Samuelson Redux

To revisit Robert Samuelson's column from yesterday, several people have pointed out to me that irrespective of mathematical quibbling, Samuelson's gotten the physics of home energy use wrong. Energy usage should grow proportionately to the surface area of your house, not to its volume.

One should also agree with Ben Adler that Samuelson's core point about "Prius politics" makes no sense. Samuelson argues that Prius ownership is really about "showing off" rather than curbing carbon emissions. And, no doubt, part of the appeal of Prius ownership is showing off. But you're showing off by reducing carbon emissions. Environmental concerns are plagued by collective action problems and if social prestige (or condemnation) can help overcome those problems that's a good thing, not an example of people being hypocrites.

Comments

SUV's are far more about showing off than driving off road, or carting large volumes of material around. BMW's are more about showing off than actually driving fast. American's cars are alway to some dgree about showing off, except maybe Corolla's.

If being environmentally conscious as gained a degree of social prestige to be worth showing it off, then good.

Posted by AJ | July 26, 2007 1:58 PM

I don't exactly agree with Samuelson, but there are a lot of more effective ways to curb carbon emissions than to purchase a new car which emits slightly less carbon.

Posted by neil | July 26, 2007 2:01 PM

If they weren't driving Priuses, Samuelson would call them hypocrites for supposedly caring about the environment but not driving hybrids.

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 2:06 PM

Priuses are ugly. But I use CityCarshare in Berkeley and choose the Prius to drive because I never have to fill up with it and it's compact yet has decent storage space for my band equipment. A minimum 40 mpg is nothing to sneeze at! When I was dating a Prius owner, we drove up to Seattle and back in one, and it handled itself admirably the whole way. The dash monitor helps make up for the lack of visibility. All in all, an excellent car! I think that's what's lost in all this "showoff, own- fart-smell-loving" hullabaloo.

Posted by Gregorio | July 26, 2007 2:13 PM

I don't think "hypocrite" is the word you want. "Hypocrite" is someone -- like Ahnold -- who talks the talk about GHGs but drives a Humvee.

As for the problem itself, neil is right. A Prius is just a less bad thing to do. It's going to be a shock to people to discover exactly what pre-Industrial Revolution levels of CO2 entails.

Switch to nukes. 10 years ago. Pass it on.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 26, 2007 2:16 PM

Didn't South Park already do this column? Everybody in town bought a hybrid, and, though it cleared up the smog in town, it increased the 'smug,' which choked the skies much like smog.

Samuelson seems to be arguing at about that level, as if smug was as bad as smog.

The only risk I see is if Prius owners think, "I've done all that I can do/enough/more than others to lower my carbon emissions, so I don't need to engage on the issue."

Posted by Misplaced Patriot | July 26, 2007 2:20 PM

A good thing? Whoa whoa whoa. Next you're going to tell me that pursuing my own economic self-interest creates wealth for others. Hippie.

Posted by Trevor | July 26, 2007 2:29 PM

Energy usage should grow proportionately to the surface area of your house, not to its volume.

Only when you're talking about the energy required to heat or cool the house. I suspect that a house with higher volume also has more rooms. Thus more lights, more hot water (if one of those rooms is a bathroom) more things plugged into wall outlets...

WARNING: MATH GEEKERY AHEAD!
But then, volume is proportional to surface area.
If the house is a cube, side of length s, then volume is s cubed and surface area is 6* s squared.

Volume always increases faster than surface area.

OK. The blog software doesn't allow superscript tags. Rewrite without...

END MATH GEEKERY...

Other factors: How much newer is the bigger house? That affects how good its insulation is, how efficient the appliances are, etc. How much more interior open space (indoor handball courts, etc) does it have? What about mature trees shading it?

Posted by wiredog | July 26, 2007 2:41 PM

Actually, pursuing your own economic self-interest at the expense of others hurts you more than it does them. Go ahead and keep telling yourself that, because it is true!

Posted by Gregorio | July 26, 2007 2:41 PM

Re Samuelson

Everybody seems to have missed the last part of Mr. Samuelsons' column where he supports increases in CAFE standards (in contrast to Mr. Yglesias' favorite columnist, Charles Krauthammer who thinks CAFE standards are nonsense).

Posted by SLC | July 26, 2007 2:45 PM

Per the volume/surface area thing, Matt's point is a good one, if everything else is equal. You could have a house with a walk-out basement (i.e. half underground), or geothermal heat, or solar panels, or better windows, or owners who keep the thermostat turned off most the time.

Posted by American Citizen | July 26, 2007 2:53 PM

If people are driving around in Priuses (or is that Pria? Prii?) instead of BMWs, that is a good thing (assuming they're doing the same amount of driving). If they're driving around town just to be seen in a Prius instead of walking, taking the bus, etc., then it's not.

