Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation (37 page)

18
.
  
California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance.

19
.
  
“Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints,”
Wall Street Journal,
October 6, 2008.

20
.
  
“Estimated U.S. Energy Use in 2014,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, flow chart published online in 2015.

21
.
  
“Total U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Economic Sector in 2013,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (online).

22
.
  
“Estimated U.S. Energy Use in 2014.” Livermore's data shows that the transportation sector consumes 27.1 quads of energy a year (out of total national consumption of 98.3 quads). Of that, 21.4 quads are “rejected,” i.e. wasted—78.9 percent of the total transportation energy picture. One quad is a fantastic amount of energy, equal to 10
¹⁵
BTUs, or 252 megatons of TNT. By comparison, the most powerful nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal in 2015 is 1.2 megatons.

23
.
  
Industry data from the American Trucking Association.

24
.
  
See “The Boomerang Effect,”
Economist
, April 19, 2012, and “Why Apple Will Never Bring Manufacturing Jobs Back to the U.S.” by David Goldman, Money.CNN.com, October 17, 2012.

25
.
  
Capturing Value in Global Networks: Apple's iPad and iPhone
by Kenneth L. Kraemer, Greg Linden, and Jason Dedrick, University of California, Irvine; University of California, Berkeley; and Syracuse University.

26
.
  
“Why Apple Will Never Bring Manufacturing Jobs Back to the U.S.” by David Goldman, Money.CNN.com, October 17, 2012.

27
.
  
“Professional Trends: Supply Chain Management Schools,” educationnews.org, http://www.educationnews.org/career-index/supply-chain-management-schools/.

CHAPTER 2: THE GHOST IN THE CAN

  
1
.
  
“Facts at a Glance—2013,”
Industry Statistics
, Aluminum Association, December 2014, and “Aluminum Can Infographics Gallery” at aluminum.org.

  
2
.
  
Based on 2015 production of 53 million tons of primary aluminum and a market price of 77 cents/pound.

  
3
.
  
If storage were the only consideration, the cheapest, strongest shape for a single-serve beverage container would be a sphere, which would use the least material and distribute weight and pressure evenly throughout the inner surface of the can, avoiding the engineering weak points of corners and seams. But they would be a nightmare to pack in a case or carton: stacked, 26 percent of the space inside the shipping container would be dead space. (They'd also be clumsy to handle for consumers, and would be prone to rolling off tables.)

  
4
.
  
Study Finds Aluminum Cans the Sustainable Package of Choice
, Aluminum Association, May 20, 2015.

  
5
.
  
From a sustainability perspective, aluminum cans are still not “green,” as they are still single-use containers for which energy and transportation must be expended to recycle. A less wasteful option is to reuse containers.

  
6
.
  
According to the Aluminum Association.

  
7
.
  
According the Aluminum Association, aluminum can scrap as of February 2015 was worth $1,491 per ton on average versus $385 per ton for the plastic most commonly used for beverages (PET) and the zero dollars per ton recyclers are willing to pay for glass.

  
8
.
  
Federal mandates call for light-duty vehicles—passenger cars and pickups—to achieve average fuel efficiency rates of 54 miles per gallon by the year 2025. As of the 2013 model year, the average had reached 24.1 miles per gallon. “Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975–2014,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/oms/fetrends.htm.

  
9
.
  
According to the Steel Recycling Institute.

10
.
  
“Steel vs. Aluminum: Which Wins for Fuel Efficiency AND Cost?” by Stephen Edelstein, GreenCarReports.com, October 13, 2014.

11
.
  
Red mud is one of the biggest waste problems facing the mining industry, with 80 million tons of it created annually, which must be kept segregated in giant holding ponds. If let loose, red mud can render lifeless any natural environment it touches—as demonstrated by a fatal spill in Hungary that swept through farms and a village, killing 10 and injuring 120 people in 2010. Sources: “Reducing the Environmental Impact of the Aluminum Industry” by Dr. Tim Johnson, Tetronics.com, and “Toxic Red Sludge Spill from Hungarian Aluminum Plant ‘An Ecological Disaster'” by David Gura, National Public Radio, October 5, 2010.

12
.
  
“Review of Maritime Transport: 2014,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, annual report.

13
.
  
Hall's patents prevailed in the U.S. while Héroult's patents were recognized in all other countries.

14
.
  
Oxygen is by far the most common element, not because of its presence as a life-giving gas in the atmosphere, but because so much more of it is chemically locked inside rocks and water, representing nearly half the earth's mass. Silicon is the next most abundant element, constituting 28 percent of the planet, and although we think of it these days as the expensive stuff of computer chips and solar cells, silicon is more commonly a principal ingredient in rocks and sand. Third-place aluminum weighs in at 8 percent of the earth's mass and is contained in nearly two hundred different kinds of rocks, common and precious alike, including sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.

             
There are only a few other common elements: iron makes up 5 percent of the earth's mass; calcium, 4 percent; potassium and sodium, 3 percent each; and magnesium, 2 percent. The ninety other naturally occurring elements combined make up less than 1 percent of the earth's mass.

15
.
  
Powders and salts
containing
aluminum have been known and used for medicine and commerce for thousands of years, although no one suspected the metallic element at their heart. The ancient Greeks used one aluminum compound to sterilize and cleanse wounds; another, aluminum potassium sulfate—commonly called alum—was used for 5,000 years as a mordant to fix dyes to fabric. English wool merchants in the Middle Ages went to great lengths and expense to import the fine white powder from the Middle East because dyed wool fetched a far better price than plain wool. But the metallic element in this powder remained hidden.
This is why aluminum is sometimes referred to as the most “modern” of metals—which is to say it's the metal humanity only recently figured out how to exploit, as opposed to the ancient forging of copper, tin, silver, and iron mastered thousands of years ago, primarily to make better weapons of war.

