You think you got it bad?
I went on a road trip this last weekend for the first time in a long time. Went down to Pismo Beach, almost exactly half way to Los Angeles. It's no secret that San Franciscans (and most Californians) pay dearly for gasoline. Gas here has been hovering around $3.50 for awhile, and I've seen premium pushing $4.00. (I did see a spike of $3.99 a gallon one day.)
As a corollary, I'm one of the least worried. I live 4 miles from work, and always either take public transit or my motorcycle, and when you've only got a 4.5 gallon tank, you don't really worry about the price. My "cage" that I do own is a Saturn that gets about 30-ish miles to the gallon when I do go on those road trips. And heating costs? The temperature here is so temperate, my gas bill hovers around $20 a month. Usually turning on the lights (or having a couple computers on) is all the heat I need. Even then, paying 13 cents a kilowatt hour ain't fun.
So, what do we do about it? For one thing, I actually don't think gas costs enough. Do I think it should be $5, or $6 a gallon? No. But here's my beef, and one completely lost in Washington: The cost of services government provides should be borne most closely by those who benefit them, whenever at all possible. (Within reason. For example, social programs such as those that benefit the poor, sick or elderly should be borne by those who aren't poor, sick or elderly.) So within that, I think 100% of transportation costs should be born by gas taxes. I have little patience for people who complain about gas prices and traffic. If you want better transportation options, you gotta pay for it. If it's borne by the general fund, it's welfare. You're essentially transferring the sales taxes from everything some little old lady buys who never drives anywhere so you can drive your SUV down 680, i.e., the people who don't drive are subsidizing the people who do. Gas taxes are the most direct way of having the people who use the freeways to pay for them. But as Republicans like to say, they're not really taxes, just more of a "fee". :-)
Secondly, by artificially subsidizing the true cost of transportation, there's no reason not to buy that gas-guzzler, keeping demand high and costs high. It's true when they say when there's one finger pointing at someone else, there's three pointing back to you. Adam Smith was quick to point out, there is no supply without a demand. "But I have to get to work!" Sure, we all do. But did you have to get the Chevy Tahoe? Did you have to take 8 separate trips to run your errands? Do you have to act extra aggressive in traffic? Do you have to drive alone to work? No. The truth of the matter is every gallon you save is a gallon that doesn't have to be dug out of the ground in some harder place to get to, in some more politically unstable country.
And then there's the issue of supply. India and China are the two fastest growing consumers of gasoline. But did you know that of that growth, India plans to get 50% of it's new energy from renewable sources? We're taking gigawatts of energy from renewable sources. I ask you, if India can do it, why can't the US? Do we just not have the will to compete? We might not be flush with oil, but we certainly are flush in natural renewable resources.
So what's my supply plan? The fact of the matter is that we have an enormous continuum of energy supplies. We do have coal and natural gas. Right now, 90% of coal goes to supply electricity. You can't run your car on coal, but you can convert coal into gas. The Germans did it in World War II, and the economics of it are quickly becoming more and more sense. It's comparable to the cost of what Alberta's doing with the tar sands, and their economy is booming as a result. (The jokes about the Canadian dollar aren't as funny as they used to be.) You can run a car on natural gas, but again, most of it now goes towards generating electricity and heat.
And nuclear? I'm actually a big supporter of nuclear energy. Coal actually releases many times the radioactive material into the environment than nuclear energy does per kilowatt hour generated. It's just spread out over a lot more material. And it takes about 2 pounds of coal to generate 1 kilowatt of energy. That's a helluva lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. But I understand other people have reservations.
Ultimately, I think our quickest option is blowing in the wind. Um, yeah, wind. Wind power is now as cheap or cheaper to generate as traditional forms of energy, including coal. The immediate political problem is that the areas most flush with wind sources are also far from population centers, such as North Dakota, Montana and Alaska. They also tend to be rich in other sources of energy. North Dakota and Montana have tons of coal, and Alaska has oil. Their electricity rates tend to be very cheap, which doesn't make wind as competitive, but it is competitive, and sometimes very competitive in certain areas.
