Claaire asked me to post this in the comments, rather than telling her back-channel...
I’m here in the Frozen Prairie, our present time zone is US Central Daylight Time (CDT), which is five hours earlier than GMT. I can participate at any hour that you want to run the ZOOM event,
(1) My understanding about the shift from “global warming” to “climate change” has more to do with capturing the full panoply of changes that are expected to occur -- so, not just warming generally, but also possibly deeper lows in some places and at some times, and also shifts in rainfall patterns and the severity of storms -- and less to do with political correctness.
(2) Yes, significant changes in the climate have occurred previously, even in historical periods, due to such phenomena as cyclical lows in solar radiation; heightened volcanic activity, which disperses solar shielding particles and aerosols into the air; changes in ocean circulation; variations in Earth's orbit and axial tilt; and declines in the human population (e.g., from the Black Death and the epidemics that followed European contact in the Americas). The latter periods have been interesting because they have typically been followed by considerable tree growth, which captures and stores CO2.
But the concern about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is that it is an additional factor that is strong enough to over-ride other possible non-anthropogenic changes that may be affecting the climate.
Regarding aerosols, when I was an undergraduate in the 1970s, the big worry (behind that of a risk of an exchange of hostilities between the West and the USSR that, besides killing millions immediately, would provoke a "nuclear winter") was global cooling because of all the particulates and sulfur aerosols being spewed into the air by factories and power plants. One of the ironies of shifting towards cleaner energy is the air should become cleaner (great for our lungs!), but that the countervailing effect of air pollution on AGW will be lessened.
Clear-cutting trees (as opposed to other management and harvesting techniques) to me is more an issue of its greater impact on biodiversity, soil and water protection, though certainly harvesting that leaves peaty soils exposed, and that peat catches fire (as has happened in Indonesia), it can be associated with higher carbon emissions.
If you mean the world should reduce its harvesting of trees, however harvested, certainly that would help in atmospheric CO2 capture.
I went looking for a breakdown of the end-uses of wood flows, and all I could find quickly was wood flows in Europe in 2010, which doesn't seem to show the uses of imported wood and forest-derived products.
But, for what it's worth, it does highlight relative proportions that are used for the big categories: paper, lumber, and energy. Recycling of paper and cardboard is actually at a pretty high rate now. And lumber for construction, furniture, and other finished wooden items accounted for about 45% of the total. From a carbon perspective, that carbon is bound up, which is a good thing.
It is the 37% that was being used for energy production (even more is being used now, including a significant amount that is being imported) that is potentially a problem. In theory, burning biomass is carbon-neutral, on the argument that the carbon that is released will eventually be re-absorbed in vegetative growth. But as climate scientists point out, especially while fossil-fuel-derived carbon emissions are increasing, it is dangerous to add a burst of carbon from burning trees at this point, on top of the fossil CO2, as it will take decades to re-absorb that carbon. Better to leave those trees in place to keep absorbing carbon is the argument.
I realize the situation gets more complicated if one is looking at short-term rotation trees, the need to thin out forests if you want to create space for the remaining trees to grow bigger, etc.
All this mainly to say, that, yes, I agree: forestry matters, and it can contribute importantly to capturing CO2.
Had to repost the above because of a couple of errors. Also, I found this interesting article on NASA's website from a year ago titled "There Is No Impending 'Mini Ice Age'":
I don't want to get too off-topic but I want to recommend this seminar that Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute about economic and political nostalgia did two days ago. I think it can be best described as a "globalist" response to this concern echoed by many here about jobs "disappearing" to do technological change. I think it might serve as an interesting discussion point for what we are talking about even though it is not specific to the energy sector.
I'm available on all of those days except 5 to 13 GMT, which is the middle of the night on the East Coast of North America although if it gets scheduled during this time I will still try to join in anyways.
