What should we do about rising gas prices?
How about nothing? Let them go higher and higher. Don’t get me wrong, I hate $3 a gallon as much as the next person and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to make mass transit work for me now that my office is farther north of Atlanta, so it’s costing me about $60 a week. But guess what? People are getting pissed off about the price of gas, and that’s a great thing because it’s the only way change will happen. New technologies don’t matter to most people when they’re paying a comfortable price for what they already have, but now that gas consumption is really starting to hurt people where it matters – in the wallet – and things are going to start happening.
When I moved to Atlanta 8 years ago, gas was 89¢ a gallon. 89¢!! Nobody discussed hydrogen, fuel cells, electric cars, hybrids, nuclear energy (except in a bad way), and other options. Now I hear it all the time. Politicians are listening. Corporate America is listening. America wants something that ain’t gonna cost them $3.00 a gallon and they’re gonna get it. It’s just a matter of time. That time would be a lot farther down the road if gas was back to a buck a gallon. Let it rise. Let people get angrier. It’s the only thing that ever works.
jenniebee
Ponies!
TJ
America wants something that ain’t gonna cost them $3.00 a gallon and they’re gonna get it. It’s just a matter of time.
If you measure time in decades, yes.
Evinfuilt
Its going to take $5 a gallon to wake up some people.
When it was under a dollar I was already car-pooling, I hope when we hit $5 I can find a way to go car-less, but that seems much harder for me right now (due to location) but what great incentive it will be.
RSA
Rising gas prices haven’t affected me much personally, since I don’t drive that much. I guess it’s been most noticeable when I pull into a gas station to fill up my ten-gallon tank, and I see some of the readings on neighboring pumps in the $75 to $100 dollar range. Ouch. Big SUVs, big gas tanks.
jenniebee
I scientific progress works. Is it an accumulation of information that prompts new insights? Or do changes in cultural philosophy prompt scientists to see the same data in a new light, pushing the science forward? Neither! In the glibertarian mind, the great breakthroughs happen because of market pressures.
In other words, Copernicus’s real motivation was to increase globe sales, and Einstein was responding to an urgent demand for near-lightspeed travel.
Bombadil
But rising gas prices have affected you (and will continue to affect you). Anything that you buy that’s delivered to a store in a truck will increase in cost as fuel prices go up. Heating costs will go up, including at those same stores, driving prices up further. Fuel price increases are not limited to what you put into your car.
Billy K
I live in Dallas proper, but commute to an exurb. That’s the thing, they started putting the workplaces in the suburbs and exurbs so people wouldn’t need to commute. It’s those same people living in the McMansions that drive the Hummers and would feel the sting of $3 or $5/gallon gas.
I’m still not sure how it got turned around that I live in downtown, but commute outside of town, but I hate it. I even bought a motorcycle – one of the reasons was to save on gas – but the commute is so long and dangerous I really can’t ride it to work. Mass transit gets me about halfway to the office. It’s ridiculous. I really need to move to the suburbs, but that just sounds like hell to me.
…rambling on a Monday morn…
Blake
Bombadil’s right. $5/gal gas doesn’t affect my life appreciably, since I commute on a bike most of the time, but how about $5/gal milk? $8/lb hamburger? $12/6-pack beer :)? One way or another, you’re gonna pay, mate.
The local food movement is spot on in their assessment of this issue. Buy stuff grown or produced close by. The up-front cost may be more when gas is $3/gal, but it’s much less affected as fuel prices rise.
jenniebee
Drat, that should say “I *symbol for heart* how glibertarians think scientific progress works”
Damn that leet-speek!
RSA
You’re right, of course. I should have been clearer, that gas prices haven’t risen so much that they’ve affected my everyday life in a way that’s been noticeable to me. (I’m aware of the change intellectually, though.)
Dennis-SGMM
The small Southern California town where I live and work enables me to go a week at a time without having to start the car. Walking to the grocery store every other day, and to work every day, listening to the MP3 player, is not onerous. But, this is an anomaly – especially in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Not everyone is so fortunate.
It’s a personal thing though. I’d say that close to one-fourth of the vehicles in town are SUVs of the bigger-than-thou variety.
The sad part is that if gas prices hit $5/gallon or more, people will be stuck with their gas guzzlers. Few will want to buy them in a private sale and dealers will be reluctant to take them in trade. They’ll be a glut on the market.
Me? When I do drive it’s our bought-new 16-year old four-cylinder Ford Escort station wagon. Still gets 30MPG after all these years. Dad always told me that you don’t park your money on the street.
Bob In Pacifica
Like in other things, the San Francisco Bay Area is ahead of the rest of the country in the cost of gasoline. We’ve already zipped past $3.50 on our way to infinity. People shouldn’t forget that that gallon also puts another $20,000 on your Visa bill.
If this keeps up we’ll have a legitimate excuse for not visiting the in-laws for the holidays.
chopper
new fuel prices are gonna be high because otherwise we’d have been seeing them compete with gas long before we hit 3+ dollars a gallon.
barring some rad-as-hell new breakthrough in fuel technology, fuel isn’t really gonna end up that much cheaper than it currently is. look, gas used to be dirt cheap because oil was plentiful. and it aint as plentiful as it used to be.
face it, energy costs money. oil was a freebie, but it’s gonna become scarcer and scarcer. it’s like we burned through the big inheritance and now we’ve got to adjust to get used to living on a regular salary. that’s life.
Walker
Pragmatically, scientific breakthroughs happen because of funding. To a large degree, the direction of scientific research is driven towards where there is grant money. Grant money gets you graduate students. It can also go a long way to getting you tenure. If there is no or little grant money involved, no one is going to do the research unless they are independently wealthy or the research does not require much in the way of material supplies (e.g. mathematics).
As something becomes more economically important, grant money begins to appear. So there is some correlation. It is not perfect; at some point you see significant diminishing returns in your investment from grant money. But I do not believe anyone thinks we were anywhere near there with regards to alternative energy.
John Cole
If that is your attitude, that it doesn’t matter and rising gas prices are a good thing, then you must have supported radical increases in gas taxes to lower comsumption. I mean, sure, it is going to the government, which is only slightly worse than the middle east nations funding terrorism, but it is the same thing, isn’t it?
Rising gas prices may fuel innovation, but right now, on top of an already fragile economy and with our subprime mortgage crisis, I simply can’t find it in myself to be nonchalant about rising gas prices.
And I don’t drive.
Zifnab
Wouldn’t it be great if people could predict things like ‘peak oil’ and ‘sky-high energy prices’ before energy prices reached $3/gallon? Wouldn’t it be great if the market offered automotive options rather than eight different flavors of super-tank on three different flavors of toll road?
What Mike seems to forget is that back in ’02 and ’03, the government was actively involved in setting oil prices. Our US Government offered a $25k tax credit on buying a Hummer. It gave half a billion dollars to big oil to dig more wells, and actively moved to drill big holes in Alaska to make Ted Stevens richer. This was not, mind you, to decrease oil prices – the real problem was all the old refineries running at max capacity – but to increase oil demand and fatten the wallets of Exxon et al. That’s not to mention the Bush policy of picking international pit fights across the Middle East and leaving NO in a giant puddle. Government has been actively involved in RAISING oil prices for the last six years.
