How much does it cost to commute to work or drive across town? The price of gasoline is posted at every corner gas station, but what about the cost of driving on electricity? The Department of Energy’s eGallon provides a quick and simple answer to this question and allows electric vehicle (EV) drivers to see how much they can save on fuel by using electricity instead of gasoline.

The price of an eGallon tells consumers how much it costs to drive an EV the same distance you could go on a gallon of unleaded gasoline in a similar car. It’s that simple. We take the average distance that a gasoline-powered vehicle can drive on a gallon of gas (28.2 miles for comparable 2012 model year cars), and then calculate how much it would cost to drive the average EV that same distance. Because electricity prices are a little different state to state, our eGallon tool shows how much an eGallon costs in your state, and compares it to the cost of gasoline. As you can see, on average, fueling your car with gasoline costs roughly 3 times more than fueling with electricity.

The eGallon: How Much Cheaper Is It to Drive on Electricity?

Treehugger voegt daar nog een heleboel aan toe:

It doesn’t tell the whole story…
As you can see in the chart above, the cost of electricity is a lot more stable than the cost of gasoline. That predictability is a real benefit (especially if there’s a war in the Middle-East or something like that), but there are others. [...]
Plug-in vehicles are mostly charged at night when time-of-use rates can be way lower than they are during the day and during peak time. [...]
On top of that, free ways to charge are popping up all over.

eGallons: How much does it cost to drive on electricity compared to gasoline?

In Amerika zijn drie bedrijven verantwoordelijk voor 6% van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen. En niet alleen de uitstoot van bedrijven; de totale uitstoot van het hele land. Wie stappen wil zetten, richt zijn pijlen op die drie bedrijven.

En zouden ‘wij’ ook meetellen? Jawel hoor. Met stip binnengekomen op nummer 42: Shell Oil Co. De uitstoot van het Amerikaanse stuk van dit bedrijf is 0,237%. Laten we zeggen, een kwart procentje. En daar tellen ze de uitstoot van de verkochte benzine niet in mee. Dit is alleen de uitstoot van het bedrijf zelf.

In de VS moeten bedrijven kennelijk per fabriek of installatie publiceren hoeveel broeikasgassen er worden uitgestoten. Mensen van PERI (Political Economy Research Institute), hebben die fabrieken vervolgens opgeteld tot totalen per bedrijf.

De top 100 is te vinden op greenhouse100.org. En hier een rechtstreekse link naar de gegevens over Shell.

Food & Water Watch heeft vrij precies in kaart gebracht hoe Amerikaanse ambassades te werk gaan, in hun poging om de weerstand tegen genetisch gemodificeerd voedsel probeert te breken in de rest van de wereld. Dat doen ze aan de hand van berichten van Amerikaanse ambassades, de cables van Cablegate (van Wikileaks, inderdaad).

Een paar fragmenten:

The State Department recognized the global weight of the EU opinion and tried to “limit the influence of EU negative views on biotechnology.”

In Europe, the State Department has targeted the EU to weaken the regulatory safeguards that have delayed the approval of GE crops and to force the EU to accept biotech imports. Almost two-fifths of all biotech cables (38.0 percent) were from embassies in EU member states. U.S. embassies tried to persuade nations that had been hostile to biotech crops and to shore up countries that had been supportive. The embassy in France proposed hosting a conference highlighting how biotech can “help address food shortages in the developing world” as a tactic to counteract France’s negative public opinion of GE crops.

The State Department worked especially hard to promote the interests of Monsanto, the world’s biggest biotech seed company in 2011. Monsanto appeared in 6.1 percent of the biotech cables analyzed between 2005 and 2009 from 21 countries. The State Department exercised its diplomatic persuasion to bolster Monsanto’s image in host countries, facilitate field-testing or approval of Monsanto crops and intervene with governments to negotiate seed royalty settlements.

Consumers worldwide want to know what is in their food, but biotech companies and food manufacturers would rather keep consumers in the dark about the contents of their grocery carts. The State Department has lobbied against efforts to require labeling of biotech foods. About one out of eight biotech cables (11.6 percent) from 42 nations between 2005 and 2009 addressed biotech-labeling requirements. The United States opposed mandatory GE labeling laws as trade barriers because allowing consumers to know the contents of their food also “wrongly impl[ies] that these foods are unsafe.”

En waar ik dacht dat gm-voedsel in Europa verboden was, blijkt daar een flinke nuance bij te moeten:

The EU requires all foods, animal feeds (but not meat from animals fed with GE feed) and processed products with biotech content to bear GE labels.

Download hier het rapport Biotech Ambassadors (pdf).
(Via: the Guardian).

Onlangs in Is America Doomed? van Justin Webb (aflevering van Analysis):

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”
-Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II (1874-1965)