to switch to them. Because of the boycott, the other stations would still have enough support to keep prices high (that is, not everyone would be buying on price alone), and so the price would stay high. If the boycott was perfectly successful and nobody bought gas at Petro-Canada, then gas prices would likely go _up_ at all the other stations because there would be a run on gas — if Petro-Canada is say 1/5 of all gas stations in Canada, then boycotting them would remove 1/5 of our gas supply. Only a ~6% reduction in supply lead to a ~20% increase in price this winter when a refinery in Sarnia had to temporarily shut down. Ignoring all that, there’s also the part where gas is a very “liquid” commodity: the different companies generally have agreements to sell their gas to each other for logistics reasons. If Petro-Canada isn’t selling gas at Petro-Canada branded stations, they can still unload their product in Shell, Sunoco, Canadian Tire, Esso, and Irving stations, and the only ones really hurting are the franchisees.

Wish I had read Snopes before typing that, it would have saved me some time, since they make many of the same arguments :) Snopes on Gas Out.

Also, the old standby of getting the government to drop taxes on gas might have worked in the not-so-distant past, when gas prices were set based basically on the cost of the gas (affected of course by the perceived future cost), a modest profit margin, and the taxes. Back then, the prices changed daily as stations engaged in price wars, and the cost of a barrel of oil fluctuated. Now, however, prices are driven way up by the high demand and low supply — if taxes were lowered, the pump price would stay the same, because that’s how high it has to be to keep people from exhausting the supply. The only difference would be that the oil companies would get more of our money, instead of the government.

There is still the very real possibility that prices have been driven even higher by nefarious means. Whether stations are colluding (and oddly enough it seems that they are even moreso now when the price doesn’t move at all for a whole week than when they flew up and down several times a day in near-synchrony) or whether refineries are purposefully reducing their output is tough to say. Some commentators have pointed out that in addition to the spate of minor refinery fires we’ve had this year, the other refineries have taken their sweet time doing their spring maintenance and fuel mix changeover. This could be a deliberate tightening of supply, or it could be simple prudence: if two of your buddies had fires at their houses, you’d probably take the time to check the batteries in your smoke detector and the readiness of your fire extinguisher.

So, to reduce the price of gas, there’s really only a few things we can do. The first, and most effective, is to stop using it, or use less. That’s also the hardest for us to do; biking is great, but I only know one guy crazy enough to bike Toronto to London, and he only does it once a year. I’m a fan of walking, but also recognize that it’s really only pleasant for about 4-6 months a year. Public transit isn’t always an option, and is sometimes retarded. The next method involves government intervention, and would only work if gas companies really are driving the price up artificially. In that case, we simply have to buy back Petro-Canada and run it as a Crown corporation. Have it buy oil, refine gas, and sell at a modest profit — controlled by the government, it shouldn’t be engaging in collusion, so they’ll sell gas at about what it costs, and the other brands will have to follow suite (though demand issues could still affect that, unless they were wililng to have shortages). Finally, one idea I have is to only buy regular gas. I have no idea if this would work, but it seems as though the refineries can churn out (nearly) whatever grade of gas they want (and it’s not really due to the content of the crude oil). When we had the recent gas shortage, a lot of stations were selling regular only because they needed to streamline the supply chain to meet demand. Even with the immediate crisis behind us, there’s no real reason we can’t take advantage of that streamlining still. Most cars on the road today run just fine on regular gas (87): even the ones that say they need premium (largely) have the technology to change the valve timing/compression ratio to run on regular (at a slight power loss, but most engines that need premium can afford it anyway; if the engine can’t handle 87 then you’ll find out real quick. I’d recommend trying a few liters after letting the tank go nearly bone dry: if the engine pings, you’ll have a problem, turn around, and fill the rest of the way with premium; if you can drive on those few liters just fine, try a few more until you’re satisfied and then put a whole tank in). Either way, we could still eliminate mid-grade, since AFAIK there aren’t any cars sold today that require 89 — they either go for regular, or all-out to premium (though I may be wrong and there may not be a midgrade refining step, it may simply be a mixture of premium and regular done at the pump).

