CO2 vehicle standards could reduce the price of oil
Explaining the ups and downs of the price of oil requires either a PhD and/or an ability to craft a good story. The French institute Enerdata has found another factor that anyone who wants to tell the full tale should take note of: CO2 regulations can affect global oil prices. Perhaps someone should tell the EPA.
Enerdata calculated that the 2012 European CO2 standards will drop global consumption by 0.9 percent. In turn, this will result in a 1.2 percent drop in oil prices, Enerdata says. The trick is going to be whether this downturn will, in turn, increase demand. That's what we're taught, right, that lower prices can stimulate demand? If fuel is cheaper, people might drive more, even if they're doing so in cleaner cars. Therefore, the question becomes: what impact will the increasingly strict European carbon dioxide regulations have? Get more details over at Green Car Congress.
[Source: Green Car Congress]
Photo by [JP] Corrêa Carvalho. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jharlan 3:00PM (4/18/2009)
Demand for oil in the past has been considered inelastic, but the recent artificial spike in oil prices beyond reason showed that oil demand is elastic, as consumption dropped dramatically. The difference is in the mind frame of the consumers. People now believe that burning fuel negatively affects the well being of the planet, and have begun to take action to reduce their usage, both because of price, but also because of the environment. This trend will continue regardless of oil prices.
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gorr 9:26PM (4/18/2009)
Petrol is just unnecessary mud sold by the rockfellers and bushs( the natural ressources and arms traders cartel) and they oppose mosus, jesus, nostradamus and me since 3000 years ago. To understand the price of petrol just look at this never ending story. I propose a miracle( working half for a full profit) then peoples lauphs at me and the natural ressources cartel is cashing billions from theses miseries that result. Only st-pierre believe in me. Peoples commited suicide 85 billions years ago and since then live like zombies at best.
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Zeph 5:57AM (4/19/2009)
First you pay for the emissions of your car, then you pay for your own. Before you even realized it some control freak has classed you as a biohazard and is plotting how to get rid of you in an environmentally friendly manner.
It's all lies, the solution is to convert the engines to ethanol, H2O, increased efficiency gasoline and further down the line to electricity. All government wants is money, because it's a nutered entity that does not control it's own capital.
These policies originate somewhere in the murky basements of the banking sector, next to the pedophile rooms and just down the hall from the satanic sacrifice chambers. Take a right at the coke machine.
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Randy C. 11:01AM (4/19/2009)
I have no doubt about this. The best way to reduce CO2 emissions is to boost fuel economy (MPG). Thus for the same number of miles traveled you use less fuel. It is simple chemistry that states for every gallon of gasoline burned you get about 19 pounds of CO2. This formula isn't going to change much in the coming years since we are at the limit of internal combustion engine efficiency now.
How do you boost fuel economy. Reduce weight i.e. smaller cars, more exotic and lighter materials (plastics, composites). Gone are the behemoth land yachts we've come to love. Introduction of economy boosting technologies like hybrid drives and start-stop where the engine shuts off at stop lights.
The quick and easy solution! Electric cars also known as Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). They start out with 50% the pollution of a gas car per mile when powered by a coal fired power plant. Then factor in the renewable electricity sources that exist now and are being added every day. You'e now down to 25% and dropping. I wont go into the details of Hydrogen Fuel Cells here but when you run the math it comes out that an HFC car will actually pollute 200% more than gas per mile from that coal fired power plant.
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bebop 12:19PM (4/20/2009)
"I wont go into the details of Hydrogen Fuel Cells here but when you run the math it comes out that an HFC car will actually pollute 200% more than gas per mile from that coal fired power plant."
Are you serious? what a load of hogwash. I dare you to prove this absurd statement. ?BTW, I have yet to see a fuel cell that destroys mountain tops and pollutes rivers like coal...
Randy C. 10:04PM (4/25/2009)
According to Plug-in America (PIA) a Battery Electric Vehicle/car (BEV) running off of electricity from a coal fired power plant produces 45-50% of the pollution of a gasoline car at the power plant. Also according to PIA a Hydrogen Fuel Cell (HFC) car uses 4-5 times the amount of energy to go a mile than a BEV. That means that power plant is working 4 to 5 times harder to propel that HFC car a mile than a BEV . 4 times the work means 4 times the pollution, which equals 4 times 50% or 200%. Remember that the reference is a gas car at 100% which means that an HFC car pollutes 2 times as much at the power plant for every mile traveled.
At the HFC car the pollution is zero but as many critics of electric cars are so fond of pointing out "aren't you just replacing the tailpipe with a smokestack?" This is the smokestack for HFC cars and it's actually worse than a gas car.
This is well to wheels energy expenditure data only for BEV and HFC cars. For the gas car we are only looking at the tail pipe not the entire well to wheels pollution which is quite significant and the oil companies are doing their best to keep it a secret as to how bad it really is.