Clark Williams-Derry’s Posts

• Barking up the wrong tree

  Dogs Vs. SUVs 0

  Posted 5 days, 6 hours ago

  Editor's note: Clark will be on NW Cable News tomorrow morning (Nov 3) around 8:30 to talk more about this issue.

  You may have seen the meme circulating around the internet:  some researchers from Australia are claiming that owning a dog has as much impact on the planet as owning an SUV.  I'll let New Scientist summarize their case:

  [A] medium-sized dog...consume[s] 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food...So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares...

  Meanwhile, an SUV...driven a… Read More

• The hidden cost of coal 1

  Posted 1 week, 4 days agoBased on Clark Williams-Derry's awesome powers of multiplication, and a quick trip to the U.S. Energy Information Administration website, these numbers suggest that the "hidden" costs of coal fired power in 2005 were roughly twice as high as the cost of the coal itself.

• Sugar Crash

  Of car crashes and Snickers bars 0

  Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago

  How many Snickers bars does it take to power a car crash? The answer shows that when it comes to energy, our common sense is just plain dumb.

• Still too reliant on coal

  Coal the culprit in rising emissions intensity 2

  Posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago

  I wrote last week about a curious fact:  even though total CO2 emissions from the US electric power sector have dropped during the recession, the emissions intensity of the US power supply -- that is, the amount of carbon per megawatt hour produced -- actually inched upwards.  The decline in total emissions is good news in the short term.  Yet the increase in emissions intensity is worrisome: if we're going to keep emissions low once the economy picks up again, emissions intensity has to… Read More

• Carbon goes the wrong way

  Power plant performance down in 2008 6

  Posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago

  Even though total carbon emissions from power plants fell in 2008, the carbon intensity of the power sector -- that is, the amount of CO2 released per megawatt-hour of power produced -- increased last year.

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Clark Williams-Derry’s Recent Comments

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  Thanks!

  Thanks for all the super-helpful comments, everyone!!On How much power do Americans guzzle for lighting? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 18 Responses

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  mooo-hoo-ha-ha-ha

  Drat!  Someone has finally uncovered my imperialist global plans!!!  Note to henchmen:  dispatch the ninjas, immediately!!On It's a mistake to view the economy as an abstraction posted 2 years, 1 month ago 10 Responses

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  Actually --

  I'm pretty sure that I've done the income-gas consumption elasticity calculations wrong, now that I look at them again.  I'm sure that it's less than 100%, by a substantial margin (from 1969 to 2002, total personal income went up by 250% in constant dollars, and gas consumption went up 87%).  But I'm not sure the elasticity is really .48; perhaps it's more, perhaps less.  

  Either way, it seems like it would be wise to take a look at the issue...On Fuel tax magic, part one posted 3 years, 4 months ago 3 Responses

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  Hm.

  Mr Komanoff --

  I'm a big fan of your work -- and I agree that people are price sensitive, and that rising prices are dampening demand a bit.  Still, I think your spreadsheet substantially overestimates the short-term price elasticity of gasoline, perhaps by a factor of 3.

  To check one of your key assumptions -- that a 10% increase in real income corresponds to a 10% increase in gas consumption -- I checked federal figures for total personal income in Washington State, from 1969 through 2002, and compared it with federal figures for total gas consumption in Washington state.

  The result -- on average, a 10% increase in total personal income corresponded to a 4.8% increase in gasoline consumption.  Which means that the elasticity of gas consumption, relative to income, is about 0.48, rather than 1.

  When I plug that lower figure into your spreadsheet, I get a much lower short-term price elasticity for gasoline -- 6%, rather than 20%.

  It would probably be worthwhile comparing GDP, total US personal income, and total US gas consumption; and also do the same thing for each state.  That might give you a more accurate estimate for the income elasticity of gas consumption.  But my guess is that no matter where you look real income has risen much faster than gas consumption over the long-term -- which means that gas price elasticity is lower than 20%.On Fuel tax magic, part one posted 3 years, 4 months ago 3 Responses

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  too quick to judge?

  I may have been premature in dismissing this out of hand.  Apparently, there's some promise in using hydrogen as a gasoline additiive to boost vehicle efficiency while reducing emissions.  See, e.g.,
  http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/hydrogenenhance.html

  There also seem to be a bunch of "hydrogen boost" kits available on the interent -- caveat emptor.

  Stll this is not about cars that run on water (duh), which is what the news story seemed to suggest.  They still run on gas, but perhaps a little more efficiently.On Water power posted 3 years, 4 months ago 7 Responses