Apart from Mr. Garkinkle's essay —so rich in too-clever-by-halfs— demonstrating a strong need of him obeying Georges Simenon's, "if you find phrases in your prose that you luv luv luv, immediately and ruthlessly delete them!" (as paraphrased)— his obsessive and phenomenally obnoxious put-downs of everything Trump, especially "Trump's Base", is not the way to win hearts and minds of those otherwise finding agreement on some of the particulars. I'd imagine Garfinkle has nearly zero first-hand experience with Trump's Base, given the rarified atmospheres of their/our betters in which he evidently lives and breathes.
great essay. Lots to think about. I wish I could see the association between CO2 and temperatures that everyone else does, but who could disagree with more research and innovation.
An excellent essay that underlines the point I have been making: You can't ignore the politics of climate change and energy policy; you have to finesse them. Obama was too much of a smartass to be bothered, Trump was without a clue, and I'm dubious of the proposition that Biden can hit the sweet spot. His long and undistinguished career gives no reason for optimism, but we shall see.
"The infamous Solyndra case says it all; look it up if you’ve forgotten the particulars. Not only did a pile of money get wasted amid heaps of favoritism and political sweetheart gestures but, much worse, Solyndra soured Congress and others on the whole approach. The bad apple ruined the whole barrel."
This is one of my favorite examples of how political wings are the enemy of reason. Rather than attempt to fix the errors made while researching new tech, pundits used this as an opportunity to sell their audience the plan of "fold your arms and pout." No need to do the hard work of improving our situation if you can throw up your hands in exasperation and blame all of the failures on The Other Guys. Especially true if you can use this incident to build up your strawmen for future debates over policy. And smug self-satisfaction.
Thanks for acknowledging the emotions present around the edges of this discussion. I'm sure you'll notice it leak into the comments section this week.
It’s not as if the Solyndra fiasco was an isolated incident. Subpar performance and plain old incompetence are common in all areas of government, e.g. the FDA’s stumbling, bumbling response to the pandemic. Bureaucracies simply aren’t very efficient. They have scant incentive to work efficiently, because there’s no real accountability and no bottom line. If things go wrong, a few politicians may be sent packing by the voters, but the bureaucrats always remain in place.
The complexities inherent in the issues we’re discussing are such that the thought of the US government undertaking to overhaul the nation’s entire energy infrastructure absolutely terrifies me. The administrative state is so structured that failure is practically guaranteed. Look for example at the utter failure, despite twenty years of commitment, to win the war in Afghanistan. That was a failure of the Pentagon bureaucracy.
Government does all right with things that are simple, like sending people checks, and with projects that are limited in scope and have well-defined objectives, like Project Apollo. But any project prefixed with the adjective “comprehensive”? Not so much...
I mean, blaming failures in Afghanistan on the Pentagon bureaucracy seems like you're choosing your favorite complaint out of a very large list. Blaming failures in Afghanistan on the fact that it's Afghanistan and people have been failing to pacify it for millennia seems a more reasonable starting point. Or at least easily Top 3?
Did you notice the article I linked to that suggested the entire DOE loan program that involved Solyndra actually produced a net increase after repayments? I feel the same relief seeing that as I felt when I learned the 2008 bailouts were repayed. Sometimes the government tackles a problem and we come out the other side in the black. Or in the red, but with a moon lander and noticable economic gain. Sometimes politicians and business interests will cherry pick the worst looking fruit to display, just to protect their own interests. Solyndra is just the worst cherry.
I don't mean to imply I think that the government is efficient, or that bureaucracy is a goal to be pursued, merely that the boogeyman of inefficiency shouldn't scare us away from tackling projects. Especially projects that the free market is unwilling or lacks incentives to take on.
Who else is to blame for a failure besides the group that's in charge of the operation? Regarding Afghanistan, the military bureaucracy never specified an objective, i.e. never explained what victory was supposed to look like. Instead it stumbled from one expedient to another, eventually fetching up against the far end of a blind alley. As Henry Kissinger once remarked, if you don't know where you're going, all roads will get you there.
You can say what you like about Solyndra but the bottom line is that the company no longer exists. So what was the point? A net increase for the DOE loan program?
"The boogeyman of inefficiency" is not a figment but a fact and where government is concerned we in America have reached the point at which it's a feature, not a bug, of the system. One thing that hasn't been much discussed here is the regulatory environment in the Land of E Pluribus Unum, which all too often facilitates delay, obstruction, cost overruns and ultimate frustration. Case in point: homelessness in California, which is largely to blame on a regulatory regime that make it almost impossible to construct new housing.