And the “market solutions”? Bio-diesel? Here kids, we’ll ween you off that coke addiction with a little thing called heroine. Hydrogen? Here kids, we’ll ween you off that heroine addiction with a little thing called the tooth fairy. Clean coal? Here kids, we’ll ween you off that cigarette addiction with Lites. Nuclear? Here kids, glow in the dark. (And seriously, you can talk to death about ‘safe nuclear’ and ‘clean nuclear’, but after that little fuck up in San Fransisco Bay, can you really tell me the nuclear industry won’t be the exact same clusterfuck as the oil and coal industries?)
Market forces won’t make us a country run on solar plants and wind farms any more than it has given our country cheap and efficient health insurance. The government needs to step in because industry has totally failed.
Cinderella Ferret
GM will release a new hybrid vehicle every quarter for the next 4 years. That sounds like a good start. I agree high gas prices will get peoples attention.
Our dependence on foreign oil is a two-fold crisis-in-waiting. First, the obvious national security implications. A good portion of our oil comes from countries that don’t really care for us. Second, and just as important, the impending global warming disaster. Pick your poison. Either one of these situations require immediate attention.
Slap a one dollar per gallon tax on gas and diesel and use the proceeds to pay for Bush’s War. Anyone for the war can just use more gas to show their support for the troops! John Kerry was right after all. But, common sense was never a virtue in the Modern Era of Politics.
jrg
Look, I’m for regulation of the marketplace as much as the next guy that does not want to eat rotten meat or buy shares in a company with cooked books, but your argument is disingenuous.
The vast majority of inventions find common usage when and only when they become necessities, not when a genius discovers them.
Many inventions can sit idle for tens or hundreds of years before getting revamped, rediscovered, and finding new life in a different form. Newcomen’s steam engine, for example, was not the first steam engine, but it was one of the first industrial steam engines.
Newcomen recognized a developing market not present before, and applied existing technology to it.
norbizness
Enough reduction in consumption, and we might even make it unprofitable to occupy Iraq for the next generation.
4tehlulz
Sympathetic as I am to this line of thinking, there is the problem of those that will not be able to afford these prices.
PK
I honestly do not know how people are managing. Every time I go to the grocery store prices seem to have gone up. I thank God that I am able to afford it, but what about people on fixed incomes and minimum wage? The only things which are affordable is cheap plastic junk made in China. Maybe we should start eating that next.
sujal
I’m with Walker. The biggest missed national security policy change after 9/11 was radically increasing the funding for research into alternative fuels and energy. The only policy I remember (correct me if I’m wrong) was the funding for hydrogen extraction from fossil fuel sources, which seems especially asinine. Reducing gas consumption with a national call to action would’ve been ideal.
Dennis-SGMM
I Googled “fuel consumption + Iraq war” and found this The US military oil consumption on the Energybulletin website.
A quote:
According to the US Defense Energy Support Center Fact Book 2004, in Fiscal Year 2004, the US military fuel consumption increased to 144 million barrels. This is about 40 million barrels more than the average peacetime military usage.
By the way, 144 million barrels makes 395 000 barrels per day, almost as much as daily energy consumption of Greece.
The US military is the biggest purchaser of oil in the world.
John Cole
BTW- Something else to think about. Has anyone ever thought about the environmantal impact of gas and heating oil rising to a level deemed unacceptable by the majority of the public in the absence of a government assisted technological drive. because I can tell you what is going to happen here in West Virginia if alternative fuel methods don’t become quick and viable soon- wood stoves.
I don’t think 300 million people burning wood to keep their houses warm for four months of the year is an acceptable alternative, at least from a greenhouse gas/environmental standpoint.
wasabi gasp
Rising gas prices are good ‘cuz it’ll give sub-primers living out of their car the air of puttin’ on the ritz.
grumpy realist
The problem with “letting the market determine everything” is that: First, not everything gets priced into the market (aka the cost of our Excellent Adventure In Iraq into oil prices or depletion of fossil fuel commodities vs. renewables.) Second, the “you can’t get a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant effect.” The market is far too short-sighted to put investment towards development of technology that may or may not pan out 10 years down the road–so when the time comes that you need all the background info to really develop a particular technology, whoops, you can’t do it before the economy craters.
But yeah, the US is going to have to change its energy culture drastically. Hell, the world is going to have to change its energy culture drastically. The economics of globalization and foreign production assume cheap freight, which we’re going to have less and less of because of dwindling supplies of oil. Our cities are built assuming we’ve all got cars to drive around in–what’s going to happen to the suburbs when gas goes to 10$/gallon?
Americans act as if it is our god-given right to have cheap oil. Guess we’re going to have to learn differently. If we had been putting the pressure on via energy taxes and higher MPG requirements, we would have already been well on the way to an energy-sipping rather than energy-guzzling technology, but no, that would have been too “anti-market” and “un-American.”
So what happens? Detroit, having ignored the handwriting on the wall for 20 years, suddenly finds itself stuck trying to sell gas-guzzling SUVs and the US car market craters. Do I feel sorry for them? Not one iota.
4tehlulz
The thing is, in one case it has — corn-based ethanol, and that looks like a bust.
Not that I feel sad for ADM, though. Increasing food prices so that it can be a gas additive strikes me as ridiculous and immoral.
jonolan
While the current political climate will speed alternative energy sciences and bring many of these to market sooner than otherwise, I doubt the consumer will see much benefit from them. The energy companies will arrange to keep their profit margins intact.
sparky
this “the market can make magic ponies” thinking is exactly the same kind of thinking that gets produced in teh Bush White House.
until people stop acting as if glib slogans from Reagan represents thinking (why oh why is it 1979 over and over again?) i guess we will keep on with this silliness.
Billy K
The way our cities are designed and grown has become unsustainable. We are at the limit of moving hundreds of thousands of cars at high speed to any point within 20 square miles at any given time. It’s just now possible to build 10-lane freeways everywhere.
Telecommuting has got to happen and happen now. I work in a job I can do without ever showing up to the office, yet my company has told me my position will not ever be eligible for telecommuting. (The reasons are all about fear and office politics.) It needs to be taken seriously. It needs to be the new standard. I look forward to the day it’s “quaint” to actually drive to the office.
Andrew
I’ve been arguing for higher gas taxes for 5 years now. I give up. The price increase could have gone to our gov’t coffers instead of the fucking Saudis, but no, we can’t possible increase any taxes. Fuck everyone.
zzyzx
Actually that’s fine, because it’s a closed system. When the trees grow, they take carbon out of the air, burning it brings it back, assuming the trees grow over a decade or two, there’s no difference. So if you create tree farms to burn, no harm/no foul. It’s when we take eons of carbon and release it to the air all at once that we’re in trouble.
I wish we would have some variant of electric cars already. 50 MPG is nice (ok, my current tank is 49… stupid winter gas formulations), but it still could be much better.
stickler
A couple of things jump out at me in this thread. First, this:
No, “they” didn’t put the workplace out in BFE to be close to the workers. “They” put the workplace out there because land was cheaper, taxes were lower, and their golf partner Chuck, sitting on the county planning board, made sure that roads got built and services provided, at the cost of the taxpayer. Very few areas in the country force employers to consider transportation options, and most of the time that’s solved by handing out a few dozen bus passes and otherwise ignoring the problem. We have a massive national infrastructure built to serve a bunch of interests — but energy savings through fuel conservation is not one of them.
