Hybrids Are Good, but ICE Car Tweaks, Cooking Stoves Better for Curbing Oil Use

Hybrids Are Good, but ICE Car Tweaks, Cooking Stoves Better for Curbing Oil Use

By Scott Doggett November 27, 2009

We've said it before and, because there's a well-written article on the subject in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), we'll say it again: Tweaking regular gasoline-powered cars is likely to curb oil use more than plug-in-hybrid and electric vehicles for years to come.

Raising the average fuel economy of gasoline cars around the world to 36 miles per gallon from 26 mpg will likely save more than six times as much oil in 2030 as rolling out enough plug-in hybrids to constitute 7 percent of the global auto fleet.

So says BP PLC. It's an oil company with a stake in the success of gasoline-powered cars, but its findings agree with other studies.

For years, the fight to curb fossil-fuel consumption has often involved moon shots. But many of those efforts - such as cars powered by methanol, natural gas or hydrogen - haven't exactly taken off. The smarter strategy for reducing energy consumption and pollution more broadly would be decidedly low-tech solutions, a growing number of experts say.

"Policymakers have to be careful that they don't become so wowed by the sexy new technologies that they lose sight of what's available, known and tested," David Victor, an energy expert at the University of California at San Diego, told the Journal.

Low-tech steps themselves won't suffice, many scientists and policymakers say. They recommend slashing greenhouse-gas emissions 50 percent or more by the middle of the century, and that won't likely happen without sophisticated technologies like burying carbon-dioxide emissions underground, nuclear energy, and wind and solar power.

But big improvements from those costly technologies may be years away. Today, there are measures available for both the industrialized West and the developing world that may seem more evolutionary than revolutionary. But these unglamorous options could add up to major environmental progress - and at a cost more palatable in struggling economies, scientists say.

When global leaders converge next month on Copenhagen, they aren't likely to agree on any sweeping policies - particularly not a global cap on greenhouse-gas emissions, which many countries fear would stunt their economic growth. But they may make progress pursuing targeted policies to trim energy waste - lowly but effective efforts such as improving fuel economy in cars, better insulating homes and helping families in India buy $20 cooking stoves.

That approach may be more important than ever amid the recession. A Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey this spring showed a steep decline in the percentage of Americans willing to pay higher prices to protect the environment: to 49 percent this year from 60 percent in 2007.

Consider the basic cook stove, the Journal said, referring to a low-cost option that can dramatically reduce pollution.

More than half the world's population burns fuel indoors to cook and heat their homes, according to the World Health Organization. Those indoor fires emit small particles that can get lodged in the lungs and that account for 1.5 million deaths annually, says the organization, which calls the fires "the killer in the kitchen."

The fires also contribute to a smoggy plume known as the Atmospheric Brown Cloud. Studies, including some from Stanford University, say the cloud is trapping heat in the atmosphere, the Journal reported.

Several companies and nonprofit groups are trying to sell large numbers of low-cost stoves, particularly in India. The stoves look like pasta pots. Because of their design, they cook a meal with less wood, which they burn more cleanly. So the stoves can slash emissions of pollutants by more than half, manufacturers say.

A paper earlier this year co-authored by Victor, the California energy expert, estimated that if half the families in India began using improved stoves, the Atmospheric Brown Cloud would shrink by about one-third.

Envirofit International, a Fort Collins, Colorado, nonprofit group, has sold some 100,000 stoves over the past year in southern India. The organization sells them largely out of vans that roll along dirt roads in rural villages. One study notes that 60 million stoves, if sold in India for only $5 each, would cost $300 million. Even if the stoves cost more, that rollout would be cheaper than most other clean-energy options.

"The energy problem," said Steven Chu, the U.S. energy secretary, "can be advanced a long way by pretty low-tech stuff."

Simple but dramatic efficiencies are starting to be tapped by industrialized countries too. In the case of U.S. homes, studies say that using existing energy more efficiently is cheaper than renewable energy.

Yet federal tax incentives have long favored the pricier approach. Uncle Sam gives people who install renewable energy at home - such as rooftop solar panels - a tax credit valued at 30 percent of the project's total cost. But the credit for consumers who install more-efficient mechanical equipment, such as a furnace, is capped at $1,500.

And the credit for people who make even-lower-tech improvements that studies say are the most effective - such as installing insulation - is capped at $1,500. That applies just to materials, though the bulk of the cost of these projects is labor, the Journal reported.

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.