Surviving $100-a-barrel Oil


The Wall Street Journal thinks we could be just fine.

So much for market incentives to develop alternatives.


52 responses to “Surviving $100-a-barrel Oil”

  1. I don’t read it as saying higher oil prices won’t be an incentive for alternatives. In fact, the article quotes a railroad guy to the contrary. What it does claim is that higher oil prices are not going to have the immediate impacts advocates of the “peak oil” theory expect in the long run.

  2. We **WILL** be just fine. As the price of oil goes up, everything else does, including wages, so in effect nothing changes. It’s all relative!

  3. As the price of oil goes up, everything else does, including wages, so in effect nothing changes.

    Nothing I learned in Econ 101 says that my wages have an automatic escalator with the price of oil.

  4. Neither did mine but it seems that the rise in the price of oil is due to the falling price of the dollar. Since oil is imported and since the dollar is plummeting, shouldn’t oil be rising? This is why I think we should boycott China and foreign oil! We should support getting our energy from our neighbors to the north (Alberta Sands) and forge more friendly alliances with Mexico and South American countries. I also think every building owner in Oregon should have solar on his rooftop. Piping energy across long distance transmission lines is extremely wasteful.

  5. I agree with Ross, Chris, and don’t understand your reaction.

    The WSJ is saying exactly what you are: that the market has responded to the rise in oil prices. The part you may not be happy with is that there is a lot more elasticity with respect to oil prices than a previous generation of economists expected.

    What I read from this is that we shouldn’t put all our eggs into one basket. While we develop transportation alternatives to the car, we should not lose track of the very real possibility that we are able to transition away from a petroleum based automobile system quite smoothly.

    I know this is not what ‘peak oil’ advocates have argued. Time to adjust the lens.

  6. “We **WILL** be just fine. As the price of oil goes up, everything else does, including wages, so in effect nothing changes. It’s all relative!”

    Middle class wages have been stagnating for the last 30 years in this country. Productivity has gone way up but only the top 1-10% have benefitted from that.

  7. Paul (and Ross), my reaction is that this is like the boiling the frog example. If the frog fails to see the rising temperature as a warning sign, and therefore does not make substantive, rather than incremental, changes, we get a dead frog before too long.

    If $100/barrel oil does not trigger awareness of a larger problem, I’m worried for the ultimate result.

  8. Ed, you are looking at those stats in a skewed way.

    You need to stop looking at the “distribution of income” like a pie. I believe that a more accurate metaphor would be an escalator. The pie metaphor treats income as static, thereby ignoring one of the most important facts about the standard of living, which is its rise over time. . .

    30 years ago, many of the low-middle class families were young families or new immigrants, and they were near the bottom of the escalator. After fifteen years on the escalator, many of them reached the top half of the escalator. When you came back and surveyed the same families 15 years later, most of them were near the top of the escalator. That is, they were in the top income categories relative to all families.

    15 years ago, the families at the bottom of the escalator were families that had formed or immigrated after 1977, so that they could not be included in the distribution. They are eating new pie as it were. If you were to look at all families as of any date, you could spread them evenly across five income categories, but it would be a different group of families than those in those same groups or classes 15 or 30 years prior.

  9. Chris –

    I don’t disagree with you. But that is one of the reasons I think relying on a “crisis” to force changes in people’s behavior is dangerous. Whether we smoothly “transition away from a petroleum based automobile system quite smoothly” or cook quite smoothly, its not at all clear anyone is going to notice a point at which is happens and react.

  10. I think the transition is going to happen anyways. This country is on the cusp of some pretty big demographic changes, the beginning of which is being marked by the retirement of the baby boomers.

    As they get older, it’ll be harder and harder for them to drive, so they are going to need more transportation options. Also, they are going to want more services closer to where they live so they don’t have to travel far at all.

  11. A recent article I read suggested that more retirement aged people are relocating to Oregon from out of state but they aren’t moving to the urban enclaves but rather more remote areas. Are you planning to offer transit services outside the urban cores?

  12. Middle class wages have been stagnating for the last 30 years in this country.

    So what’s your point? Even the “poor” in America are wealthy by third world standards. People don’t starve here, they get free handouts from government and food banks. People can get “free” unlimited health care here, especially if they are illegal. My 106 year old great grandma commented a few years ago that in no time in her life can she remember people being so materially wealthy in America, even much poorer people could live like a wealthy person did 50 years ago. Just look at the proliferation of iPods, cell phones, (even computers – I can remember when a RadioShack TRS-80 was several thousand $$$ in the 80’s), other crap that we really don’t “need”. So it would seem that our purchasing power parity is higher than ever and getting higher, even for supposed “poor” people. All the while the dollar is going down, more work is being shipped overseas and we are consuming more and more.

  13. I think the ‘larger problem’ Chris refers to is not how the rising price of oil may influence a a smooth or abrupt transition away from petroleum-based automobiles.

    The larger problem is the unjust, inequitable distribution of the costs and benefits that unsustainable amounts of long-distance travel and transport entails.

    The larger problem with the ‘automobile system’ is the severe impediment it presents to other means of urban travel -(walking, bicycling, mass transit). The larger problem is its detrimental impact upon the development of local and regional economies. The larger problem is its environmental impact and its societal segregation and isolationism.