For another thing, let’s keep in mind that $3/gal. is pretty expensive, but no back-breaker when adjusted for inflation and national wealth, as the (spit) Cato Institute pointed out last year. We are next to the historic high set in 1981, true. But even with that, Americans have always lived with cheap energy compared to almost every other industrialized country. So big improvements in efficiency can be made pretty easily (say, a Chevy Tahoe that gets 23 in the city instead of 14 — not heroic, but a relative improvement).
Relax. Don’t worry. Buy a hybrid, have a homebrew.
ThymeZone
Try to keep your heads.
Adjusted for inflation, our prices for fuel are no big deal. (See the price graph adjusted for inflation, which is current as of two weeks ago).
If anything, they should be higher, so as to drive conservation.
André Kenji
“But rising gas prices have affected you (and will continue to affect you). Anything that you buy that’s delivered to a store in a truck will increase in cost as fuel prices go up.”
Maybe this will create incentives for freight trains…
André Kenji
“Every time I go to the grocery store prices seem to have gone up. ”
You know, inflation always come after currency devaluations…
bago
Hydrogen is becoming highly viable, as well as solar. We have this huge energy source that is a gigantic fusion reactor that we call the sun. Might as well take advantage of it.
srv
Hybrid Hummers and Suburbans aren’t going to really solve the problem.
BIRDZILLA
Hey when my brothered worked for local garage in the 1960s the price was 35 cents a gallon and we would have cheaper gas prices if we quit depending on OPEC and told the enviromentalists wackos to GETA LIFE AND STOP LYING ABOUT THE SO CALLED FRAGILE ENVIROMENT AND THE ANWR GO FEED YOUR SELVES TO THE POLAR BEARS,KILLER WHALES AND SKUAS
r€nato
try ♥
as for your criticism of glibertarians and scientific progress… first of all you are confusing two different economic eras, secondly you are confusing applied science vs. pure research.
In Copernicus’ time, the Enlightenment had not yet arrived. Humans did not necessarily see research and application of science as a means of both improving the human condition as well as a means to make money in a capitalist society.
Secondly, what Einstein and Copernicus did was pure research; knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which eventually can lead to some very practical and useful innovations though the path to them is rather indirect.
I am no defender of glibertarians, but it’s not difficult to see that economic necessity tends to speed up scientific breakthroughs.
Of course, I draw the line at the glibertarian belief that we can just keep wasting resources and trashing the planet without concerns, because the invisible hand will solve all our problems before a crisis or calamity hits.
r€nato
oops
try the ampersand &
followed by hearts; to get ♥
alphie
Hybrid tanks and baby bombers, Dennis?
scarshapedstar
Well, the problem is that there’s been a concerted effort by Detroit and Big Oil to systematically destroy public transport, light rail, streetcars, anything that might wean our nation off the black stuff. So basically you’re proposing that our suburban nation take it in the ass while the rest of the world looks on, bemused and efficient.
We can’t even get the metric system to work in this country, and you think we’re going to figure out a way to turn unplanned urban sprawl into a model of efficiency within our lifetimes?
r€nato
growing corn requires fertilizers which today are made with petroleum.
ethanol is nothing more than a convenient sop to midwesterners to get their votes, particularly in Iowa every four years.
jcricket
Yep – coupled with the fact that instead of raising progressive income taxes, most municipalities have steadily been raising regressive taxes, like sales & gas taxes. So the people that get hammered when gas prices rise and those that can least afford it.
Coupled with the fact that lots of poor old people suffer through winters with the heat off/on low because they can barely afford the heating bills. Let’s jack up their core costs (heat, car fuel, groceries, etc) and see how well it works out.
One of the few libertarian arguments I actually buy is that we should reduce subsidies for lots of industries, because it unnecessarily distorts consumer behavior. We know that driving is subsidized out the wazoo, and we have fueled (ha) the car culture to our own detriment.
Unfortunately, without massive intervention (i.e. big increases in basic science funding, not boondoggles like subsidizing corn mfrs to make more corn for ethanol) big increases in core consumer costs due to gas price increases will simply hurt the poor and middle class.
BTW – do you love how people complain about the subsidies required for mass transit (it’s not self-sustaining, they cry) and yet no one comments about all the taxes for “free”ways, traffic signals, road improvements, etc.
Jake
Another effect I haven’t seen mentioned: Local taxes will jump because it suddenly costs a whole lot more to provide services (including asphalt for the roads).
Here’s my pessimistic forecast for the end result of people demanding “changes” by which they usually mean cheap squashed dinosaur juice right this second: President Bush will solemnly tell us he hears our cries and for that reason he’s going to suspend any environmental protection law that prohibits gas/oil exploration.
Oil companies will give us a break by dropping oil prices a dollar. Phew! Just in time to keep from freezing if you rely on heating oil; Yah! I can drive my Hummer again!
Enough people will think R + 5 = A Pony to become convinced that it was the environmental regs that sent gas prices so high. Not enough people will think “Wait, it will take years to get any fuel out of those areas,” and it will be another decade or two before we are again having the same damn conversation.
Wilfred
I have solar panels to heat water, not to generate electricity, and they work pretty well. I’m waiting to go over to solar power completely when the price of the storage batteries comes down more.
Alcohol powered cars are problematic. In Brazil, the government used to subsidize the price so there was a period when a lot of them were made. I had a 1984 Ford Del Rey. it had a manual choke and took forever to warm up in winters where the temperature hit maybe 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Unless there are some huge advances in motor/carb design, an alcohol (ethanol) powered car is not viable in countries with a real winter. Plus the pollution smells like Caro corn syrup.
Battery powered cars means nuclear power, where else to get the electricity to power th batteries?
The world is drowning in oil – we just found something like 8 billion barrels off the southern coast of Brazil. price fluctuations are due to manipulation.
The Other Steve
I just stopped driving as much. I fill up my tank once every two weeks.
F. Frederson
I argued for a higher gas tax after the first Gulf War, saying that we would end up fighting another one unless we reduced our dependence on oil. Boy howdy was I laughed at.
International comparisons suggest there is still room to increase the gas tax.
El Cruzado
A few points…
1) We pay over twice that for gas in Europe, and can live with it.
2) Redesigning America will take a few decades, and lots of pain. Thank God there’s no constitutional amendment protecting the God-given right to have a big-ass SUV.
3) Corn ethanol is a boondoggle designed to fill the pockets of the greatest of welfare queens, AKA big agribusiness.
4) Why oh why trying to commute to work for me on bike (less than 5 miles, doable most of the year) feels like an Xtreme sport? Did anyone around NOVA supervisory boards ever heard about sidewalks?
r€nato
I partially disagree. Government can help incent market forces to innovate. Just think where we’d be with solar power if we’d taken just a fraction of the money pissed away in Iraq, and used it to give grants to universities to come up with a breakthrough in solar voltaics, to lower the cost per kilowatt by a factor of 10.
Imagine if, instead of incenting Detroit to make gas guzzlers, the government demanded higher CAFE standards and gave tax breaks for buying hybrids. Imagine if the government slapped a hefty tax on Hummers and other gas-guzzlers that get less than 15mpg highway.
I understand why soccer moms might need a minivan, but I don’t see why Billy Joe Bob the urban cowboy has to have that 1 ton Cummins diesel pickup when he only uses it to tool around town and it never, ever goes off road.
r€nato
I ride my bike 1/2 mile each way to the grocery store to go shopping. I’ll even ride it 5 miles each way to Trader Joe’s.
