If you are easily bored by numbers and math… this post ain’t for you. 
In recent days the national Republicans and their partisan supporters have doubled-down on their empty “drill here, drill now” rhetoric to advance their proposal to open up protected coastal waters to off-shore drilling. They’ve been handing out bumper stickers, staging their own live soap opera from the House floor in DC and (shocking!) poking fun at Sen. Obama’s sage advice to keep your tire pressure and engine tuning up to spec.
But why would I say it’s empty rhetoric and point out how silly it is?
Because every expert on the topic, including Bush Administration officials at the Dept. of Energy, admits that it will take years for any new rigs to be built off-shore and even then there simply isn’t that much oil for any new “straws” to suck out enough in a year to make an appreciable difference in fuel prices. Period.
The Republicans’ goals will have no effect whatsoever on the price of gas at the corner station. (What is having an effect on lowering prices, however, is the fact that Americans are using less gas.)
The hokum over Obama’s off-the-cuff response to someone’s question at a town hall has been the most goofy aspect of this circus. The presidential candidate was asked if there was anything simple that individuals could do.
Obama responded by giving the same suggestion everyone from GM and Ford to NASCAR and the Governator to (again) Bush’s Energy Dept. gives: inflate your tires properly and keep your engine tuned up. Despite the fact several of their own leaders and supporters have made the same suggestion, Republicans gleefully pounced on Obama’s simple suggestion (though yesterday Sen. McCain did straight up admit that Sen. Obama was right to give the advice).
To that end, I’ve been having some fun over at conservative blogger John Ruberry’s place pointing out a few wee little facts to Mr. Ruberry and his bud “Greybeard” about mundane topics like drilling production, fuel savings related to tire pressure and the like.
Last night I left a comment over at MarathonPundit (”marathon” for running, not the gas station chain) explaining the math behind the rhetoric. My post was originally submitted in response to some baloney from “Greybeard” who thought he’d caught Obama in some sort of lie for saying that Americans could save more fuel by inflating tires properly and getting regular tune-ups than the amount which could be extracted if the currently banned areas were drilled.
Here it is (edited slightly for context):
—–
As for tire pressure, you’re right [Greybeard wrote, "No one is arguing tire inflation and keeping your car tuned won't help."]. Even McCain now agrees with Obama that keeping your tires properly inflated saves fuel. (Perhaps you’ll now whine that Sen. McCain is just an Obama mouthpiece.)
The point to the McCain attack (selling 90¢ tire gauges for $25 and falsely declaring they represent the entirety of Obama’s comprehensive, sustainable Energy Plan) was that it was based on their lie that Obama’s plan consisted of only those words of friendly advice to one of the folks at the Missouri town hall meeting.
But you take a different issue — choosing to avoid another of McCain’s lies — and dispute the numbers behind the original Obama comment…
Get ready for your eyes to glaze over, but you asked so, again, I’ll do your homework for you. And this time it’s your math homework.
Obama said: “Making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tuneups,” Obama said. “You could actually save just as much.”
Let’s break down the numbers. Obama mentioned the ounce of prevention methods of proper tire inflation and regular car tune ups.
George Bush’s Dept. of Energy estimates that drivers could improve gas mileage by 3.3% with proper tire inflation and 4% with regular tune-ups.
That’s a total of 7.3%.
That same Bush Dept. of Energy indicates that US drivers consume 9.286mil barrels of oil per day for vehicle fuel.
That’s about 3.4 billion barrels used for vehicle fuel in a year.
7.3% of 3.4 billion is … 248 million barrels of oil saved each year.
And that’s an immediate savings. Right now we could be doing this; as opposed to 8-10 years from now if the ban on outer continental shelf drilling were suddenly lifted.
To that end, the same Bush Dept. of Energy estimates there are 59 billion of barrels of oil untapped in the off-limits areas of the OCS. Sounds like a lot, but obviously the straws can only suck out so much at a time. Even the DOE admits that opening up the OCS “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030″.
Their data projections show that the first year of an opened OCS production would generate .01 million barrels per day (3.65mil brl/year) by 2018 [DoE Excel spreadsheet here].
I don’t know about you, but 248 million barrels through proper tire inflation and engine check-ups sounds like more than 3.65 million to me.
Let’s take the DOE’s best case scenario… the year 2030 when the OCS would, in theory, be at max production and oil rigs would be lining the left and right coasts over the objections of a plethora of governors and citizens…
Even in 2030, opening the OCS only adds .16 million new barrels per day (58.4 million per year) [DoE Excel spreadsheet here].
Still sounds lower than 248 million…
And, you have to factor in that we could be doing things like checking our tire pressure and tuning our engine right now. Even at the best, most speedy, most efficient timelines every expert (including the conservative Bush administration folks) figures that OCS rigs wouldn’t come online for another 8 years.
