Posted on 04/28/2002 8:00:00 AM PDT by Dog Gone
ONCE upon a time, the picturesque university town of Cambridge, England, decided it had too many cars. To remedy the situation, it placed bicycles all over town, free for anyone to use.
The experiment sounded good, but it failed. The bikes were stolen and vandalized.
Sometimes an idea that seems good for the environment doesn't work in the real world. Take the notion of using alternative fuels to increase fuel economy. For years environmentalists and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have grown increasingly strident in their demands that we must have vehicles that get greater fuel economy. At the same time they have been insisting that we replace gasoline with cleaner-burning alternative fuels. Most frequently mentioned are compressed natural gas, or CNG, and liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG.
But the EPA and environmentalists have known all along a dirty little secret: You can't have both. Unfortunately, it's an either-or situation -- either alternative fuels or higher mileage. This is spelled out very clearly in a joint EPA, Department of Energy publication, "Model Year 2002 Fuel Economy Guide." It lists mileage ratings for nearly all American-made and many foreign cars and light trucks sold in the United States.
The numbers are very revealing. A typical example is the mileage ratings for the Ford F-150, for decades the most popular light truck in the country.
According to the EPA/DOE guide, the gasoline-powered version of the F-150 with a 4-speed automatic transmission and 5.4-liter V-8 engine gets 15 miles per gallon in city driving and 19 mpg on the highway.
Same truck, same engine, same transmission, powered by CNG is rated at just 12 mpg city and 16 mpg highway -- 20 and 16 percent less, respectively.
The same truck in a bi-fuel model that can burn gasoline or CNG performs even worse: 11 mpg city and 14 mpg highway. Those are mileage reductions of 27 and 26 percent from the gasoline-powered model.
Mileage takes a big hit in the bi-fuel model built for gasoline and LPG, too: 12 mpg city and dramatically low 13 mpg highway -- 21 percent below the gasoline-powered version.
Automotive experts, such as Robert Brooks of the prestigious auto-industry publication "Wards Engine and Vehicle Technology Update," point out that the poor mileage of these alternatives is to be expected.
In simple terms, they say that CNG and LPG contain less energy per gallon than gasoline and it is the energy contained in the fuel, not just the fuel itself, that moves you down the road. They point out that a similar, though less severe, reduction in mileage is caused by adding the "alternative fuel" ethanol to gasoline.
Dramatically expanded use of ethanol is advocated by both Republican and Democratic leaders, in an effort to appeal to the farm vote. Ethanol is made from corn. The fact remains, you can't have it both ways: It's higher mileage or alternative fuels.
There is a second little secret about these alternative fuels: They come from wells: in many cases, the same wells from which we get oil. Oil that we use to make gasoline. Wells that environmentalists don't want us to drill.
Could the real secret be that environmentalists just don't want us to drive cars at all? No ... to anyone paying attention, that's not a secret.
Randall is director of the John P. McGovern Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at the National Center for Public Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.
The greens are fond of pointing out that one fuel is "cleaner" than another, based on the amount of pollutants per gallon burned.
But, if you have to burn more gallons to go X distance, the "clean" fuel isn't so "clean" any more.
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