I combine errands when I do need to drive the car.
As a result, I go through one tank of gas per month, two max. I put less than 6,000 miles per year on my car, and I live in a city that’s the epitome of western urban sprawl.
Granted, there are several reasons this is very feasible for me and probably not feasible for everyone. My point is, I’m doing what’s possible to both cut my petroleum usage and my carbon impact. My neighbors could do some of the things I’m doing (and even lose a little weight in the process!), but in this part of the USA it’s considered weird to actually, you know, not use your car for every little errand you need to run.
alphie
We could just make politicians pay for their own gas.
And stop letting them shut down freeways to the peasants whenever they go somewhere by car.
Dennis-SGMM
: )
Nope, maybe no wars of choice for starters. There’s also the thought that an Abrams Tank can be taken out by a $200 IED and a multimillion dollar aircraft can be taken out by a shoulder-launched AGM that costs a few thousandths of that.
Finally, if any administration had actually taken action for energy independence after the Oil Embargo of 1973 this thread wouldn’t exist. We are too soon old and too late smart.
r€nato
my understanding is that freeways and roads largely pay for themselves, since they are funded by gasoline and license taxes. Gasoline taxes, at least, have the virtue of taking money from those who use the roads most.
Of course there could be flim-flammery here, that is the gas taxes go into a general fund and don’t entirely pay for road-building. If someone more expert than me in this kind of thing knows how that really works, I’m all ears. It’s just not my impression that freeways and roads are ‘subsidized’ in the way public transit is.
James F. Elliott
89 cents a gallon? I haven’t seen that price since I was about ten, and that was eighteen years ago!
r€nato
you can also live without a car in Europe, because both the cities and the countries are much more compact and closer together. 50 miles is about all that separates Florence and Pisa or Florence and Bologna; 50 miles will only get you to the other side of town where I live. When I used to spend time in Florence, I could walk from my Nonna’s flat to the city center in 40 minutes.
Outside of the northeastern US (which largely dates from a pre-automobile era), you are pretty much screwed without a car with a very few exceptions like SF. Distances are too large and public transit is not funded well enough to make using it convenient in most cases, unless you happen to work downtown and don’t need to deviate from your usual home-work-home route to run errands.
capelza
I listened the FIRST time all those decades ago…and watched in shock when the rest of the country went into zombie mode. Cars got bigger again, solar power became something only “hippies” would consider and the consumption of plastics, etc, etc,. The idea that uncontrolled urban growth is a good thing…why worry, that water is plenty to keep our big ass lawns green and the thousands upon thousands of new people in our city from going thirsty.
American automakers went out of their way to NOT innovate (that cool retro Dodge truck does not count).
I have talked myself blue in the face about this and have been called an enviro wacko for my troubles. And that’s not even bringing global warming into the conversation.
30 years wasted…I’m too pissed off to care most of the time. NOW people are worried?
jenniebee
Sure, they find usage when somebody figures out how to make a buck off of them, but we aren’t talking about usage here, we’re talking about discovery. They aren’t even remotely the same thing, and it’s a discovery that we’re in need of.
As for Michael’s idea that now that the hurt is on consumers, surely something else will come along, it’s based on a misunderstanding of the forces at play here. We’ve put off switching to alternatives for electricity generation not because nobody’s found a substitute that’s as reliable or as plentiful or as cheap as oil (see: wind) but because nobody’s found an alternative that’s as profitable as oil. Now that gas is going up, yes the cost to the consumer – for everything – is higher, but until we see a crash in gas profits the impetus doesn’t exist to bring anything else to market. And so far this decade, spikes in price have meant spikes in profits for the oil companies.
As for the “this means funding” strawman, see the history of research into Aether sometime. Funding is great, it’s awesome, it’s lovely. But scientists are not little boxes that you pour money into on one side and breakthroughs come out the other side. We have no idea when the hallelujah moment that solves all our energy woes without us having to rebuild our energy and transportation infrastructures or change our energy consumption habits is coming. Assuming that the Blessed Almighty Market will come to our aid if we have at least faith the size of a mustard seed in it seems to me to be the height of foolishness.
The Almighty Market helps those who help themselves to everything they can take. The Market giveth and the Market taketh away, Blessed be the name of the Market.
DR
Agreed. But I would give it a little push as well in the form of higher gas taxes…
RSA
I live six miles from work, and one of those miles has a bike path alongside the road. Unfortunately, the remaining five miles have a 45 mph speed limit, with no shoulder, and everyone goes between 50 and 60. I’d love to ride to work, but I’d be taking my life in my hands. (Literally–last year I saw a bicyclist lying by the side of the road; apparently he’d just been run down. Fortunately he got help quickly.)
Gus
But, stickler, hop prices are going up, too!
grandpa john
Ah another sparkling addition to the Bush legacy
André Kenji
“my understanding is that freeways and roads largely pay for themselves, since they are funded by gasoline and license taxes. Gasoline taxes, at least, have the virtue of taking money from those who use the roads most.”
That´s in Europe. In the US, the gas taxes aren´t high enough to cover all costs(They pay just 75% of the Interstate Highway System, as I remember). They are also unfair because trucks, that amounts for a higher proportion of maintenance costs pay less than cars.
My suggestion is to privatize the WHOLE system and make drivers pay for their ride.
demimondian
FWIW, John, we heat most of the demi-bunker with…wood. Modern stoves are highly efficient — our insert is about 70% efficient, and even the worst modern stoves get into the mid-eighties, but we could easily get into the high nineties by adding an air intake in the back. Burned efficiently — not in an open fireplace, and with a suitable secondary combustion chamber to clean up the effluent — wood is actually a good fuel for home heating.
Billy K
That’s true in many cases, but we already owned land (and had an office) in downtown.
OxyCon
The dollar was very strong under President Clinton and gas was under a dollar.
Now the dollar isn’t worth a shit and gas prices are sky high.
FLILF Hunter
That’s mostly true if you’re in the city-proper or somewhere along the BART tracks. My company moved into the southern part of the city — a couple of blocks from BART. Excellent!
But my wife and I were priced out into the hinterlands during the real estate hype a few years ago, so the closest BART station to me is 25 miles away. Bogus!
It’ll take at least 10 years — more like 20 to ever get BART service out to this area (the EIP lawsuits will take forever).
Billy K
Europe is very condensed. 10 miles is far there. In the southwest, 10 miles is considered around the corner. Not that that’s right. I think we stupidly built sities that REQUIRE one to own a car, and that bad decision is coming home to roost.
Man, I miss Trader Joes. :(
Z
It is interesting that no one is talking about families, which are the ones who usually have the big gas guzzling cars. Most single people or couples with out kids can get by with driving less, driving smaller cars, biking to work, or taking public transit. The equation completely changes when you have kids. Car and booster seat laws require bigger cars, if you have more than one child, because the seats take up more room than a person. Plus, kids get sick at school or day care, and the parent has to be ready to leave work at the drop of a dime. To be in good school systems, parents live in the suburbs, which means bigger commutes. All in all, any real solution to this problem has to be parent centered, or it won’t be effective.
That being said, as a non-parent, I take my bike to work 1-2 days a week (I live 5 miles from work). It is great to know I am not alone.
Evinfuilt
We need a large (NASA/Moon sized) policy shake up to get us off of oil, and into clean energy independent state.