Sorry, we're galloping all over the place and my point is going to get lost in the weeds if we get in to homelessness or Kabul or Apollo.
The DoE ran a program where they invested in new tech companies to expand energy availability. As can be expected, some companies failed, some succeeded. The interest earned exceeded the costs of the program, meaning that the government had more money, more successful US businesses, and greater availability of energy. But because Solyndra failed spectacularly, it's a great horse to beat rather than look at the program as a whole.
This is called counting the hits and ignoring the misses. Perhaps in the case of Solyndra it's more counting the misses and ignoring the hits. If a program is designed in invest in new tech companies and it both produces them AND didn't cost anything after it received returns, there is no good reason to stare myopically at the slice of the pie that fell on the floor. Unless you want to count political theater as good reason. Or you're honestly looking for ways to improve similar programs, which I welcome AND why I suggested improving oversight for the next round of DoE loans which are going forward presently.
Googling "solyndra + toilet" will demonstrate how pathetic the conversation around this DoE program has become, rather than honest critique. It's poisoned people to the point where they can't see the overall successful program it was a part of.
And it's actually sending people checks, which you seemed to say is what the government does well. They sent checks, they ended up with more money than they started with, and US companies reaped benefits. There's plenty of inefficiency in the government. This ain't it.
That being said, yes, there's a lot of inefficiency out there. We'll never get rid of it. We can limit it and prune it back IF we can get people to look at things honestly. It's why the GAO is so important, because it's their job to mind the till.
And it's why when somebody sneers at them, we need to check that politician or pundit's pockets.
Speaking of "pathetic"... maybe, Matt, you should take an undergrad intro to economics course if you think that the Feds broke even on Solyndra. Here's more of my pathetic whining about how swell the Feds conduct energy and economic analyses... Van Jones seems to be the main perp behind the infamous Cash for Clunkers (CfC) debacle, and with the resurrection of the rest of the Obamazoids we'll probably getting more of his brilliant contributions soon enough...
________
(rejected op ed by LAT, NYT, and Wapo in 2019)
"I'm not an economist, but as an alternative to a classic benefit/cost analysis I actually did run a quick and dirty work-up of the relevant crude energetics (all data from five minutes of Googling):
Assuming 50K miles remaining service life in the clunkers getting 16 mpg (now being destroyed instead), the comparative savings in gasoline in a 32 mpg vehicle over those same 50K miles is about 1,600 gallons.
The energy content in a gallon of gasoline is about 130 MegaJoules (i.e., ~35 MJ/l). Producing new steel requires about 22 MJ/kg, while recycling old steel requires about 14MJ/kg. The energy yielded by the 1,600 gallons of saved gasoline is 210,000 MJ, or about enough for smelt a little less than 10 tons of completely new steel, or to reprocess about 15 tons of recycled steel.
I’ve also seen another set of figures showing production energetics of raw steel at 65 MJ/kg, and recycled steel at about 52 MJ/kg. If those numbers are more correct, the fuel saving allows for producing only 3.5 tons of new steel or 4.1 tons of recycled steel.
I further Googled up a figure of 66 giga joules (GJ) as the ballpark energy input required to manufacture a single new motor vehicle, including the metallurgical energetics (as above, plus copper wiring, aluminum components, etc.). One gigajoule is 1,000 megajoules, i.e., 66,000 MJ/vehicle. That figure comes from Ford and is based on Taurus sedan or a F-150 pickup truck.
Ford also offers a lifetime energy consumption of those same models at about 961 GJ = 961,000 MJ, assuming a 120K lifetime mileage yield.
So very roughly speaking, it would take the fuel savings (over 50K miles estimated remaining life in each) of recycling four or five (!) clunkers to account for the lifecycle energetics of only one new vehicle.
No doubt this is a vastly oversimplified analysis, and doesn’t at all address the carbon issues at the heart of the global warming hypothesis. Likewise I'm staying away from the "stimulus" and job-creating/job conserving nominal objectives of the scheme.