One of the “low hanging fruit” benefits of hybrid cars that improves their fuel efficiency and emissions is that they turn the engine off when it’s not needed, such as at stop lights. In fact, with a little bit of key-turning, this can be achieved in most other cars, even if not quite as often. Many cities (including London and Toronto) have anti-idling bylaws that hand out tickets for idling more than 3 minutes, though enforcement is weak to say the least and the laws don’t apply when the weather is very cold or very hot — which makes sense from a comfort point of view, but is also unfortunate because it’s on the very hot days that cars need to be shutting down for air quality purposes. The startup period in a car does cause more wear, but there’s obviously a point where it’s more beneficial to turn the car off: I’ve heard many rules of thumb regarding how short a period of idling makes turning the car off worthwhile, from 10 seconds to a minute. Personally, I try to go by about a 30-second period: if I know I’ll be idling for that long, I shut the car off, except at lights (but I do for trains crossing by me). So when I was at the carwash this week, I shut the car off, but felt a little weird doing it (except for train crossings, I don’t usually get into idling situations). I was talking to Wayfare about it at the time, and debated whether we’d be waiting long enough to make it worthwhile — it turns out it really was, as we were waiting at least 4 minutes for the infernal machine to be ready for us. Now thinking about it in hindsight, I feel strange for feeling weird at the time. Turning the car off should have been my natural reaction, I shouldn’t have had to think about it for so long…

The thing that bugs me most about idling is the cabbies. They’ll idle for hours in front of the hospital on some days, if business is slow. There are a few who are pretty good about opening their windows and turning the car off. If the weather’s really hot, there’s at least one that will simply get out of the car and sit on the grass, or lean against the car, or one time, pull out a folding chair.

A CityNews spot recently talked about the short enforcement blitz last week to remind drivers of the bylaw, and mentioned that delivery trucks idle a lot (they do), partly because refrigerated trucks have to keep the engine on to run the compressor. First off, I don’t want my ice cream to come all melty, so they do have something of a point that strikes close to my heart. I have a few problems with that, though. Most of the refrigerated delivery trucks have a coolant pod on the transport trailer — that means that the coolant system for the trailer must be electrically driven (the AC system on most cars is belt-driven directly from the engine, which is why you can run your fan but not your AC in engine-off accessories mode). If it’s electrically driven, then the truck’s battery should be able to keep it going for a while (at least 10 minutes I would estimate, and a battery upgrade to run the cooler for an hour should be extremely easy to install right on the trailer). Also, most refrigeration systems run in cycles (or are capable of doing so, unless they are taxed to their maximum capacity), so the truck drivers should be able to cut the engines for at least as long as the system usually cycles off for (my fridge, for instance, runs for about 5 minutes every half hour — I could have a 25-minute blackout at my house and the food in the fridge would never know anything out of the ordinary was happening).

Also, this tiny news snippet was a little disappointing.

…the premier says Ontario won’t implement regulations as strict as those of California…. Ontario will stop short of California’s tough new tailpipe emission standards because they could hurt the province’s auto sector.

I think it’s pretty backwards to resist emission standards because auto manufacturing takes place in the province — stricter emissions standards don’t, as far as I know, actually hurt the car industry in general. People still buy cars. They just buy cleaner cars. Perhaps that impacts the bottom line of the automakers, or perhaps it’s an indication that the domestic manufacturers (or the particular models manufactured in Ontario) have trouble getting any cleaner and more efficient. If that’s the case, then the province should still go ahead with the tighter emissions standards — after all, there are still plenty of “emissions equipment optional” states to sell Ontario-manufactured cars to, and I’m sure most cars driven in Ontario aren’t made in Ontario, so stricter emissions standards would help our quality of life. And, if say California enforces stricter emissions standards, but cars are built in Michigan and Ontario, then the car companies are pretty much SOL. If Ontario and Michigan implemented stricter standards (even stricter than California, say), then the province (and state) could directly help the auto manufacturers with various tax incentives and research programs, and would have the justification for doing so. If the province helped make sure all the cars built here had superior emissions controls and fuel efficiency, then that would also help the auto sector become more competitive elsewhere (California, Europe, as well as with anyone who valued efficiency and low emissions in the other states and provinces), and in the future as well. After all, California emissions may seem strict and tough to meet now, but they’re not revolutionary, not by a long shot (the revolutionary parts were killed over the years by lawsuits and lobbyists). The other states, provinces, and countries globally are catching up. Do the car companies want to be seen as the ones fumbling to meet minimum requirements at the last minute, or the ones that have been successfully meeting California emissions standards all along? (wouldn’t it be great to say “Ontario efficiency standards” in the same breath? :)