1. We need to reign in out of control urban sprawl.
2. We need a large push for Mass Transit, rail.
3. Develop more alternative energy sources (tidal power is a large possibility, but still young, so is switch grass ethanol.)
4. Need to get over our fears of Nuclear power. There’s a reason France is more than energy independent but actually exports power. They have clean, safe energy, and plenty to spare.
5. We need to legalize fuel reprocessing, this isn’t the 1970s, Pakistan got the nuke any ways, so all the reasons to make it illegal are long gone. Now legalize it so we can use the “waste” and have a near infinite source of power.
6. Hybrid and Hydrogen powered cars for a temporary step till we have better long distance transit and more electric/fuel cell setups for intown travel.
7. Rebuild our oil infrastructure into a Hydrogen infrastructure, there are so many ways to get Hydrogen, we just need a safe/inexpensive way to transport it.
If we need a $2 a gallon tax to start this off, lets do it. We need to be serious. We should be relying more on rail than 18-wheeler for long distance transport. We should be living in more close knit communities, there’s no downside to knowing your neighbour, and exurbs make that hard.
Evinfuilt
Those new saw-dust based “bio-bricks” look like a great way to heat your house this winter.
Just think, 21st century America and people are talking about burning wood this winter for heat. How things have changed.
And as mentioned above, wood burning done right is very environmental, tree farms, saw mills, the new bio-bricks, this all works as one more piece to the large puzzle.
jrg
Every dollar a non-energy company saves on energy is another dollar in profit for them. That encourages conservation and innovation. Furthermore, even if gas/oil/etc is more expensive, it’s still cheaper than solar and wind, not to mention the base load requirements for wind farms, which must come from coal/nuclear, etc.
First of all, this does not matter to someone who can choose between eating and riding the bus, or driving and starving.
Second, technological innovation is not an “hallelujah moment”, it takes a lot of research, development, and rollout money for something as vast as our fossil fuel infrastructure, as it will for anything that gets slated to replace it.
If your point is “the market cannot deliver discovery”, I would say you are at least partially correct. Things can only be discovered as fast as our tools of discovery. Newer and greater discoveries happen not because people are getting smarter, but because discoveries are made as a result of one another.
An era defines it’s geniuses, not the other way around.
capelza
Z…I do undertand that kids take more room in a rig, but an effieicent stationwagon (Toyota used to make one in the Camry family) just isn’t as “sexy” as a monster SUV. Toyota quit making the stationwagon. I tear up evertime I still see one on the road. Suburu, too.
There is this American idea that the car has to be our second home, with dvd players for each kid, etc…it’s a fucking mode of transportation, not a second home. And don’t get me started on the utterly unneeded 4WD thing.
Tsulagi
A short trip down memory lane…
That worked out well.
Andrew
Anyway, we’re going to run out of water first.
RSA
To follow up on capelza’s response, while it’s true that big families need big cars, I wonder if we really know how many people buy SUVs, for example, because they need the space? According to one summary only half the buyers of GM SUVs have kids in the house.
demimondian
We have two big cars — a van (gets about 20mpg in the city), and an SUV (gets about 30MPG in the city). Since the SUV is a significant improvement over the little sedan (a Saturn SL1) I used to drive (gets about 20 MPG in the city), I refuse to feel terribly guilty about it.
Tax Analyst
Increased fuel and food prices don’t do more than stun and annoy me as far as my personal situation. My housing costs are low for the L.A. area because I “down-sized” to a smaller place several years ago and it happens to be Rent-controlled. Still, I am very concerned about the toll gas prices (and the currency situation with the $)are taking on folks trying to raise a family.
The job numbers here in Southern California are not good, either. Can we spell “recession” or is that above the BJ reading level per that stupid testing site?
scarshapedstar
The devil’s in the details. Bush didn’t mention that he planned to first kill everyone who didn’t have political good will towards us.
MNPundit
My parents who have a kid (my sister is 13) to cart around and a cat sold our giant huge van from 1992 and got a Kia. It’s still not that good in mileage but they only use it for family trips or occasionally to hall stuff or church. Otherwise it’s the car or pickup truck (and I mean a little dodge from the 1980s not an F150).
Myself I now walk everywhere, use the bus or gets rides. The last time I had a full tank of gas was October 20, and I won’t be buying gas until tomorrow when I take a long trip. And even then I’ve still got maybe 1/8th of a tank left.
capelza
demi…what kind of SUV gets 30 in the city? I’m not being negative, I am just curious.
Any rig that can get 30 in the city is a vast improvement over most cars out there.
demimondian
No, my brother still has a job. I’m not sure if it’s even a slowdown — both of my neighbors are still employed.
demimondian
A Ford Escape Hybrid.
capelza
Demi…you cheater! :)
A hybrid is not what we are talking about here, at least not me. The chickie living down the road from me who drives a big ass hummer no kids is not in the same league as someone driving a hybrid.
Tax Analyst
Well sure, and I’m fine, too. I will probably have this job until I can’t or don’t want to work anymore. I’m already cutting back on my days and hours in the summer. But not that many people are fortunate enough to have that kind of job security. A lot of big corporations are shedding a whole lot of people these days, at least from what I ready in the Business section of the L.A. Times. I don’t see any of them adding anybody. And though small business is often the real engine of growth the credit crunch and housing market meltdown are not going to help them and are likely to hurt them. There’s a big ripple effect to the housing problem. Construction and Lending-industry jobs have taken big hits and will probably take some more before things turn around. Maybe that won’t cause a recession, but I wouldn’t put any money on that.
demimondian
[Bows ironically] Of course! What did you expect?
Seriously — I have a kid who schleps a cello around, and so I need a fairly large vehicle to carry it. I held off getting a larger car for years until the hybrid SUV’s came out, precisely because I didn’t want to drive a 12MPG behemoth; it’s immoral, given my lifestyle. For my purposes, then, the fact that I’m cheating doesn’t take away from the fact that I drive the Escape because it *is* an SUV, rather than to provide myself with artifical masculinity.
jcricket
Yes, this will work out well. All the people who have vastly increased their income will suck it up and pay the tolls. While all the poor people, forced to live at ever-farther distances from their increasingly non-keeping-up-with-inflation jobs will go further into massive debt.
Without alternatives the whole “privatize it” or “just let prices go through the roof” is a recipe for further breaking the backs of the poor and middle class.
I agree with the poster who called for the NASA/moon-landing-esque public works program for energy independence. Let’s get more research into everything – solar collectors on commercial buildings, plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels, better wind power, geothermal, wave energy. Whatever. I have no doubt that a combination of efficiency gains, conservation, waste elimination and alternative technology could easily reduce our needs for non-renewable fuels by 80% over the next 20-50 years.
We can find trillions for an unnecessary war that’s making us less safe but not billions for exploring technology that would make the entire world a better place and make us all more safe?
[email protected]!!?!?#!#^&@##!
Chris Johnson
I have a beater Buick Century that gets 33 mpg. I did it by replacing the muffler with a ‘Cherry Bomb’ glasspack muffler, replacing the air intake with a much bigger one I made myself from aluminum dryer hose, and replacing the air filter with a K&N (which didn’t do as much, but it’s a nice filter).