This also doesn’t address the personal financial issues of holding onto a fully-paid-for clunker getting 16 mpg, or alternatively taking on a $15,000 auto loan for a 32 mpg vehicle that saves about $4000 in fuel costs (at $2.50 gallon: roughly the present average cost of gasoline in the USA) over the first 50K miles driven. Or only about $800/yr at the typical 10k miles/yr driven by Americans. Of course the maintenance and repair costs of a new car will likely be much lower than of an old clunker over the first 50K miles."
_____
Now Matt, why don't see if you find find a post-facto benefit/cost analysis done for CfC —on which the Feds dropped $3.5 billion!— by any of your admirable your buds at GAO or DOE.
If you Google "solyndra + toilet" you'll get 72.4K hits, of which all that I've looked at so far say something like, "flushed a half billion of US taxpayers dollars down the toilet". No doubt. But apparently it would take quite a deeper dive to find out that before Solyndra fabricated and sold a single photovoltaic gizmo, they equipped every crapper in their fabulous new Silicon Valley HQ with state-of-the-art sensor- and microprocessor-embedded $$$ toilet seats that read out body temp, basal metabolism, blood pressure, pulse rate, BMI, life expectancy, prostate enlargement, and sperm count.
So, if we're to give out large public loans to companies: more aggressive oversight, especially if they're heavily favored by the oval office? This seems like a good take away in general, since anyone receiving public funds should be accountable for the results.
Given the investments the CCP is making in their own "private" industries, I'm not sure how we can compete otherwise. Or is this Toilet of Myth and Power terrible enough that we should yield the ground and let China corner the market?
Claaire asked me to post this in the comments, rather than telling her back-channel...
I’m here in the Frozen Prairie, our present time zone is US Central Daylight Time (CDT), which is five hours earlier than GMT. I can participate at any hour that you want to run the ZOOM event,
Ronald STEENBLIK16 min ago
Two points to start off:
(1) My understanding about the shift from “global warming” to “climate change” has more to do with capturing the full panoply of changes that are expected to occur -- so, not just warming generally, but also possibly deeper lows in some places and at some times, and also shifts in rainfall patterns and the severity of storms -- and less to do with political correctness.
(2) Yes, significant changes in the climate have occurred previously, even in historical periods, due to such phenomena as cyclical lows in solar radiation; heightened volcanic activity, which disperses solar shielding particles and aerosols into the air; changes in ocean circulation; variations in Earth's orbit and axial tilt; and declines in the human population (e.g., from the Black Death and the epidemics that followed European contact in the Americas). The latter periods have been interesting because they have typically been followed by considerable tree growth, which captures and stores CO2.
But the concern about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is that it is an additional factor that is strong enough to over-ride other possible non-anthropogenic changes that may be affecting the climate.
Regarding aerosols, when I was an undergraduate in the 1970s, the big worry (behind that of a risk of an exchange of hostilities between the West and the USSR that, besides killing millions immediately, would provoke a "nuclear winter") was global cooling because of all the particulates and sulfur aerosols being spewed into the air by factories and power plants. One of the ironies of shifting towards cleaner energy is the air should become cleaner (great for our lungs!), but that the countervailing effect of air pollution on AGW will be lessened.
Don't we need to stop clear cutting the trees, if that's going to be part of our CO2 capture strategy? There are an awful lot of us.
Clear-cutting trees (as opposed to other management and harvesting techniques) to me is more an issue of its greater impact on biodiversity, soil and water protection, though certainly harvesting that leaves peaty soils exposed, and that peat catches fire (as has happened in Indonesia), it can be associated with higher carbon emissions.
If you mean the world should reduce its harvesting of trees, however harvested, certainly that would help in atmospheric CO2 capture.
I went looking for a breakdown of the end-uses of wood flows, and all I could find quickly was wood flows in Europe in 2010, which doesn't seem to show the uses of imported wood and forest-derived products.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291034739_Wood_flows_in_Europe_EU_27/figures?lo=1
But, for what it's worth, it does highlight relative proportions that are used for the big categories: paper, lumber, and energy. Recycling of paper and cardboard is actually at a pretty high rate now. And lumber for construction, furniture, and other finished wooden items accounted for about 45% of the total. From a carbon perspective, that carbon is bound up, which is a good thing.
