03111 Energy Conservation in Transportation

Your grandchildren will likely find it incredible — or even sinful — that you burned up a gallon of gasoline to fetch a pack of cigarettes! — Paul MacCready, Jr.

Energy conservation in transportation can be summed up in these three easy to remember techniques.

  1. Walk, ride a bicycle, take public transportation, carpool more. Drive a personal vehicle less.
  2. If you do drive a personal vehicle, don’t be stupid about it. Drive and accelerate slowly, at the optimum rates for miles per gallon. Use hyper-mile techniques.
  3. If you must travel between cities, take the bus or a fully-loaded train. Don’t fly in airplanes unless there is absolutely no other way to get there. Don’t look for reasons to fly anywhere.

That’s really all there is to it.

There’s no secret thing to do. There is no shortcut. There are no energy fairies to save us. We have to drive less and drive slower and take the bus or walk and ride a bicycle more.

Personal vehicles are one of the top three contributors to energy consumption and the anthropogenic emissions that drive global warming. One of the most productive activities you can do to save the planet is to stop driving — or to drive MUCH less.

Use Less Energy When You Drive

If you must drive, don’t be stupid about it. My intention is not to be gratuitously offensive by using the word “stupid.” I just want us to wake up to the consequences of our actions. When we jump into the car and zoom down the street, accelerating fast and braking to stop, we waste gasoline by the gallons. Meanwhile, we send soldiers to bleed and die in the Middle East so that the developed countries can have a secure petroleum supply line. In other words, the cheap gasoline we are fond of comes at the cost of human sacrifice — civilians and soldiers alike. To be stupid about our gasoline consumption is a terrible insult to those who have given their lives for the sake of fossil fuel transportation.

So let’s not send our soldiers to war overseas and turn right around and stab them in the back by refusing to moderate our own petroleum consumption. Here are some tips to get with the program and start caring for the planet, caring for people, and having a care for the future.

One good idea is to install a fuel consumption monitor. That way you can get good information about your gasoline consumption and modify your driving behavior accordingly.

Maintain your vehicle. Keep the tires inflated to the correct pressure. Keep engine tuned and change the oil when it needs it.

Don’t carry around extra weight.

SLOW DOWN! More speed = more fuel consumption. Miles per gallon decrease rapidly above 55 MPH. Unless there is an emergency, never drive faster than 55 MPH. Every 10% increase in your speed will cost you 10-20% in more fuel due to increased air resistance. The most efficient speed is the speed just after the highest gear has been engaged by the transmission. For most cars, that’s about 45 miles per hour or so.

Accelerate gently! One caveat to this is that if you drive a fuel efficient vehicle, it may be better to accelerate faster to get to the optimal driving speed. However, if you drive a large heavy vehicle that gets poor gas mileage, you want to avoid fast acceleration as much as possible.

Don’t drive aggressively. Leave early so you aren’t in a hurry and thus aren’t tempted to drive aggressively.

Coast in neutral when practical.

Anticipate! Think and look ahead and drive so you can coast to stops. Coast in neutral with the engine idling, until you stop, if conditions allow.

Organize your trips to minimize driving around. Some GPS systems will figure trip itineraries for you.

Fill your tank when it gets to half empty. Fill up at night during the summer to avoid contributing to ozone problems.

Inflate tires to the proper pressure. Running with tires at 20% less pressure than they should be will cost you 10% more fuel.

If you have a standard transmission, drive in the highest gear possible. Engines are more efficient at lower speeds than they are at higher speeds. If you don’t have a standard transmission, sell your automatic transmission vehicle and get a standard.

When driving in town at low speeds in the summer, don’t use the air conditioning, roll down the windows instead. When driving at higher speeds on the highway in the summer, roll your windows up and use the AC.

Make sure your engine is properly tuned and kept in good repair.

Don't drive with your lights on during the broad daylight.

If you start driving substantially less, tell your auto insurance company. You may get a discount, especially if you no longer commute to work by car.

Stay away from drive-up windows. Eight seconds idling uses more gasoline than it takes to restart the car. Hours spent idling at drive up windows wastes fuel and contribute to global warming gases. A personal sense of entitlement to drive-up window convenience is a selfish indulgence the planet and its people and critters cannot afford. Park the car and go inside!

