MPG Rising

I would have liked to see an analysis of what increasing fuel efficiency from 20.1 mpg to 54.5 mpg for new cars contributes to less carbon burned and to decrease in CO2 load.  Even without that, the news is good.

A study released by the University of Michigan on Tuesday said that the average fuel economy on the window stickers of cars and trucks sold last month was 24.9 miles per gallon.

That was nearly five miles per gallon better than the 20.1 m.p.g. recorded in October 2007, when the university’s Transportation Research Institute began tracking the data.

NY Times Bill Vlasic

New Gas Mileage Rules Widely Supported

As reported by Nick Bunkley in the NY Times business pages

New Gas Economy Rules Generate Wide Support

The proposed new standards call for automakers to increase the average, unadjusted fuel-economy rating of their vehicles to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, up from about 27 miles per gallon today. Because of the way testing is done, the 2025 requirement correlates to a window-sticker rating of about 36 miles per gallon, according to the automotive information Web site Edmunds.com, or roughly what Toyota’s tiny new Scion iQ car achieves today.

Now if the algae biofuel development reported by NPR today, and here at triplepundit, prove-out, the future will take a turn for the promising….