The same stuff you do to the air intake and exhaust to give more power also gives more economy, because it’s the same gas but it takes less of it to move the car the same way. Of course now I make a bit more noise pollution, but not near as much as some of the pickup trucks around here ;)
Also have a woodstove- I guess it puts out the same amount of carbon whether it’s burning hot or smoldery? Because I learned to burn it hot to prevent getting too much creosote, and when it’s going properly no smoke comes out the chimney at all.
capelza
demi…first off, the cello is my favourite musical sound so big kudos to your kid.
I am all for the hybrids…
We DO have a big truck, for the boat, we haul tons, literally, on a trailer and the bed is full of heavy nets, etc. It is also a crew cab, because we can haul up to 5 crewmen in it if a trip is required. But it isn’t used for commutes, etc.
On the other hand, again, I have a difficult time when I see someone I know is single or has I kid driving a Suburban or an Expidition with 4WD. It is their right as an American to drive it, but it is also my right to publically mock them and snicker to their face when they bitch about filling up their gas tank.
demimondian
Burn your stove hot without flame — embers FTW. No smoke, and minimal creosote.
Modern stoves, by the way, have secondary air cleaning systems. Our stove puts out no smoke whatsoever when it’s burning right. That’s important in our area, as we typically have multiple burn bans during the winter. We can continue to heat with our stove during a level 1 ban, according to Washington state regulations.
Z
I agree that 99% of people out there do not need 4WD, and that is a total waste. When I was talking about the big carbon footprint of most families, I wasn’t just talking about SUVs. While better than most SUVs, frankly, minivans get poor gas mileage, too.
jcricket
My car (Saab station wagon) gets crappy mileage in the city – 15mpg. But I drive such few miles (4 miles to work each way for me), my wife drives all over for her job and everything on the weekend evenings we do is so close (we’re only a couple miles outside the downtown core). So combined we drive about 14,000 miles/year (something like 1/2 of the national average).
Hybrid wouldn’t even come close to paying for itself for us. We’d do better off next time we buy a car getting something like a Civic.
Bombadil
The cost difference is coming down, and as gas prices skyrocket, the payback time is getting shorter.
I didn’t get my hybrid to save money, though. I did it because I needed a car, I like the idea of the technology, and wanted to encourage its expansion. I’ve averaged over 46 miles per gallon (over the course of nearly 145,000 miles); even if it hasn’t paid for itself yet, it’s been economical.
And now that I’m working a job where I can commute by train/subway, the three miles round-trip to the train station means I can go weeks without filling up.
brendancalling
“What should we do about rising gas prices?
How about nothing? Let them go higher and higher.”
I’m not so much concerned about the rising gas prices (well, I am because it hits my wallet and I have child support and students loans to pay) as I am the rising heating oil price, which is also hitting record prices ($3.14 a gallon two weeks ago in Philly). I make a decent living, more than the average for Philadelphia, but the burden is definitely there. If there is one thing I dread, it is my oil running out during winter, especially if my kid’s here, and especially if it’s in between pay periods (I’m biweekly). It could put me in a heat-or-eat situation, and I make too much to qualify for LIHEAP.
I’m almost middle class and struggling: I work in human services and worry about the impact of higher prices on the truly poor that we assist.
Libby Spencer
Best car I ever owned was my Suburu wagon. Small car, could park it anywhere, turned on a dime and had an amazing amount of interior room. I moved all my earthly belongings except for the desk and the couch in it once. Engine ran like a top, would have gone another 100,000 miles but I had to get rid of it because the body was so badly rusted out that I was afraid to take it on the highway. I had visions of it disintegrating out from under me and shards of sheet metal piercing the surrounding cars.
But every time I hear somebody say they NEED that SUV for the room, I think of that car. I’m sure it had much more cargo space than any SUV on the road and it cost nearly nothing to run.
demimondian
And *that*, friends, is why I mock glibertarians in a nutshell.
Sure, I’ve got mine now, but I remember when FDDD and I were struggling to climb into the middle class, and had a young child. Nobody should have to make that kind of choice, ever.
jcricket
I wish I lived in a warmer/less rainy climate. I would be all over getting one of those plug-in scooters (for my 2 mile all-city-roads commute). But here in Rainy Rainsville (Seattle) I’m just not all-weather enough to do it.
capelza
Libby Spencer…I had a Toyota station wagon, a Corrolla…that thing could haul. Heck, I moved a dining room set in my Camry SEDAN.
I bought a Saab a few years back…the 9-3 with the big hatchback. and it has so much hauling space. It isn’t the greatest on the highway (about 30), but we bought it as a weather car (we do get snowed in in the coast range, chains required, and all our family lives over those frekin’ passes). It’s a very good safe rig. I also have put about 10K on it in the past 5 years (swear to god)…I don’t drive much. I can’t remember the last time I filled it up (a few months ago?)…but we did want a good winter car for when we DO drive up to PDX or down to Eugene for the family.
There is that American trait, though, we like stuff super-sized…the bigger the better.. :( We just don’t like the consequences…
Tsulagi
Demi is right about a fireplace. If you want real heat from it, and want to use less firewood, put in an insert.
We don’t have any hippie looking woodstoves in our place, but our fireplaces in the downstairs living room and upstairs master bedroom both have inserts with variable speed fans to blow out the hot air. They’re great. Look good too. Can heat the entire house using just the fireplaces, especially if using high-BTU wood like apple or cherry.
RSA
I have high expectations for my patent-pending, rubber-band-powered balloon car. It doesn’t go very fast, or very far, but you can inflate it to whatever size you want. (It’s safe in crashes, too.)
jcricket
Ezra has a good point/commentary on the whole libertarian thing and their blindness to how the free market sometimes “self organizes” into monoplies. The title is “Breaking The invisible Hand”
jcricket
Are you gonna call it the “Jeff Goldstein”?
jcricket
Or the Doughy Pantload?
El Cruzado
To those who answered my 1st point noting that America is so spread out (both Geographically and within cities): I KNOW. I’ve been living in a piece of suburban Genericana for a few years now, and the real estate bubble also meant I could barely get a decent place to live within walking distance of groceries (and only partially. Too far for big hauls, and no streetlights for a good chunk of it so it’s a no-no in winter).
It goes with the 2nd point. The US will have to become more like Europe in terms of urbanization. More concentration, which enables better public transport and reduces energy needs both for transportation and heating/cooling. People will have to swallow their egos and buy just as much car as they really need (i.e. wagons, learn to live with it) and as much house as they need (I can’t believe how much people spend in electricity/gas for their big boxes. Never done over $120 on my townhome for neither gas nor electricity).
I’m no bleeding heart greenie, but most of our problems would end if people made buying decisions more based on brains than dick (or whatever women use to behave like assholes). My 1-garage, 2 bedroom townhome has more space than I know what to do with, and would still do if I had a kid or even two. My Jetta TDI means I average less than a gallon a day (I call it my insurance against adventures in Persia) and I’d have a wagon if the Motherf***ers at VW had bothered selling it at the time. Seeing how much they are at Costco/Lowe’s/Ikea etc., Whoever doesn’t run to replace his lightbulbs with compact fluorescents these days is at best clueless and at worst an idiot. etc. etc.
jenniebee
♥
Nice.