Improving fuel efficiency by 248 million barrels per year times 8 years is nearly 2 billion barrels of oil (ie, 2,000 million).
2,000 million is a whole lot more than 58.4 million.
Now sure, I’ve rounded here and there (usually rounding down on the savings end and up on the drilling end to try and give you the benefit of the doubt)… but every number I’ve used has come from the Dept. of Energy, currently a department under the purview of Pres. Bush. Note to that when you linked to Johnny “Hindrocket” Hinderaker before [Greybeard's link to Powerline], he was forced to make several undocumented, unreferenced assumptions and had to discount a variety of factors (he cuts the estimated fuel efficiency of tire inflation by more than half and completely ignores the engine tuning factors) to come up with his lower figure of 90 million barrels saved per year… but even Hinderaker’s 90 mil is more than the Bush government’s own estimated 2030 max efficiency drilling output of 58.4 mil (notice too that Hinderaker keeps talking about max totals of oil available everywhere — not just the off-shore drilling the GOP has been promoting of late — but compares it to just the annual, not cumulative, savings of simple conservation measures).
Any way you slice it, we could be saving more per year through just those two simple conservation efforts Sen. Obama suggested to that citizen of the Show Me State than we could be drilling per year, even at max efficiency, by opening up those pristine areas of God’s Creation off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
—–
I don’t dispute that some of the numbers can be fuzzy because what we’re all talking about here (conservatives and progressives alike) are estimates. That is why I stuck with comparing apples to apples. I used only statistics and figures provided by the Department of Energy (which is ostensibly overseen by Pres. Bush) and I compared only annual totals from estimated fuel savings to annual estimated drilling production.
But, again, even looking at conservative Mr. Hinderaker’s mixed numbers we see that Obama is still right: there is more fuel saved in a year through common sense conservation than can be extracted in a year from the currently off-limits resources.
Maybe now conservatives will go back to pointless ads about blondes…. Ads which even Sen. McCain’s own mom called “stupid”.
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 6, 2008 at 3:26 pm
James
I have to disagree with your math. Your math is saying that EVERY SINGLE CAR in AMERICA needs to have a tune up and check tire pressures checked.
Your quote, “George Bush’s Dept. of Energy estimates that drivers could improve gas mileage by 3.3% with proper tire inflation and 4% with regular tune-ups.”
But this is PER CAR, not for the nation as a whole. So you cannot figure that every single car is going to have these issues. Vehicles manufactured after 1985 no longer require tune-ups. The mechanics of the engine and the fuel system do not require “tune-up” maintenance (I worked at an automotive dealer, cars have platinum-tipped spark plugs that do not require replacement for over 100,000 miles). So, what PERCENTAGE of cars on the road are pre-1985, AND are not properly maintained?
Also, all cars manufactured after Sept 1, 2007 are required to have a Tire-pressure Monitoring system available and/or installed. So, my 2008 Nissan Maxima (like my former vehicle, a 2005 Nissan Xterra, and my wife’s 2007 Nissan Murano) all have Tire Pressure Montitor systems installed, which alerts me if the tire pressure is 3psi below recommended, and actually show me the actual pressure on the screen. How many cars in America currently have this TPMS system, and you know those people are driving with the correct pressure in their tires because the light would be triggered otherwise. They would be going to the dealer or putting air in the tires themselves to turn that indicator light off. Also, you can’t count drivers that have Nitrogen in their tires, as they don’t have the same issues as tires filled like normal.
So, I ask you, how many Americans, as a PERCENTAGE, are driving cars that REQUIRE tune-ups, and apply your 4% number to THAT PERCENTAGE OF VEHICLES!
Also, how many Americans, as a PERCENTAGE, are driving cars that don’t have TPMS systems or ignore their TPMS and ACTUALLY have under-inflated tires, and apply the 3.3% number to THAT PERCENTAGE OF VEHICLES.
You cannot possibly think to assume that every single vehicle in this country has under-inflated tires and need engine tune-ups. Please. I can 100% guarantee that MY 2008 Maxima with under 300 miles on the odometer does not need a tune-up, nor are my tires anything other than properly inflated. I can guarantee the same for my wife’s 2007 Murano, as well as nearly EVERY CAR SOLD THIS YEAR OR LAST YEAR are not going to have these issues.
Now, also keep in mind that I am not talking about the politics behind this, I am just bringing up rational, thoughtful, opposition to your argument. If you can find THAT information and get those statistics, then please share your math on those numbers. Thank you.
August 6, 2008 at 4:50 pm
robnesvacil
Reasonable enough points, but others have already taken them into account.
Note that conservative blogger Mr. Hinderaker — whom I reference above — based his calculations on assumptions related to your points (I’ll get back to that in a sec) and still came up with a savings figure far higher than the estimated maximum annual oil production from the OCS.