16
.
  
“Primary Aluminum Smelting Power Consumption,” World Aluminum Organization, July 31, 2015, http://www.world-aluminium.org/.

17
.
  
“Steel vs. Aluminum: The Lightweight Wars Heat Up” by Jim Motavalli, CarTalk.com, February 3, 2014.

18
.
  
Life Cycle Assessment—Energy and CO
₂
Emissions of Aluminum-Intensive Vehicles
by Sujit Das, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, January 15, 2014.

19
.
  
Aluminum Association.

20
.
  
Alcoa.

21
.
  
U.S.-based Ball announced in 2015 its intention to purchase UK-based Rexam. The proposed merger was under scrutiny by European antitrust authorities.

22
.
  
The Aluminum Can Advantage: Key Sustainability Indicators 2015
, published May 2015 by the Container Manufacturing Institute and the Aluminum Association. The report puts America's consumer recycling rate of aluminum cans at 66.7 percent in 2014.

23
.
  
“Me, My Car, My Life . . . in the Ultraconnected Age,”
KPMG Reports
, November 2014, and “Study: Nearly 35 Percent of US Households with a Vehicle Have at Least Three,” GreenCarCongress.com, February 12, 2008.

CHAPTER 3: MORNING BREW

  
1
.
  
Americans drink more soda, bottled water, and beer by volume, but a higher proportion of American adults—nearly two-thirds—say they drink coffee every day more than any of these others beverages. Source: Gallup Polls.

  
2
.
  
“Coffee Grinds Fuel for the Nation,”
USA Today
, April 9, 2013.

  
3
.
  
WorldsTopExports.com.

  
4
.
  
International Coffee Organization.

  
5
.
  
Top 10 Commodities
, data from 2012, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Statistics Division.

  
6
.
  
The Sustainability Consortium, Christy Anne Melhart Slay, commodity mapping project.

  
7
.
  
Based on 2014 data from
The Current State of the Global Coffee Trade
, International Coffee Organization, August 20, 2015.

  
8
.
  
Assuming two coffee drinkers in the household making one pot a day in a typical electric drip coffeemaker, they would use about a pound of coffee a week.

  
9
.
  
“Origin and Genetic Diversity of
Coffea arabica
L. Based on DNA Molecular Markers” by P. Lashermes, M. C. Combes, J. Cros, P. Trouslot, F. Anthony, A Charrier, Proceedings of the 16th ASIC Colloquium (Kyoto), 1995.

10
.
  
The World of Caffeine: The Science of and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug
by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer, Routledge Books, London, 2001.

11
.
  
Data provided by Christy Anne Melhart Slay and Philip Glasgow Curtis of the Commodity Mapping Project at the Sustainability Consortium, headquartered at the University of Arkansas.

CHAPTER 4: FOUR AIRLINERS A WEEK

  
1
.
  
“Cool Climate Network, Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory,” University of California, Berkeley, http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator.

  
2
.
  
U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015
by Aaron Smith, Pew Research Center, April 1, 2015.

  
3
.
  
Record 10.8 Billion Trips Taken on U.S. Public Transportation in 2014
, American Public Transportation Association, March 3, 2015.

  
4
.
  
“Annual Sales of Light Duty Vehicles Are Expected to Exceed 122 Million by 2035,” Navigant Research, July 2014 press release.

  
5
.
  
According to the EPA, the average vehicle weight for model year 2012 was 3,977 pounds, a 150-pound decrease from the model year 2011.

  
6
.
  
Hybrids remain a tiny minority of the U.S. fleet, less than 3 percent, and all-electrics are but a rounding error. U.S. Energy Information Administration.

  
7
.
  
Culinary Institute of America professor John Nihoff, quoted in “Car Cuisine,” by Jaclyn Schiff, Associated Press report at CBSNews.com, November 9, 2005.

  
8
.
  
Eran Ben-Joseph, professor of landscape architecture and urban design at MIT, and author of
Rethinking a Lot
:
The Design and Culture of Parking
, MIT Press, 2012.

  
9
.
  
The City of Los Angeles estimates that 40 percent of city sidewalks are in disrepair, and Mayor Eric Garcetti announced early in his tenure that fixing them would be a priority.

10
.
  
A New Direction: Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the Implications for America's Future
, U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Spring 2013. The report cites these factors in support of the Millennial Generation's move away from the car:

       
•
  
The Millennials (people born between 1983 and 2000) are now the largest generation in the United States. By 2030, Millennials will be far and away the largest group in the peak driving age thirty-five- to fifty-four-year-old demographic, and will continue as such through 2040.

       
•
  
Young people age sixteen to thirty-four drove 23 percent fewer miles on average in 2009 than they did in 2001—a greater decline in driving than any other age group. The severe economic recession was likely responsible for some of the decline, but not all.

       
•
  
Millennials are more likely to want to live in urban and walkable neighborhoods and are more open to non-driving forms of transportation than older Americans. They are also the first generation to fully embrace mobile Internet-connected technologies, which are rapidly spawning new transportation options and shifting the way young Americans relate to one another, creating new avenues for living connected, vibrant lives that are less reliant on driving.