Renato, your point is well taken, but the development work depends on the pure research, and that just isn’t there at present to bring any new energy-saving technologies than we already have at our disposal, and those technologies, even if they become more widely used (as I’m sure they will) aren’t going to be enough by themselves to keep America running more than a couple of extra years unless major changes in urban design, public transportation infrastructure, and electric power generation infrastructure take place in the meantime. Personally I’m pissed as hell that we didn’t gradually raise gas taxes over the last decade and use the funds to build the public transportation systems the public and the economy are going to be desperate for when gas hits 6 or 7 dollars a gallon. Now we get the joys of an economy that’s being hit with both yet another in a series of wall-street-created financial crises at the same time that we’re seeing spikes in gas prices.
Watch for lots of news stories about retail merchants reporting that consumer spending is down this Christmas. Lotta people are gonna be filling up their tanks on the way to the mall and then doing their shopping with their gas pump sticker shock still fresh in their minds.
Libby Spencer
Killer link Jcricket. Thanks. I’ve been trying to get that point across forever to my Libertarian friends.
r€nato
when I wrote, “SF”, I literally meant the city of San Francisco, not the greater SF/Oakland area. It’s the only European-style city I can think of, that’s west of the Mississippi.
Also known as, ‘the politician’s career suicide pact’. Might as well wish for magical non-polluting ponies to provide the horsepower for your car. Americans think they are born with cheap gasoline as their birthright. Any politician who had talked about raising gas taxes – no matter what it cost, whether 50 cents a gallon or 2 dollars a gallon – would not only have been voted out of office at the first opportunity, they would have been burned in effigy, had objects thrown at them every time they appeared in public, and probably even recalled before the next election if local laws allowed it.
Chuck Butcher
Oil costs $3/ga because GWB decided to scare the snot out of everybody not because of supply/demand. If you think his oil buddies aren’t pulling profit out of every part of the stream – somebody has a bridge…
Gas guzzling behomeths…I have one that gets regular usage at 8 mpg on a good day, the problem is that it’s a 78 3/4 T Chevy 4×4 with a utility bed full of construction tools and ladder rack full and weighs in at a svelt 8K# and is as areodynamic as a barn door. The engine is optimized for its application so it is just what it is. If I could swing $40K for a replacement I’d get 12-15 mpg, the engine in a new one would wear out before I got a payback. On site storage is not an option, so the truck goes to work. Work can be from a couple blocks to 60 miles.
At this point supply is not the problem. Green house gases are a bigger issue that looms. While this is very true, the idea that you gain ground by squeezing the lower income strata seems a little less than progressive. Somehow it is very popular today amongst the “left” to drop bombs on the bottom of the income ladder to gain some feel-good end. I could get on a real roll, commodity taxes, safety net funding (FICA), illegal immigration and it seems the most affected can least afford it and that is progressive…
Wood is not a good fuel, you do not get the BTUs/output of crud and associated damages. Wood has to be gotten, there is fuel associated, all through the stream, logs or pellets. It is so easy to look at one aspect of an issue and miss all the associated ones. Where I live much of the recycling is hydrocarbon net gain, by the end product there are more hydrocarbons involved in the process than in the end product, greenhouse wise it’s a better idea to landfill it. And yes, we have a high recycle rate. Here, on the other hand wood products make a bit more sense, we’re much closer to them and the required volume for real heating in really good furnaces (stoves suck) could be almost reasonably done – if you factor in social goods like removing construction waste, forest thinning, and lumber industry waste. That takes a processing plant, a reasonably convenient drop point and sorting process and yep, waste disposal. Most existing/in use stoves, fireplaces, furnaces, and etc are crap spewing stinking messes. It is also a good idea to remember that a removed tree is a removed CO2 scrubber.
I sure don’t mind “thinking outside the box” approaches, but it is a darn good idea to also do a good analysis of all the outcomes.
demimondian
Actually, Libby, here is an even better reference for your libertarian friends.
Tax Analyst
Chuck Butcher – Very useful post. Not sure if GWB had that actual specific intent, but he surely had his Oil friends in mind to a great degree with the Iraq invasion. That it turned into a complete clusterfuck and has helped ramp up Oil prices might be just a happy by-product for his buddies. I think initial greed factor was just easy access to Cheap Oil for those folks.
Thanks.
Libby Spencer
Thanks Demim.
jcricket
NP – but good luck. Reality doesn’t seem to penetrate the “version serious” Libertarians, much like adherents to communism or any other all-encompasing economic theory.
I once had an argument with a Libertarian I worked with about the whole “corporate taxes should be illegal because it’s taxing money twice”. Pointing out that there are all kinds of points in the “cycle” of the economy at which we tax money (and there always has been) didn’t help.
The short of it is that Libertarian economic theory (as it were) seems to basically boil down to “the ultimate good is eliminating taxes on corporations and capital gains”. Everything flows from that faulty conclusion.
croatoan
President Bush needs to do more jawboning::
croatoan
We were told before we invaded Iraq that the invasion would lower oil prices.
JWW
?
Have you ever tracked the production of a hybrid? That would include mining{in Canada}, processing{over seas}, production, shipping. Your ass at this point and time is on your shoulders. The waste, poison, and destruction to create the vehicle is not worth the cost.
Kinda, or just maybe takes your war for oil BS away. You are the normal street corner “Pan Handler”. You are, and some feel sorry for, a begger.
This nation can fuel itself, assholes like you, spend your money too prevent it.
RSA
Myself, I am an upscale pan handleur.
André Kenji
“Without alternatives the whole “privatize it” or “just let prices go through the roof” is a recipe for further breaking the backs of the poor and middle class.”
You have only two scenarios: to keep the government out of transportation or to subsidize the whole system. In the US, there is not people advocating free market solutions or governmental solutions, but car based solutions and transit based solutions.
And the problem is that in the US, people defending the highway model are more powerful – not only teamsters Unions, but Greyhound, Southwest Airlines and even railways like CSX and Union Pacific.
So, keeping the government out of it could be a good solution…
demimondian
Oh, goody! We’ve got us a glibertarian who’s neither as smart or as clever as Michael D.
So…who’s going to teach our young padawan that the world is not exactly as the worldly nuns at St. Ayn’s taught him?
JWW
RSA,
Never mind, I wish not to be banned tonight. Least wise not over you!!!
Xenos
JWW-
I have read a couple economic analyses of hybrids, and they were clearly bunk. One used the assumption that a toyota prius would not last beyond 100,000 miles… as new cars few have done so, but with small engines and robust transmissions they appear to be well designed to go to 500,000 miles with reasonable maintenance.
The other analysis assumed gas would stay under $3.00 per gallon, which seems a typically optimistic Bushian (self serving and unsound) assumption. If gas goes up another stochastic step, those hybrids will have been excellent bargains.
So do not begrudge the lefties and environmentalists their bets based on pessimism. You would do well hedge your own bets. You don’t have to believe the peak oilists to realize that if they are right, sacrifices need to be made. Why do you resent people who are just trying to be prudent given their best reading of the future of the world?
Oh, they may inhibit the freedom of some smug arseholes to act in antisocial ways. Can’t have that, can we?
stickler
Lots of good points here. But I think we need to keep a couple of things in mind…
1) Ethanol. In the 1920s, this was usually referred to as “moonshine.” Because of the mountain of corn the USA built after about 1969, most folks think this means “corn-based ethanol,” but that’s not true. If it has sugar, and yeast can ferment it, it can make alcohol. So long as we have mountains of corn, it makes sense to divert corn into our injectors (rather than our gullets). The side-effect of not ingesting endless pounds of high-fructose corn sugar will, in terms of health care, probably outweigh the drawbacks of using corn to fuel cars. But even if that’s not true, it doesn’t matter. Anything that has sugar can be turned into ethanol: any homebrewer has already done it. So the plants we build to ferment/distill Iowa corn can be used for berries, barley, sugar cane, and probably deadly nightshade.