Also, the figures cited at the DoE fuel economy page I referenced are averages which means they’ve already taken into account that some vehicles will get better results and some may not get hardly any results from checking tire pressure or maintaining everything under the hood. Your 2008 Maxima and 2007 Murano (you like the Nissans, eh?) are at one extreme (the “efficient” extreme) of the scale; which means that the average is what it is because there is another two-car family out there driving clunkers with underinflated tires.
As for Mr. Hinderaker’s estimate of saving 90 million barrels of oil, he based his calculation on solely the tire inflation savings and ignored the tune up aspect entirely.
Taking the two points Sen. Obama mentioned gets you savings of 3.3% and 4% on average, for a total fuel savings of 7.3% on average.
So right off the bat, Mr. Hinderaker has lopped 4% off that total figure by ignoring the second part of Obama’s statement.
Moreover, while the actual DoE estimate lists 3.3% for economy from proper tire pressure, Mr. Hinderaker rounded that down to 3% for reasons he did not explain. There’s another reduction that gets to your point.
Mr. Hinderaker further reduced the anticipated savings by simply halving his already rounded-down stat to 1.5% figuring that at any given point only half the cars on the road would have tire pressures off the mark.
And he, as an acknowledged conservative partisan with all his own conservative biases and after cutting the savings through a process of random assumptions, still came up w/ 90 million barrels saved annually from just a portion of what Obama suggested doing… far lower than the anticipated maximum annual output from drilling in the OCS of 58.4 mil.
Fuel efficiency actions like inflating tires properly and making sure everything under the hood is running smoothly are actions Americans can take immediately and cost next to nothing in the scheme of things. We can realize fuel growth through such conservation — we use less gas and therefore stockpiles replenish.
On the other hand, the main proposal from those mocking Sen. Obama is to open up off-shore areas for more drilling. That is costly and time-consuming (to the tune of 8-10 years by commonly accepted oil industry estimates). In fact, the oil cos. have said the reason they’re not drilling more now in places where they have leases and access is lack of capacity to build rigs — not enough labor, material, etc.
And, in mocking Sen. Obama’s common sense remark those folks are also mocking, by extension, NASCAR, GM, Ford, AAA, Gov. Schwarzenegger, Gov. Crist, the Bush Administration, and, most recently, even Sen. McCain himself)
August 6, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Al Gore's Boatman
Better keep your day job sucking off the teat of taxpayer largesse, you don’t understand simple free market economics much less futures and commodities. I suppose that since you aren’t a fan of free markets, you can’t be faulted for not learning how they work.
August 7, 2008 at 3:14 am
robnesvacil
Boatie, is that supposed to be some sort of insult, as if hard-working Americans who earn an honest living in the public sector job aren’t worthy of your high horse?
Better get your facts straight next time (not that my private sector job is any bees wax of yours or anyone else’s anyway).
Or, perhaps you’re not a big fan of facts, in which case you can’t be faulted for inserting your boat shoe in your mouth right off the bat.
To your larger point, I’m a big fan of actual free markets, but not too thrilled with lobbyist-influenced and glass tower-manipulated corporatist “markets” (a la the “Enron loophole” that Sen. McCain’s good friend Phil “Americans are whiners” Gramm put in place)… so try again Boatie.
As for “actual free markets”, supply and demand is covered in basic home economics classes so it’s unclear why you’re not grasping the concept, Boatman.
If consumers can reduce demand (ie, conserve fuel through proper tire inflation, driving less, etc), supply will build up and prices will be reduced. That’s precisely why gas prices have been coming back down to earth recently.
Further, if the market can be expanded to introduce true competition by way of alternative fuels and energy (electric-powered vehicles, hybrids, biofuels, etc), that also improves the pricing picture for consumers because it gives the only game in town some healthy competition. Right now gasoline provides 99% of the fuel energy for America’s vehicles and that’s just the way the American Petroleum Institute likes it. But it’s not much of a “free” market for us consumers.
I suppose if all you’re worried about is how large the record-breaking profits are for the oil cos. then you wouldn’t care about the prices consumers are forced to pay… That too is Econ 101 but from the elite oil execs’ perspective, not regular folks’ point of view as they look in their empty wallets.
Perhaps it’s you who needs to keep your day job, o’ Gondalier of Inept Insults.
August 8, 2008 at 9:04 am
The Great Oil Debate - A Chicago Blog
[...] it goes on and on. Illinois Reason is reiterating the left’s argument on why we shouldn’t drill, citing expert testimony that it “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil [...]
August 8, 2008 at 6:46 pm
And here folks thought cons wanted a “comprehensive” energy plan « Illinois Reason
[...] related: I did conservatives’ math homework for them by comparing drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf versus common sense fuel conservation. Turns [...]