I really enjoy reading Orson Scott Card’s columns, even when he’s mostly wrong on a subject. I particularly disagree with him when it comes to global warming — but I do agree with a lot of what he has to say when it comes to creating pedestrian-friendly cities and a car-free life. Here are three of his recent columns:

Oil, past the peak
Walking Neighbourhoods
Life Without Cars

Now I have to ask myself, what can we do about bringing these principles to the new developments in the 905 and 519? I remember a conversation with Wayfare’s neighbours about one “innovative” housing project in the 905 that was popular precisely because it was on a grid layout with interspersed light commercial zones that aimed to be pedestrian friendly.

Oh, and I’m sure everyone’s already heard of New York Taxis going hybrid (it just makes sense — its a technology that works best in a city environment, and hybrid cab owners in BC have said that with a cab the cost of fuel over the lifetime of the car is far more than the car ever costs up front).

Update: Just wanted to add this post from the Green Party blog.

I just spent my long weekend Sunday writing a stupidly long article on hybrid cars, and it’s not even as helpful as I was hoping it would be. Ah, well, it’s up as a permanent link on the right there. Have a look (if you dare), and I welcome any other questions that it may have left unanswered! To give a quick reason for doing this, Wayfare suggested I take some of the insane amount of research I’ve been doing on cars and write an article, perhaps try to sell it freelance to the London Free Press or another paper that would have it. I don’t think either of us expected something like that to result.

I haven’t included many references, but I don’t really think too many are necessary for an article like this (plus, there was a long link list in one of the previous posts on the issue, which is linked in the article). There are probably mistakes, both factual and grammatical lurking in there: it’s why something like that can be churned out in one afternoon, but a scientific review paper of the same length languishes for years unwritten :)

Canada should be a world leader when it comes to issues of the environment, if for no other reason than because we have so much of it. Our record on Kyoto and greenhouse gas emissions has been rather shameful, though we do have a succession of uncaring minority governments to partially blame for that, as well as a relatively uncaring public (until quite recently, that is). It is long time past to fix that, though, and I’m surprised that while the election-hungry neocons have identified the environment as a key issue, they haven’t yet actually done a whole lot about it (the funding announcements of the last few days notwithstanding). Mostly, they’re throwing around as much rhetoric and mud as they can, hoping to survive the issue in the next election (which they’re desperately trying to bring for the summer, by all accounts). So the Europeans really showed us when they recently announced plans to go above and beyond their Kyoto commitments.

Of course, our leaders are always faced with tough choices. Global warming looks to be a very real threat, and could be potentially very devastating. However, it’s also a long-term, global problem, so it’s very difficult to face with our local, short-term perspective. After all, there’s tax cuts to be had, health care to bolster, and all manner of other problems to ignore, everything from homelessness to defense, space exploration to public transportation, basic research to primary education.

Something not a lot of people are talking about is that a lot of these initiatives are needed for another problem all together: peak oil. Thanks to advances in new technology, we aren’t going to run out of oil for a long time to come. Which is a good thing, because alternatives (hydrogen, biofuels, electricity, etc) are still uncomfortably far off into the future. However, we’re already starting to see evidence of tightening supply. The thing with something that is in such high demand, such as oil, is that even modest declines in supply can lead to huge swings in price, since demand is so very inelastic (and I may be abusing my economic terminology, so forgive me here). We saw this quite clearly recently in Ontario: a fire at an Imperial Oil refinery caused fairly widespread shortages, station closures, and an increase of roughly 20-25% in price. And this was at a time when demand was relatively low due to the bad weather keeping many drivers off the road. The thing is, that refinery was nowhere near responsible for 20+% of our refining ability (one report says it was just 6% of Imperial’s capacity, just one of several major companies operating in Ontario). So a relatively minor drop in supply lead to a relatively large increase in price. Imagine that sort of situation even just 10 years from now if world oil extraction drops just a bit… But if we have developed technologies at this point in time to battle greenhouse emissions and use less oil, then we will simultaneously tackle that problem.