But the fact of the matter is that every kilowatt hour generated by wind is an American kilowatt generated, not from some foreign source. That leaves more coal to be turned into gas, and more natural gas to run our cars instead. (Sounds like a pipe dream? Natural gas vehicles run on the streets of San Francisco all the time.) And the issues with wind are just hiccups compared to a lot of other problems.
So what I propose is a national plan on wind energy. Many states, including Minnesota and Iowa are using their own resources within their borders. A national plan to allow the easier transport of electricity across borders would go far so that states flush with wind power to export them to population centers (North and South Dakota could more easily ship to Minnesota). And even if they don't need the power, the coal and natural gas power plans they offset would mean more coal and natural gas for other states.
Ultimately, I think it would pave the way for the hydrogen economy. Large wind plants in the Midwest could cleanly manufacture hydrogen for transport by pipeline to population centers. But we need a plan to get there. A strong national plan would be a great first start. In states flush with natural renewable resources, require 100% of new electricity to come from those natural renewable resources, especially where price competitive. More easily allow the export of electricity from state to state. Make wind subsidies permanent or phased out gradually over a much longer period so that wind power plant manufacturers know that their business isn't going to suddenly cut off in a couple years and feel comfortable about building up their capacity. The energy independence of America depends on it.
The thing is, will we ever run out of gas? Actually, no. Surprising answer? Not really. The problem isn't that we're going to run out of gas. The problem is it will be more and more expensive to get to. Eventually the cost will surpass some other source of energy, be it natural gas, hydrogen, solar, wind, what have you, and then why pay $10 a gallon for gas when you can pay $6 for the equivalent hydrogen.
Sound scary? $4 a gallon for gas used to be a "what if" scenario too. I just saw it the other day. You can bury your head in a sand and say "nu uh", or you can read the writing on the gas station and get a good look at the future and realize what are we going to do about this new reality.
The good news is we're on a good start. The US is poised to overtake Germany as the #1 producer of wind power in the world. But subsidies to oil companies already flush with cash are not going to solve anything. We need leadership in Washington who will see this through, someone who has the vision and the leadership to carry it through.
Join me. Will you?
As a corollary, I'm one of the least worried. I live 4 miles from work, and always either take public transit or my motorcycle, and when you've only got a 4.5 gallon tank, you don't really worry about the price. My "cage" that I do own is a Saturn that gets about 30-ish miles to the gallon when I do go on those road trips. And heating costs? The temperature here is so temperate, my gas bill hovers around $20 a month. Usually turning on the lights (or having a couple computers on) is all the heat I need. Even then, paying 13 cents a kilowatt hour ain't fun.
So, what do we do about it? For one thing, I actually don't think gas costs enough. Do I think it should be $5, or $6 a gallon? No. But here's my beef, and one completely lost in Washington: The cost of services government provides should be borne most closely by those who benefit them, whenever at all possible. (Within reason. For example, social programs such as those that benefit the poor, sick or elderly should be borne by those who aren't poor, sick or elderly.) So within that, I think 100% of transportation costs should be born by gas taxes. I have little patience for people who complain about gas prices and traffic. If you want better transportation options, you gotta pay for it. If it's borne by the general fund, it's welfare. You're essentially transferring the sales taxes from everything some little old lady buys who never drives anywhere so you can drive your SUV down 680, i.e., the people who don't drive are subsidizing the people who do. Gas taxes are the most direct way of having the people who use the freeways to pay for them. But as Republicans like to say, they're not really taxes, just more of a "fee". :-)
Secondly, by artificially subsidizing the true cost of transportation, there's no reason not to buy that gas-guzzler, keeping demand high and costs high. It's true when they say when there's one finger pointing at someone else, there's three pointing back to you. Adam Smith was quick to point out, there is no supply without a demand. "But I have to get to work!" Sure, we all do. But did you have to get the Chevy Tahoe? Did you have to take 8 separate trips to run your errands? Do you have to act extra aggressive in traffic? Do you have to drive alone to work? No. The truth of the matter is every gallon you save is a gallon that doesn't have to be dug out of the ground in some harder place to get to, in some more politically unstable country.