Posted by SC | July 26, 2007 3:27 PM

Finally, something where I can truly outgeek everyone.

If you remember from "Critical Path", R. Buckminster Fuller's mangum Opus, you will find that yes, volume increases faster than surface area. Larger homes are therefore more efficient than smaller homes on a proportional scale, you will use less energy per unit volume enclosed.

If we are talking about maximizing this number, then the sphere is the most energy efficient shape, because it closes the most volume with the least surface area. As a result, we have the current trend to living in geodesic domes as an inherently superior shape for energy efficiency.

Posted by mickslam | July 26, 2007 3:30 PM

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf

Posted by Rick | July 26, 2007 3:47 PM

"http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf"

Interesting conclusion:

In conclusion, the derivation of statements on the CO2 induced anthropogenic global
warming out of the computer simulations lies outside any science.

As a lay person, I wish understood the science enough to be able to agree or disagree with the statement.

Climate change is religion because 99.99% of us don't understand the underlying science either proving or disproving it.

Posted by Dave | July 26, 2007 4:48 PM

If you're talking about energy use relative to volume then sure, bigger houses are "more efficient". But bigger houses typically mean more surface area per person, so energy use per person increases with bigger houses. Comparing my energy bills in Michigan to my bills in Japan, I find the Michigan bills to be much higher, despite the fact that electricity costs about 1.5 times as much n Japan, and in Japan I ran the electricity all day long. This is, I am guessing, because I have a lot bigger of a house here in Michigan.

Posted by Mr. Noah | July 26, 2007 5:13 PM

Clearly Samuelson hasn't test driven a Prius vs. a Civic Hybrid, as I did. The Civic Hybrid is less roomy and was at least for me incredibly hard to see out of-- they have these weird little side windows I found totally distracting. The Prius also embraced its 'hybrid car' status-- while the Civic tries very hard to be just like a Civic only a hybrid, the Prius has a push-button ignition, an unusual shift mechanism, and other spiffy toys that make it more of a 'car of the future' than just another car on the road. (I thought the Prius was a lot better looking, too.)

I walk when I can, but there's no reliable public transportation between my home and my work, and as I work flexible hours to spend more time with my kid, I can't carpool right now. A hybrid may be a 'light' compromise, but it's what I can do-- and hey, it saves me a ton of cash at the pump, and that matters to me. I for one would love to see higher CAFE standards for all cars-- I'm not sure who Samuelson thinks wouldn't, aside from those idiots in Detroit who have given up faith in American creativity and innovation.

Posted by Persia | July 26, 2007 5:20 PM

If Prius buyers only wanted to look virtuous, without necessarily being virtuous, then surely Toyota would have come out with a cheaper, non-hybrid Prius.

Posted by Jon H | July 26, 2007 7:30 PM

Climate change is religion because 99.99% of us don't understand the underlying science either proving or disproving it.

Wrong. The depth of the layman's understanding is not what determines whether or not an endeavor is scientific. Compare:

Quantum Mechanics is religion because 99.99% of us don't understand the underlying science either proving or disproving it.

Posted by Brock | July 27, 2007 9:21 AM

I can play this game, too:

the combustible engine is a religion because 99.9% of people don't understand the underlying science of how it works.

the internet and indeed all computers are religion because (at least) 99.9% of people don't understand the underlying science of how it works.

The vast majority of people in American and the world know as much science as they pick up in news outlets or through pop culture. This is the same for astronomy or any other science as it is for climate change studies.

Posted by matthew c | July 27, 2007 11:26 AM

Samuelson's column is of a piece with a general tendency I see in people who complain about how smug and self-righteous vegetarians / non-drinkers / parents / urbanites etc are. And the specific way in which they are smug and self-righteous always turns out to be the fact that they are vegetarians / non-drinkers / parents / urbanites etc. Even someone who makes no attempt to proselytize or make others feel bad is guilty of smugness merely because their choices are somehow inherently a reproach to those who don't make them. I've seen a lot of this, and it's very annoying.

Posted by Chilly | July 27, 2007 2:11 PM

The issue posed by the principle that "[e]nergy usage should grow proportionately to the surface area of your house, not to its volume" cuts both ways with respect to the US housing market.

By way of example, I suspect that someone who trades up from a "traditional" home to a McMansion is probably using far more energy because the increase in the surface area of the McMansion over the old home is far greater than the increase in total house area since McMansions tend to be (i) stand alone homes, and (ii) spread out (a fact that you will learn when you hit 40 or 45--climbing stairs is tough on middle-aged joints such as knees).

On the other hand, there's also a move to condo's and town homes (which, when I was growing up, they called row homes) that probably have a better surface area:total house area ratio.

Posted by Stuart Levine | July 30, 2007 11:31 AM