It is the 37% that was being used for energy production (even more is being used now, including a significant amount that is being imported) that is potentially a problem. In theory, burning biomass is carbon-neutral, on the argument that the carbon that is released will eventually be re-absorbed in vegetative growth. But as climate scientists point out, especially while fossil-fuel-derived carbon emissions are increasing, it is dangerous to add a burst of carbon from burning trees at this point, on top of the fossil CO2, as it will take decades to re-absorb that carbon. Better to leave those trees in place to keep absorbing carbon is the argument.
I realize the situation gets more complicated if one is looking at short-term rotation trees, the need to thin out forests if you want to create space for the remaining trees to grow bigger, etc.
All this mainly to say, that, yes, I agree: forestry matters, and it can contribute importantly to capturing CO2.
Had to repost the above because of a couple of errors. Also, I found this interesting article on NASA's website from a year ago titled "There Is No Impending 'Mini Ice Age'":
https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2953/there-is-no-impending-mini-ice-age/
I don't want to get too off-topic but I want to recommend this seminar that Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute about economic and political nostalgia did two days ago. I think it can be best described as a "globalist" response to this concern echoed by many here about jobs "disappearing" to do technological change. I think it might serve as an interesting discussion point for what we are talking about even though it is not specific to the energy sector.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBSeYrmC-Y
I agree. This is good stuff. Thank you.
I don't particularly like Newsweek, but:
https://www.newsweek.com/goverment-loan-program-funded-solyndra-makes-money-284538
This suggests Solyndra is a bloody shirt, not a smoking gun.
I'm available all times except Sat May 8, 16 to 20 GMT.
Thank you, Geoff! Anyone else?
I'm available on all of those days except 5 to 13 GMT, which is the middle of the night on the East Coast of North America although if it gets scheduled during this time I will still try to join in anyways.
Apart from Mr. Garkinkle's essay —so rich in too-clever-by-halfs— demonstrating a strong need of him obeying Georges Simenon's, "if you find phrases in your prose that you luv luv luv, immediately and ruthlessly delete them!" (as paraphrased)— his obsessive and phenomenally obnoxious put-downs of everything Trump, especially "Trump's Base", is not the way to win hearts and minds of those otherwise finding agreement on some of the particulars. I'd imagine Garfinkle has nearly zero first-hand experience with Trump's Base, given the rarified atmospheres of their/our betters in which he evidently lives and breathes.
Interesting. I saw him spitting both ways.
great essay. Lots to think about. I wish I could see the association between CO2 and temperatures that everyone else does, but who could disagree with more research and innovation.
An excellent essay that underlines the point I have been making: You can't ignore the politics of climate change and energy policy; you have to finesse them. Obama was too much of a smartass to be bothered, Trump was without a clue, and I'm dubious of the proposition that Biden can hit the sweet spot. His long and undistinguished career gives no reason for optimism, but we shall see.
Adam Garfinkle's piece contains so much wisdom in science, sociology, and politics. A phenomenally brilliant piece.
"The infamous Solyndra case says it all; look it up if you’ve forgotten the particulars. Not only did a pile of money get wasted amid heaps of favoritism and political sweetheart gestures but, much worse, Solyndra soured Congress and others on the whole approach. The bad apple ruined the whole barrel."
This is one of my favorite examples of how political wings are the enemy of reason. Rather than attempt to fix the errors made while researching new tech, pundits used this as an opportunity to sell their audience the plan of "fold your arms and pout." No need to do the hard work of improving our situation if you can throw up your hands in exasperation and blame all of the failures on The Other Guys. Especially true if you can use this incident to build up your strawmen for future debates over policy. And smug self-satisfaction.
Thanks for acknowledging the emotions present around the edges of this discussion. I'm sure you'll notice it leak into the comments section this week.