And then there's the issue of supply. India and China are the two fastest growing consumers of gasoline. But did you know that of that growth, India plans to get 50% of it's new energy from renewable sources? We're taking gigawatts of energy from renewable sources. I ask you, if India can do it, why can't the US? Do we just not have the will to compete? We might not be flush with oil, but we certainly are flush in natural renewable resources.
So what's my supply plan? The fact of the matter is that we have an enormous continuum of energy supplies. We do have coal and natural gas. Right now, 90% of coal goes to supply electricity. You can't run your car on coal, but you can convert coal into gas. The Germans did it in World War II, and the economics of it are quickly becoming more and more sense. It's comparable to the cost of what Alberta's doing with the tar sands, and their economy is booming as a result. (The jokes about the Canadian dollar aren't as funny as they used to be.) You can run a car on natural gas, but again, most of it now goes towards generating electricity and heat.
And nuclear? I'm actually a big supporter of nuclear energy. Coal actually releases many times the radioactive material into the environment than nuclear energy does per kilowatt hour generated. It's just spread out over a lot more material. And it takes about 2 pounds of coal to generate 1 kilowatt of energy. That's a helluva lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. But I understand other people have reservations.
Ultimately, I think our quickest option is blowing in the wind. Um, yeah, wind. Wind power is now as cheap or cheaper to generate as traditional forms of energy, including coal. The immediate political problem is that the areas most flush with wind sources are also far from population centers, such as North Dakota, Montana and Alaska. They also tend to be rich in other sources of energy. North Dakota and Montana have tons of coal, and Alaska has oil. Their electricity rates tend to be very cheap, which doesn't make wind as competitive, but it is competitive, and sometimes very competitive in certain areas.
But the fact of the matter is that every kilowatt hour generated by wind is an American kilowatt generated, not from some foreign source. That leaves more coal to be turned into gas, and more natural gas to run our cars instead. (Sounds like a pipe dream? Natural gas vehicles run on the streets of San Francisco all the time.) And the issues with wind are just hiccups compared to a lot of other problems.
So what I propose is a national plan on wind energy. Many states, including Minnesota and Iowa are using their own resources within their borders. A national plan to allow the easier transport of electricity across borders would go far so that states flush with wind power to export them to population centers (North and South Dakota could more easily ship to Minnesota). And even if they don't need the power, the coal and natural gas power plans they offset would mean more coal and natural gas for other states.
Ultimately, I think it would pave the way for the hydrogen economy. Large wind plants in the Midwest could cleanly manufacture hydrogen for transport by pipeline to population centers. But we need a plan to get there. A strong national plan would be a great first start. In states flush with natural renewable resources, require 100% of new electricity to come from those natural renewable resources, especially where price competitive. More easily allow the export of electricity from state to state. Make wind subsidies permanent or phased out gradually over a much longer period so that wind power plant manufacturers know that their business isn't going to suddenly cut off in a couple years and feel comfortable about building up their capacity. The energy independence of America depends on it.
The thing is, will we ever run out of gas? Actually, no. Surprising answer? Not really. The problem isn't that we're going to run out of gas. The problem is it will be more and more expensive to get to. Eventually the cost will surpass some other source of energy, be it natural gas, hydrogen, solar, wind, what have you, and then why pay $10 a gallon for gas when you can pay $6 for the equivalent hydrogen.
Sound scary? $4 a gallon for gas used to be a "what if" scenario too. I just saw it the other day. You can bury your head in a sand and say "nu uh", or you can read the writing on the gas station and get a good look at the future and realize what are we going to do about this new reality.
The good news is we're on a good start. The US is poised to overtake Germany as the #1 producer of wind power in the world. But subsidies to oil companies already flush with cash are not going to solve anything. We need leadership in Washington who will see this through, someone who has the vision and the leadership to carry it through.
Join me. Will you?
posted by Joe Carlin at 9:26 PM
1 Comments:
This site is one of the best I have ever seen, wish I had one like this.
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