Blogger Busts EPA’s Fake Fuel Figures
12th June 2012
Blogger Lindsay Leveen at Green Explored explains, in layman’s terms, how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has created data “that disobey the laws of thermodynamics so that the worthless government policy of favoring plug in vehicles over gas or diesel powered vehicles can be supported by the public.” The key, according to Leveen, is that the EPA deliberately ignores energy losses at each stage of the electrical process–meaning that the EPA’s claim of 118 miles per gallon (MPG) for the Honda Fit means less than 41 MPG in reality.
Well, you could always hitch a horse to the front of it. Think of how many MPG you’d get then.
June 12th, 2012 at 09:34
Interesting analysis, but ultimately uselss since electricity is not generated by gasoline or oil. It is generated by coal or natural gas.
Unanswered, of course, is how the EPA calculates miles-per-gallon of gasoline for an electric vehicle which doesn’t use gasoline.
June 12th, 2012 at 10:24
Oil is used to generate electricity in many parts of the country, Dennis. Usually No. 6 oil (which is anything kinda liquid that could burn) or No. 4 or 5 oil (which is No. 6 blended with diesel to cut the sulfur content and improve flow).
Regardless of what is burned to generate power, it’s easy to convert the caloric content to an equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.
It astonishes me that so few people question EPA’s information. As one who has dealt with EPA for years I can tell you that it’s pretty rare that anything coming out of there is based on science or engineering reality. The ratio of bureaucrats to scientists at EPA must be in the triple digits.
June 12th, 2012 at 10:39
Well, if we’re going to compare apples to apples, we should then calculate the energy ‘lost’ in pumping, refining, transporting, and storing a gallon of gasoline. All the current estimates do is calculate (erroneously, but we’ve always known that) the efficiency of the vehicle after the fuel is already in your tank–a fair measure if both vehicles use the same fuel, because you can start from the same zero point. But these don’t, so you can’t, so the whole exercise is silly.