2) Biodiesel. Rudolf Diesel originally designed his compression-driven engine to run on peanut oil. Petroleum diesel fuel is very efficient, but there are lots of substitutes, like canola, hemp, and fry oil. All have drawbacks, but solving those isn’t anything like putting a man on the moon.
3) There’s no silver bullet. One thing this country could really use is an appreciation of the complexity of the problem. People should be encouraged to use solar for hot water, as well as power generation. We should encourage multiple ethanol-conversion plants; coal-gasification plants; nuclear; tidal-generation; biodiesel. The more houses that have solar panels on their roofs, the fewer coal-fired power plants we have to build. The more front-loading washers we buy, the fewer aquifers we will deplete. (And remember: those EnergyStar appliances you now can buy — including the washers — are only available to you because the Clinton Administration mandated new standards for energy efficiency for home appliances in the 1990s!)
4) Mobile fuel vs. stationary. Keep in mind that the challenges we face for homes and businesses, and for transportation are different. I can’t run my car on solar power, but I could run my house. I can’t (yet) heat my house water with hemp, but I might be able to run a car on the hemp oil.
5) Efficiency. Take shorter showers, you pigs.
demimondian
Chuck and capelza — notice what I said in my original posting:
[emphsais added]
I’m a software developer. My SUV exists to get me to and from my office (6 mi. away, also on the Eastside). It’s not a working truck, but a convenient vehicle. Yes, I need the space, because of the cello, but, no, I don’t need the power. You guys do, and I don’t begrudge it to you, and anyone who does so is out of touch with reality.
JWW
Xenos,
The real issue is the mining of nickle and processing in Canada(current dead zone), the transport to Japan for molding, another Asian country too create a battery.(no matter, the price of the the battery just went up 100X) Canada bears the scars, both environmentally, and in a monatary state. The basic car parts meet the specs of a base Kia, Yugo. You pay for a flawed battery system, a Geo motor, an enhanced Geo body.
Xenos
The toxic side effects of erstwhile green energy is important to keep in mind. Back in the early 90s when I was living in Montreal it finally made it into the news that the Quebec Hydro system was causing large amounts of mercury to be squeezed out of the rocks and into the rivers and then into Hudson Bay. How the hell do you clean up something like that?
Is Canada bearing externalities from the mining of nickle? It is a modern welfare state, not some oppressed third-world country. If Canada needs to charge more regulatory fees to offset or discourage the damage, they can do so. Unlike the US (operating like a corrupt third world government these days), which allows Canadian companies to mine gold and leave unprocessed tailings and such for future generations to sort out.
John Spragge
Uh, guys… I hate to tell you this, but oil hasn’t gotten all that more expensive recently. No, really. It hasn’t. Two years ago, a barrel of oil cost about $85 Canadian; today it costs $95 Canadian. Same with the Euro, the Yen, and so on. Something has changed, of course: oil costs a bit more, but you have to buy it with currency worth a lot less. Over the past five years of George Bush’s Administration, your dollar has lost about 30% (no misprint) of its value against nearly all major world currencies.
bago
The key is to switch off of energy sources that throw carbon from the ground and into the atmosphere. We have a gigantic nigh-endless fusion powered device shooting all kinds of energy at us. It’s called the sun. Can we be smart and use it?
Andrew
JWW, you are an idiot.
The whole nickel mining controversy is bunk. All of the environmental damage in Canada from nickel mining came well before Toyota ever built a Prius. The Sudbury plant has radically lowered emissions in the past 30 years and replanted millions of trees to rehabilitate the area. And Toyota only buys about 1% of the nickel produced there.
Toyota recycles the batteries and even offers a cash bounty for them.
jcricket
Thanks for saying this, it bears repeating. As the slide Al Gore presented points out, just eliminating waste, recycling, conserving, increasing basic efficiency and using a few alternative fuel sources that already exist can bring us back to a carbon footprint of before the 1900s.
Conservatives want to claim that it’s “all of nothing” because they’re fraidy-cats. They’re afraid if each person has constant reminders (recycling, LEDs, hybrid car, solar panels on house, less packaging material) of their own part in saving the earth that they’ll vote Democrat (which they will).
Same reason Republicans hate Social Security. That monthly check sure is a reminder that one party has your economic safety at heart and the other couldn’t give a crap whether you eat cat food and die on the street.
jcricket
On the issue of global warming and the environment the wingers are starting to sound like holocaust deniers, creationists and moon-landing hoaxers.
They’ll end up with all kinds of false, misleading and/or pseudo-scientific claptrap to convince them they’re right, while the world laughs (uncomfortably).
It really is sad to see Republicans so enthralled with themselves that they’re willing to go down on record as wrong on all the important issues of today.
Melanie Sanderson
My husband and I kept both of our cars after marriage. His? A Honda Civic sedan. Mine? A 4-door Toyota Corolla. Both are extremely dependable, and both still get 30+ mpg after eleven and eight years on the road (respectively).
With our two kids, we have no problems fitting a standard child seat (for our 2-year old) and a booster seat (for the older kid) into the back in either car.
For everything we do around town (daycare, kids to school, shopping, piano lessons, playdates, church, visiting the grandparents), we can comfortably do these things in either of these two compact cars.
When we travel on the road for longer distances (out-of-town relatives, weddings), we rent a larger car for a few days.
Based on this experience, we were able to demonstrate to my older brother and his wife that there is little practical need for large cars (or trucks or SUVs) in city and suburban living.
Oddly, when we first quietly demonstrated how these small cars worked well for our needs, it was infuriating to them (they wanted to prove that their desire for an SUV was based on genuine need). But I suppose that simply going about our daily lives without preaching makes a difference.
They sold their Ford Expedition and bought a Toyota Camry last month, and their five-member family is finding it very workable.
JWW
Andrew S.
I’m an idiot. Have you been near any of these plants. Have you tracked the acid rainfall. I would think not. You read an article, think it’s okay and ride the train. I live in the area, see the effects. You are the basic ass, who is satisfied with reading instead of living. Before you decide what you comeback will be, move up north, spend 40 or more years, see the new changes, then get back with me.
JWW
One more to Andrew S,
If you haven’t lived the effects, you shouldn’t comment, or at least with BS. We have stream fed small lakes and ponds that have always produced trout. Today, they can’t even sustain stocking. The acid rain pollution has made the water inhabitable. In the lower Hudson area, GE and Scott Paper did the same.
When I was a kid you could dip your hands in these mountain waters and drink it. I invite you to come and do the same today. Fool!!!
Andrew
Yes, JWW, you’re an idiot. The catastrophic negative effects of these various plants happened long before Toyota ever produced a hybrid. Nickel is primarily used to make stainless steel, not batteries. Since the 1970’s, government controls and regulations have forced these plants to clean up their acts. The particular Sudbury plant where Toyota gets its nickel is very clean now.
So, yeah, you’re an idiot for propagating the right wing lies about the “environmental devastation” caused by hybrid cars.
4tehlulz
Bloomberg Headline: Environment Be Damned, Oil Prices Light Fire Under Wood in U.S.