It’s not as if the Solyndra fiasco was an isolated incident. Subpar performance and plain old incompetence are common in all areas of government, e.g. the FDA’s stumbling, bumbling response to the pandemic. Bureaucracies simply aren’t very efficient. They have scant incentive to work efficiently, because there’s no real accountability and no bottom line. If things go wrong, a few politicians may be sent packing by the voters, but the bureaucrats always remain in place.
The complexities inherent in the issues we’re discussing are such that the thought of the US government undertaking to overhaul the nation’s entire energy infrastructure absolutely terrifies me. The administrative state is so structured that failure is practically guaranteed. Look for example at the utter failure, despite twenty years of commitment, to win the war in Afghanistan. That was a failure of the Pentagon bureaucracy.
Government does all right with things that are simple, like sending people checks, and with projects that are limited in scope and have well-defined objectives, like Project Apollo. But any project prefixed with the adjective “comprehensive”? Not so much...
I mean, blaming failures in Afghanistan on the Pentagon bureaucracy seems like you're choosing your favorite complaint out of a very large list. Blaming failures in Afghanistan on the fact that it's Afghanistan and people have been failing to pacify it for millennia seems a more reasonable starting point. Or at least easily Top 3?
Did you notice the article I linked to that suggested the entire DOE loan program that involved Solyndra actually produced a net increase after repayments? I feel the same relief seeing that as I felt when I learned the 2008 bailouts were repayed. Sometimes the government tackles a problem and we come out the other side in the black. Or in the red, but with a moon lander and noticable economic gain. Sometimes politicians and business interests will cherry pick the worst looking fruit to display, just to protect their own interests. Solyndra is just the worst cherry.
I don't mean to imply I think that the government is efficient, or that bureaucracy is a goal to be pursued, merely that the boogeyman of inefficiency shouldn't scare us away from tackling projects. Especially projects that the free market is unwilling or lacks incentives to take on.
Who else is to blame for a failure besides the group that's in charge of the operation? Regarding Afghanistan, the military bureaucracy never specified an objective, i.e. never explained what victory was supposed to look like. Instead it stumbled from one expedient to another, eventually fetching up against the far end of a blind alley. As Henry Kissinger once remarked, if you don't know where you're going, all roads will get you there.
You can say what you like about Solyndra but the bottom line is that the company no longer exists. So what was the point? A net increase for the DOE loan program?
"The boogeyman of inefficiency" is not a figment but a fact and where government is concerned we in America have reached the point at which it's a feature, not a bug, of the system. One thing that hasn't been much discussed here is the regulatory environment in the Land of E Pluribus Unum, which all too often facilitates delay, obstruction, cost overruns and ultimate frustration. Case in point: homelessness in California, which is largely to blame on a regulatory regime that make it almost impossible to construct new housing.
Sorry, we're galloping all over the place and my point is going to get lost in the weeds if we get in to homelessness or Kabul or Apollo.
The DoE ran a program where they invested in new tech companies to expand energy availability. As can be expected, some companies failed, some succeeded. The interest earned exceeded the costs of the program, meaning that the government had more money, more successful US businesses, and greater availability of energy. But because Solyndra failed spectacularly, it's a great horse to beat rather than look at the program as a whole.
This is called counting the hits and ignoring the misses. Perhaps in the case of Solyndra it's more counting the misses and ignoring the hits. If a program is designed in invest in new tech companies and it both produces them AND didn't cost anything after it received returns, there is no good reason to stare myopically at the slice of the pie that fell on the floor. Unless you want to count political theater as good reason. Or you're honestly looking for ways to improve similar programs, which I welcome AND why I suggested improving oversight for the next round of DoE loans which are going forward presently.
Googling "solyndra + toilet" will demonstrate how pathetic the conversation around this DoE program has become, rather than honest critique. It's poisoned people to the point where they can't see the overall successful program it was a part of.
And it's actually sending people checks, which you seemed to say is what the government does well. They sent checks, they ended up with more money than they started with, and US companies reaped benefits. There's plenty of inefficiency in the government. This ain't it.
That being said, yes, there's a lot of inefficiency out there. We'll never get rid of it. We can limit it and prune it back IF we can get people to look at things honestly. It's why the GAO is so important, because it's their job to mind the till.
