Self interest and Energy Efficiency

Using data from the Department of Energy (here and here), Mark Perry illustrates that household consumption of energy declined by almost 33% between 1980 and 2005, and household expenditures on energy per square foot declined by over 40% in the same period. This suggests “that American homes are becoming more and more energy efficient all the time.”

Energy efficiency has also increased for standard household appliances since 1980, according to data Mark Perry collected from Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.

For a home refrigerator in 1980, its energy factor (EF, a standard measure of overall energy efficiency for appliances) was 5.59, and by 2008 the EF for refrigerators had increased almost three-fold to 15.50, for a 177.3% improvement in energy efficiency. The other standard home appliances in the chart above also had significant improvements in energy efficiency, from a 41.5% increase for the room air-conditioner, to a 91.4% increase for the dishwasher.

What should you make of this? Mark Perry writes:

These significant increases in energy efficiency for both our homes in general and also for the appliances that we have in our homes have happened gradually, but steadily, for many decades, and many of these improvements in energy efficiency probably took place without any government intervention, stimulus or rebate programs.  The incentive to save money ensures that there will always be an incentive to become more energy efficient out of pure self-interest, since increased energy efficiency translates directly into monetary gain.

Iran by the Numbers

Here is an excerpt on the economic conditions in Iran from Michael Ledeen’s upcoming book, Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West:

The country’s wealth is firmly in the hands of the regime’s elite families. More than 80 percent of the country’s gross national product comes from the petroleum industry, which is entirely in government hands. The mullahs have effectively ruined this primary source of national wealth: Oil production is currently around three million barrels per day. It was 6.2 at the end of the shah’s rule. According to a study released by the National Academy of Sciences on Christmas Day 2006, oil exports are expected to decline by upwards of 10 percent a year for the foreseeable future.

HT: Andrew Sullivan

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required

Nick Schulz has posted an excellent chart from a J.P. Morgan research report that illustrates the private sector experiences of cabinet officials since 1900.

The chart includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all.

Over 90 percent of the current cabinet’s experience was in the public sector.

U.S. Military Consumes 22 Gallons of Fuel Per Soldier Daily

According to a new Deloitte study, the U.S. military consumes 22 gallons of fuel per soldier daily, each costing at least $45 per gallon.

The report also found that since the Vietnam War, there has been a 175 percent increase in gallons of fuel consumed per U.S. soldier.

The report attributes that growth to a few key factors: the increased mechanization of military technologies, the expeditionary nature of long-distance conflicts, and the rugged terrain and irregular warfare that has typified our recent wars.

California to ban ‘energy-guzzling’ big screen TVs

According to The Daily Mail,

Big screen plasma televisions are to be banned in California because they use too much energy.

In a world first, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has given his backing to the crackdown on sets more than 40 inches wide.

These liquid crystal display and plasma high definition sets can use as much as three times the power of smaller cathode ray models.

Saudis ask for aid if world cuts dependence on oil

The Associated Press reports:

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

“We are among the economically vulnerable countries,” [Saudi delegation Mohammad S.] Al Sabban told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the talks ahead of negotiations in Copenhagen in December for a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Saudi Arabia, which sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is seeing economic growth slide because of fallout from the global meltdown, but experts still expect the country, flush with cash from oil’s earlier price spike last year, to be better able than other nations to cope with the current crisis.

Al Sabban accused Western nations of pursuing an agenda against oil producers, under the guise of protecting the planet.

Mexico’s troubled oil industry

The Economist asks, “How many Mexicans does it take to drill an oil well?”

The answer: “More than 140,000, and even then they’re not very good at it. For this, now acute, problem, blame the politicians.”

The author paints an ugly picture:

It is bad enough that Mexico’s economy is in deep recession, triggered by its close links to the ailing United States. To make matters worse, the country’s oil industry, its fiscal cash-cow for the past three decades, is declining swiftly (see chart). As recently as 2004 Cantarell, the country’s main offshore field, produced 2.1m barrels per day (b/d) of crude. Now its output is just 600,000 b/d. There are no obvious replacements: 23 of the 32 biggest fields are in decline. Barring big new finds, the world’s seventh-largest oil producer is forecast to become a net importer by 2017.

“There is no mystery behind the decline,” writes The Economist:

The constitution bans private investment in hydrocarbons. Ever since Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated foreign oil companies in 1938, the state oil monopoly has been seen by many politicians, especially from the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its offshoots, as the untouchable bone marrow of Mexican sovereignty. To make matters worse, Pemex has been run more in the interests of its workers and their trade unions than of the Mexican people, its notional owners.

…Even if Mexico allowed private companies to explore for oil, they would have to invest $10 billion a year to halt the decline in output, reckons David Shields, who edits a specialist magazine on Mexican oil. Under today’s law, in which private firms can only act as service providers for Pemex, that investment would be much higher, he says.

Measuring Economic Growth From Space

An interesting (albeit simple) way of measuring economic growth:

Reliable data on economic growth are hard to come by in many parts of the world, but three economists at Brown University present an alternative: check out their night lights.

J. Vernon Henderson, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil suggest using satellite pictures of light at night time as a proxy for measuring economic growth. “Consumption of nearly all goods in the evening requires lights,” they write in their paper. “As income rises, so does light usage per person, in both consumption activities and many investment activities.”

The authors noted the correlation on income data when looking at comparisons between Eastern European countries and former Soviet republics. In Moldova and Ukraine, income per capita fell by 30% and 35% respectively, while population fell by 3% and 8% respectively, and light intensity dropped by 68% and 47% respectively. In Hungary, Poland and Romania, where

Here is an earlier post worth a thousand words.