It’s a lot like hybrid cars in that regard: the combination of electric and gasoline power make hybrids more efficient in their use of oil, especially for stop-and-go city driving. Some people have slammed them as not solving the root problem of oil dependence, since they do still run on gas, however they are actually very good bridge technologies. Not only are they effective at saving gas right now, they also serve to develop the electric motors and batteries (and underlying manufacturing base) that will likely be needed for any future technology car.

I was glad to see the hybrid car rebate included in the federal budget, and the increased gas guzzler tax. One person recently was hailing the Cons for this move, saying that they’re clearly a pro-environmental party, and that this was a very pro-environment budget. To that I just have to say that this is, as many commentators are saying, a pre-election budget. It’s a pro-everything budget. The Cons have been very reticient to make any of these moves, and have only done so because currently these issues are at the forefront of Canadians’ minds. I have no doubt that if public focus shifts (as it does quite often), the Cons will stop all further progress. They haven’t lead us to these measures, they’ve been driven to them. A release today in the CBC has some good rhetoric, and it’s a lot further along than they were a year ago… but they’re still using this double-talk of a “balanced approach” and continuing to think that anything that’s good for the environment must be bad for our way of life.

Another environmental intiative making the rounds lately is the idea of banning outright the sale of incandescent bulbs. This is one move I can’t get behind. Taxing them is, in my opinion, an excellent idea: make some money for the government, and make the initial purchase price of an incandescent the same as a fluorescent — even short-term thinkers can then make better decisions about which to get, rather than having to try to weigh the costs against the long-term energy savings. That should help dramatically shift the usage away from the incandescents. Compact fluorescents are a good thing, and I’ve been putting them in a lot of rooms in the house here. However, they do have a few short-comings, and for these reasons it’s important to have incandescents as an option (though perhaps we should stop using them as our main source of home lighting):

• Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are more costly overall if they do not manage to live out their whole life-cycle. They also contain trace amounts of mercury. Combined, these two issues mean that CFLs should not be used in areas where lights are more likely to be smashed than wear out from old age (places like batting cages, say, or where small children throw rocks at them).
• CFLs can not be used in enclosed light fixtures, such as some pot lights or other recessed/indirect lighting conditions.
• Many CFLs can not be put on dimmer switches (be sure to check the package before putting yours on one!).
• Some types of CFLs (I do not know if this applies to all of them) do not handle extremes in temperature well, and may not be suited to use in fridges, stoves, range hoods, or outdoor lighting.
• Almost all CFLs have a delay between turning on the switch and lighting up. There is a further delay between the first spark and full brightness. While this is not a problem for most applications, it is slightly less than ideal for some applications such as motion-detector-triggered security lights (compounded by further delays in cold environments), and lightswitch raves.
• A small minority of people find that the flicker from fluorescent lighting (including CFLs, though they don’t seem quite as bad) gives them headaches.
• CFLs have less-than-perfect colour fidelity. While it’s good enough for almost all uses, some specialized cases (certain science experiments, artists) may find that they prefer to use incandescents for their broad-spectrum output.
• Some sensitive electronics can experience interference from some types of CFLs (I believe the kind with magnetic ballast) due to proximity or being on the same circuit.

For the majority of cases, they are great ways to save tonnes of energy, but for these situations, we should aim to have incandescents as an option (even if it is an expensive one).

Finally, another recent story said that because conservation efforts have started working so well, Toronto Hydro is losing money, and wants to hike electricity rates. I don’t know what to say to that. On the one hand, more expensive electricity encourages people to conserve, and brings it closer to the true cost to produce. But I don’t want to see peoples’ bills go up because they were conserving (the net bill will go down, but you know many people won’t see it that way). I’m also not so sure Toronto Hydro is really too hard up if they’ve got the cash to spare to get into the telecom business…