And it's why when somebody sneers at them, we need to check that politician or pundit's pockets.
Speaking of "pathetic"... maybe, Matt, you should take an undergrad intro to economics course if you think that the Feds broke even on Solyndra. Here's more of my pathetic whining about how swell the Feds conduct energy and economic analyses... Van Jones seems to be the main perp behind the infamous Cash for Clunkers (CfC) debacle, and with the resurrection of the rest of the Obamazoids we'll probably getting more of his brilliant contributions soon enough...
________
(rejected op ed by LAT, NYT, and Wapo in 2019)
"I'm not an economist, but as an alternative to a classic benefit/cost analysis I actually did run a quick and dirty work-up of the relevant crude energetics (all data from five minutes of Googling):
Assuming 50K miles remaining service life in the clunkers getting 16 mpg (now being destroyed instead), the comparative savings in gasoline in a 32 mpg vehicle over those same 50K miles is about 1,600 gallons.
The energy content in a gallon of gasoline is about 130 MegaJoules (i.e., ~35 MJ/l). Producing new steel requires about 22 MJ/kg, while recycling old steel requires about 14MJ/kg. The energy yielded by the 1,600 gallons of saved gasoline is 210,000 MJ, or about enough for smelt a little less than 10 tons of completely new steel, or to reprocess about 15 tons of recycled steel.
I’ve also seen another set of figures showing production energetics of raw steel at 65 MJ/kg, and recycled steel at about 52 MJ/kg. If those numbers are more correct, the fuel saving allows for producing only 3.5 tons of new steel or 4.1 tons of recycled steel.
I further Googled up a figure of 66 giga joules (GJ) as the ballpark energy input required to manufacture a single new motor vehicle, including the metallurgical energetics (as above, plus copper wiring, aluminum components, etc.). One gigajoule is 1,000 megajoules, i.e., 66,000 MJ/vehicle. That figure comes from Ford and is based on Taurus sedan or a F-150 pickup truck.
Ford also offers a lifetime energy consumption of those same models at about 961 GJ = 961,000 MJ, assuming a 120K lifetime mileage yield.
So very roughly speaking, it would take the fuel savings (over 50K miles estimated remaining life in each) of recycling four or five (!) clunkers to account for the lifecycle energetics of only one new vehicle.
No doubt this is a vastly oversimplified analysis, and doesn’t at all address the carbon issues at the heart of the global warming hypothesis. Likewise I'm staying away from the "stimulus" and job-creating/job conserving nominal objectives of the scheme.
This also doesn’t address the personal financial issues of holding onto a fully-paid-for clunker getting 16 mpg, or alternatively taking on a $15,000 auto loan for a 32 mpg vehicle that saves about $4000 in fuel costs (at $2.50 gallon: roughly the present average cost of gasoline in the USA) over the first 50K miles driven. Or only about $800/yr at the typical 10k miles/yr driven by Americans. Of course the maintenance and repair costs of a new car will likely be much lower than of an old clunker over the first 50K miles."
_____
Now Matt, why don't see if you find find a post-facto benefit/cost analysis done for CfC —on which the Feds dropped $3.5 billion!— by any of your admirable your buds at GAO or DOE.
If you Google "solyndra + toilet" you'll get 72.4K hits, of which all that I've looked at so far say something like, "flushed a half billion of US taxpayers dollars down the toilet". No doubt. But apparently it would take quite a deeper dive to find out that before Solyndra fabricated and sold a single photovoltaic gizmo, they equipped every crapper in their fabulous new Silicon Valley HQ with state-of-the-art sensor- and microprocessor-embedded $$$ toilet seats that read out body temp, basal metabolism, blood pressure, pulse rate, BMI, life expectancy, prostate enlargement, and sperm count.
So, if we're to give out large public loans to companies: more aggressive oversight, especially if they're heavily favored by the oval office? This seems like a good take away in general, since anyone receiving public funds should be accountable for the results.
Given the investments the CCP is making in their own "private" industries, I'm not sure how we can compete otherwise. Or is this Toilet of Myth and Power terrible enough that we should yield the ground and let China corner the market?
Bravo!!!