Obama scraps tighter smog rules

[mrstickball]

sethnintendo said:

Kasz216 said:

 

Economists would argue that by maximizing economic activity and growth now, we will be able to better afford the changes needed... and geoengineering technology would likely advance faster.

VS slower economics making changes harder... and the technologies meant to increase... actually end up worse off.

I would just like to point out the auto industry and oil companies.  When you have two industries that work hand in hand together then technological advancements in areas such as gas mileage become very slow.  There were cars back in the 40s/50s that weigh almost as much as the Hummer that could go 100+ miles per gallon (with technologies such as water vapor injection carburetor and during the 70s the fuel-vapor engine).  The technology has been there but has been suppressed by mainly the oil companies.  The oil companies have clearly stated that they are working with auto industry to develop new engines.  I wonder why these engines can't even compare to technology that has been suppressed for 50+ years.  Sometimes industries don't care to improve efficiency especially when they are in control of finite resources.

Do not forget that many of the restraints that hurt MPG are caused by the government. They continually require changes in gasoline blend, prequisites of features to become road worthy, and restrict many types of vehicles.

A few examples:

1. Catalytic converters. They restrict the amount of air expelled by the motor, which causes  approximately a 10% loss in MPG.
2. Diesel regulations. Due to restrictive legislation by the US, we cannot use many diesel cars that Europe uses, such as the Ford Fiesta. It runs on diesel, and gets 65MPG. Due to said regulations, ours get about 39MPG. Additionally, before the govenment added restrictions (such as low-sulfur requirements), diesel was far more economical for the consumer, which gets far more gas efficiency per gallon for any vehicle (about 20%)... It would save us billions of barrels of oil a year.
3. Regulations/restrictions on creating new facilities for manufacturers. You can look at start-ups like Tesla, and understand that due to manufacturing restrictions in the US, additional capital is required for new product lines. This has a debilitating effect on new car innovations like the Aptera and aforementioned Tesla - both get >100 MPGe. All the while the government bails out failed companies like GM and their POS Volt hybrid. 

Again, regulations have had an adverse effect on efficency. Additionally, you can look at the cost to manufacture vehicles in the US, and labor costs that have made companies push bigger, less-efficient vehicles simply because they had to recoup union labor costs through trucks and SUVs. You can see this in the fact that non-union labor produces far more gas efficient vehicles through companies like Honda and Toyota. Even the US, now-defunct Saturn was doing a good job until they decided to kill them due to GM's bailout.