Even in cold weather, a car does not need more than 30 seconds to warm up the oil so you can start driving.

Don’t idle your car for long periods of time. Turn the car off. If you must idle . . . in an automatic shift vehicle, always shift into neutral so the engine doesn’t try to move the car forward while you press on the brakes.

Avoid driving during rush hour if at all possible.

Do not follow other vehicles closely. Leave a cushion of space between you and the vehicles ahead of you.

When driving up a hill, don’t increase the throttle in order to maintain speed. Keep the same amount of throttle (pressure on the accelerator pedal) and allow the vehicle to slow down naturally, unless it gets so slow that you’re causing a traffic problem.

There is no such thing as a magical free gasoline energy device. Don’t waste your money proving that this is true.

If you buy a personal automobile —

  • Don’t buy a new car or pickup.
  • Do get a manual transmission. Automatic transmission vehicles are about 10% less frugal in fuel consumption.
  • Do get a small engine. Bigger engines = fewer miles per gallon.
  • Do get a smaller vehicle. Bigger vehicle = more weight = fewer miles per gallon.

The Energy Problem With Longer-distance Traveling

If we are serious about our permaculture ethics, we have to become more responsible about traveling.

Americans and Europeans have a high sense of entitlement to all the travel we think we can financially support. Whether it be a cross country road trip, a vacation flight to Europe, the Mediterranean, or the States, or a spring break trip to beaches of Florida, we rarely contemplate the ecological consequences of our travel addiction.

Governments, organizations and businesses, including the government, travel often and everywhere as they do business. Annual conferences often meet in exotic locales that require long distance air travel.

I don't say “never travel.” Family is important and with modern life being what it is, families don't always live in the same geographic area. Family occasions may require travel. Every time we fly, we cause serious damage to the planet. If we want to be authentic and ethical in the modern world, it's time to limit our travel. When we do travel, we need to travel by the most eco-friendly method, which is the bus.

However nice we are as people, and however much good we intend by our actions, our travel does not come with a free “No Damage to the Ecology” card. The goal must be to “travel less.”

In the future, our ability to travel will be constrained by our circumstances. The day soon comes when families that want regular personal contact will need to live in the same geographies or be satisfied with keeping in touch by letters, emails, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, and etc. Commercial enterprises will learn to do business without air travel. Organizations will find ways to maintain their activities without annual conferences.

Here are some ideas about reducing travel:

Business travel adds to business expense. If the profit for a particular business trip is not clear, the business trip should be cancelled. Video and teleconferencing should replace a lot of traveling for in person meetings.

Citizens should demand that governments drastically reduce the travel of politicians and government employees at the taxpayers’ expense. Congressional junkets to the far-flung corners of the earth are a grotesque waste of tax money and should be forbidden. Politicians who take such junkets should be turned out of office at the next election. There should be no exceptions to this.

Organizations should never hold annual national gatherings. A national gathering for any purpose should be held no more than once-every-four-years. That was the traditional rotation of the ancient Olympics, and I think it still makes sense in the modern era. If the organizations in which you participate continue to hold annual conventions, don’t go! Elect different leaders who will commit to caring for the planet and having a care for the future by going to a once-in-four-years annual convention. Boycott three out of the four annual conventions and attend only in the fourth year. A meeting schedule that does less damage to the planet schedules local meetings in years 1 and 3, a regional meeting in year 2, and the national meeting in year 4.

Ration your vacation travel. Do more staycations and travel close to your home. Do fewer vacations involving international or other long distance travel. Students may want to continue their traditional trip abroad during their educational years, to “back pack around Europe.” That should be the last overseas trip for quite a few years. Instead, travel via the internet and personal correspondence relationships with people all over the world.

When you travel between cities, take the bus or ride a mostly loaded train. Get over any class prejudices you may have about riding the bus.

Every decision to travel by air is a deliberate decision to poison the earth’s atmosphere. You may decide to do it anyway. You shouldn’t delude yourself about what you’re doing and the consequences of your action.

For further information. . .

You can post questions and ideas about transportation fuel conservation in the forums at the Ecomodder site: http://ecomodder.com/ .