Most major transit initiatives can currently be divided into two camps: those that want to make our transportation landscape greener by creating alternatives to car travel vs. those that want to create a greener generation of automobiles. Arguably, both pursuits can lead towards the same goal of reducing environmental impact but each option brings with it significant directional decisions as to the future of our culture and how we design the built environment. In the end there may not be one universal option that fits a country like the U.S., but different courses whose implementation should follow the demands between urban and suburban development.
Archives For March 2010
Every so often we find a bit of knowledge that refocuses our perspective on reality; a sobering fact for the repercussions of our daily routines. I have decided to begin to share them here and the first one is how much energy we use not to drill for oil, not transport it and not burn it in cars, but refine it from barrels of crude into gallons of gasoline.
Sobering Fact #1
Gasoline is the centerpiece of our the American petroleum industry, comprising just over 46% of refinery output in the country. In 2008, Americans used a total of 137.8 billion gallons of gasoline, or around 380 million gallons per day, according to the Department of Energy. Gasoline accounts for 62% of all energy used for transportation. Naturally all of this product comes from oil with 18.5 gallons of gas refined from every 42-gallon U.S. barrel of crude, meaning that we need 7.5 billion barrels to satisfy our hunger for gas. Some estimates peg the energy required to refine a single gallon of gasoline at 9,317 BTUs or 2.73 kWh. This would earmark 376 billion kWh of electricity annually to turn oil into gas. Given that the average home uses roughly 12,000 kWh every year and that estimates for the number of households in the United States are as high as 115 million… this energy could power one quarter of all American homes.
Photo Credit: lcss.net
Tight economic times have a way of recalibrating priorities. According to a recent study, although the economic weight of the recession has caused a small retreat in sentiment for green building in design and construction professionals, the vast majority still promote building sustainably to their respective clients, helping to stoke a global green building industry worth $558 billion in 2009. Fewer, however, remained supportive of seeking LEED certification for buildings as a means for a more public display of green efforts.
While factions squabble over such big ticket political items as health care, climate change and job creation, there is an answer that could help all fronts without ramming into core partisan issues: recycling. A federal course to mandate recycling and the use of recycled content would provide benefit to numerous areas on the administration’s agenda.
Many view the recent past as not being the federal government’s finest hour. The traffic jam of partisan politics has forced numerous efforts on Capitol Hill to progress at a crawl. Congress members continue to suggest drastic, sweeping changes to different areas of the economy while the country emerges from a recession. After hours are spent pitching changes that make such a big splash the inevitable occurs and efforts at compromise are discarded in deference to a defiant standoff—which accomplishes nothing.