Link Banana

For The American, Laura Vanderkam reviews what seems a pretty interesting (and controversial) book.

There’s just one problem, says Robert Bryce: “Energy independence is hogwash.” In his new book, Gusher of Lies, Bryce challenges the notion that America can ever be totally “independent” of the global energy market. It is neither practical nor desirable, he argues. Repeated ad nauseam as a campaign slogan, the concept of energy independence keeps us from having an honest discussion about globalization, economics, and foreign policy. Americans will be best served by embracing global interdependence, and getting government out of the energy business as much as possible.

The most recent Tech.view column over at The Economist is both long and meandering. Though that makes it hard to draw a single conclusion from it, it’s got a lot of interesting tidbits about America’s crazy policies for determining if a car or fuel is “green.” Take this, for example, which explains how CAFE standards are calculated (something I didn’t know), and how E85’s even worse than higher fuel prices:

Car companies in America get a fuel-economy credit for every flex-fuel vehicle they sell. The government rates the fuel economy of flex-fuel vehicles at about 165% the miles per gallon (mpg) they would get on straight petrol. In reality, vehicles running on E85 get 25-30% fewer mpg than their petrol equivalents.

As it costs only $200 to turn a conventional car or light truck into a flex-fuel vehicle, the industry can save itself billions in potential fines that would otherwise accrue for failing to meet the government’s CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) requirements. CAFE is the sales-weighted average mpg figure for all the cars or light trucks a manufacturer sells in any given model year.