Drilling is bad public policy

The social benefits of high gas prices clearly outweigh the downside. Reducing sprawl puts more money in peoples pockets since they have less need to carry the fixed cost of an automobile. Immigrant families know this. They flock to cities not suburbs. They ride the bus until they can afford a car. We should be ensuring that services are available in walkable radius so people don't need to drive. Instead of discussing the benefits of high gas prices policy makers want to drill off the coast.

Drilling off the coast is bad policy. Numerous editorials have said that we will not make a difference in the price because we consume more than we produce plus what reserves are estimated off the coast. Based on available supplies and consumption trends (imports) drilling will bring 4 cents of relief ten years from now. So why aren't we developing walkable cities and implementing existing technologies now? and making this policy?

More importantly lower gas prices don't make sense. Because of the import dependency we create national security problems like Georgia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We put forward a sham of health care as a consequence of losing our money to war to protect oil sources. We end up with the worst of friends from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and the most abject losers from Tibet to Aung San Suu Kyi. Our newspapers become government mouthpieces bemoaning the loss of
the dictator Musharraf while championing democratically elected governments in Georgia where we clearly don't intend to act.

Politics is about oil and the transfer of $2T in the last eight years to oil companies is the culmination of that policy. Bush is not just sleep walking through history- he is filling his and his cronies pockets along the way. Politicians blab on about religion and non issues like gods in marriage, talking about stuff that even the average American has a hard time believing in or holding up, and worse, firmly believe politicians hypocrits in this regard. They talk to preachers that the average American has a hard time trusting.

Then to make matters worse they can't even define who's rich. The average American earns 40k- $5M leaves out everybody. If you spent $1000 a day for the rest of your life it would not equal $5M. A frugal person with $250,000 could grow their own 100 sq foot vegetable plot and purchase health insurance and not work for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine an annual salary of 250k?

Without a quality discussion like politicians were capable of in the mid seventies on petroleum we get stuck on affordable (fossil fuel versus renewables and the poisoned be damned) practical (sprawl instead of walkable cities, Saudi Arabia Prince Bush versus Tibet's Dalia Lama) and available (now versus hydrogen's promise in the future- but not the siren call of technology: instead our continued dependence on hummers and priuses to consume greenbelt and Mexican peppers.)

Nancy Pelosi needs to do more than just accommodate the latest bad policy. She and others needs to articulate the modern security concerns and its implications toour pocket book and health care.

Electrifiy Caltrain on Solar PV

I live a block from the Caltrain line in overcast Belmont. From solar PV I average 3.2 MW per year from 20 panels which equal 250 sq feet and generate 15% surplus power per year. However I face southeast. Similar sized south facing and southwest facing installations generate 4-5MW per year. 4MW is what one electric Caltrain needs per day. That would translate to square footage of panels equal to 250x365 sq ft= 92,250 or round it up to 100,000 sq feet which an area 100'by 1,000' ft. Most station areas are a mile in length which would be five this amount or 20MW per day. If the station area solarized was 200 feet wide then only ten stations would need to be solarized for the entire train at 40MW per day from 40,000 panels.

From the EIR/EIS the accurate power requirements to operate a 100 train per day Caltrain system is approx. 300 MWh PER DAY. A full build out scenario of more trains per day would require 400 MWh per day. That would imply 20 stations areas covered in solar panels. Or some equivalent length of track could be solarized. Given the sunny location of most trains this facilities are more likely to produce about 40% more power. This can be used to provide hybrid and golf cart charging stations at the park and ride and to power homes such as the San Carlos Transit Village with 370 rental units.

Sierra Nevada Beer put in a nice shaded solar parking lot.
http://www.gizmag.com/solar-powered-beer-sierra-nevada/8671/

Why not raise gas prices?

There are clear benefits to high gas prices including local jobs and industry. All of the governments stated goals are met. So why not tax gas to raise prices?

Because the stated goals are a sham front designed to cover the naked adherence to financial bases of resource consuming corporate agendas. Like Bush/Cheney's Iraq war and coastal drilling there is little incentive to try and meet stated goals of transit usage and PM10 reduction. Instead the government will come up with ploys to keep the nonsense in place. An example is natural gas in the late '80s, electric cars in the 90s, and now hydrogen cars. Each has been deffered after years of government handouts and the existing model of Exxon Chevron Bush Cheney continues to sail along without alternatives.

The most recent such sham is tolls instead of a gas tax. Bush knows that tolls will be opposed and offers them out there so that an uneven policy can develop which may dumped somewhere down the line if gas prices decline enough for people to drive again. The opposition to raising gas prices is forwarded as a populist agenda as if people actually prefer income taxes or sales taxes or whatever other tax is not being discussed.

So why do they do it even when as Toyota and GM show bad earnings and inventory on the shelf its clearly not in their best interest to oppose a gas tax? Because it isn't Toyota and GM but the board and CEO of these groups that are the bad guys who labor in a "free market" but where the rules are stacked in favor of the business they think they know how to do. They feel they are too old to compete, in a new market of Nissan electrics and Picken's natural gas, and they are right. These companies need to restructure and get new management and that's not what they are about. What they are about is running the company into the ground on the model where they pay themselves millions in bonuses while the companies and pension plans sink.

This is where the rules of resources usage and sustainability clash in the 21st century. The old model of gas consumption and Iraq wars are going up against a supply shortage as consumption increases. These CEOs can no more avoid it then avoid the drift of consumers toward more fuel efficient cars. Ideally, for humans on this planet, fossil fuels would stay in the ground for a time in the future when we go through global cooling when they can be used to increase the green house effect.

Sustainability curriculums need to look at models of resource usage that are able to cap depletion at rates beneficial to future generations. That price cap is the challenge of our time. Until then the only model is one where people like the CEO of Toyota can grandstand on the Prius while rolling out Tacoma gas hogs for profitability. And politicians will similarly grandstand on gas prices rolling out hydrogen cars and tolls instead.