    The debate does not center around whether there will be a transition away from petroleum-based travel and transport. Rather, the debate is into ‘what’ motorized societies will transition, when current amounts of travel and transport globalization entails is found unsustainable on the day it can no longer be conducted.

  14. Well then they’ll find an alternative. After all we’re Americans – we’re the innovators of the world! And when I say alternative I don’t mean the slow moving snail rail system. Hydrogen cars, shale oil, oil sand powered cars, etc… Just because we’ve siphoned out the oil from the Middle East doesn’t mean its all gone, just from that particular area.

  15. Ross Williams I don’t disagree with you. But that is one of the reasons I think relying on a “crisis” to force changes in people’s behavior is dangerous. Whether we smoothly “transition away from a petroleum based automobile system quite smoothly” or cook quite smoothly, its not at all clear anyone is going to notice a point at which is happens and react.
    JK: The reason to rely on a crisis is that is the only way we know for sure that there is a problem. Had we listened to the chicken littles we would have spent $$Trillions on solutions to non-problems. (Running out of natural resources, “the population bomb”, coming ice age just to name a few)

    Besides the gentle rise in gas prices has already caused changes. I don’t suppose you have noticed all those hybrids rolling around Portland?

    Additional evidence is provided by just looking at Europe with their gas prices double and triple ours. They just drive more efficient cars. And the do drive – 78% of travel is by car. see DebunkingPortland.com/Transit/EuroTranistShareLoss.htm

    Ed Says: As they get older, it’ll be harder and harder for them to drive, so they are going to need more transportation options. Also, they are going to want more services closer to where they live so they don’t have to travel far at all.
    JK: Got any data on that? Most older people (outside of nursing homes) actually drive. That is because there is no other practical option. Driving is easier than walking (or wheeling) to a transit stop – it only requires eyesight and reflexes. Further driving involves little exposure to the elements, local gangs or muggers who pray on the elderly.

    Wells The larger problem with the ‘automobile system’ is the severe impediment it presents to other means of urban travel -(walking, bicycling, mass transit).
    JK: The larger problem with “other means of urban travel” is that they lower our standard of living. The single biggest thing that a low income transit user can do to improve their income is to get a car.

    Wells The larger problem is its detrimental impact upon the development of local and regional economies.
    JK: Where do you get this crap? The automobile is responsible for a significant portion of our high standard of living. It allows people to live on lower cost land. It allows a wider choice of jobs and hence a higher paying job.

    Wells The larger problem is its environmental impact and its societal segregation and isolationism.
    JK: societal segregation and isolationism??? You do meet a better class of muggers, drug dealers and gangsters on transit.

    Wells Rather, the debate is into ‘what’ motorized societies will transition, when current amounts of travel and transport globalization entails is found unsustainable on the day it can no longer be conducted.
    JK: The only thing not sustainable is your gloom and doom. Wake up the world is not ending. The world has always had problems. Our current problems are mostly political, not natural. The air is cleaner today that in the past and is getting cleaner every year. It would be even cleaner is it weren’t for all the high density development.

    Thanks
    JK

  16. It would be even cleaner is it weren’t for all the high density development.

    When I lived in downtown Portland I had to wash my windows outside with Windex 2-3 times a month and the paper towels were black like soot when I was finished. Gross! It must be all those diesel polluting Tri-Met buses that go along Broadway, Multnomah and MLK causing that to happen. To think that all the Portlanders are breathing that all the time and the logic of building a hospital so close to all that urban pollution and open sewage – unbelievable! I wonder what the incidences of lung problems will emerge in 10-20 years of soWhat, Pearl, Riverfront and Lloyd District residents? I don’t think I’m going to have that problem in beautiful Yamhill County. In fact I notice that I’m not coughing and sneezing nearly as much as when I did live in Portland.

  17. Most air pollution in Portland comes from private motor vehicles, not buses, lightrail trains.
    Anyway, the transition away from dependence on the private auto for all our trips began in Portland 30 years ago and continues today.
    It was driven by residents who rightly did not want to see their neighborhoods literally destroyed to save a few minutes for people who lived farther out of town. It continues with investments in rail transit, the bike network as well as new technologies to make roads operate more efficiently.
    Every election is a poll on the region’s transportation strategy, and so far we yet to see an advocate of a balanced transportation system voted out…not Bud, not Vera, not Charlie, not Sam, not Rex, not Brian.
    The transition comes one day at a time, one person at a time and will continue because the simple fact is many people are happy to leave their cars at home, IF they have an option. Sound public policy has been and will continue to be to expand those options.

  18. I thought the pollution came mostly from the politicians’ desire to clone L.A. up here…. clogged streets and freeways, cars idlying on the freeways, cramming people into tiny shoeboxes. They’re doing a good job at it because I can never remember Portland ever being as polluted as it is today.

  19. Greg said:

    A recent article I read suggested that more retirement aged people are relocating to Oregon from out of state but they aren’t moving to the urban enclaves but rather more remote areas. Are you planning to offer transit services outside the urban cores?

    My grandmother lives in a small town in Southern Oregon that has seen its population double in recent years, mainly due to a large influx of retirees, most of them from out-of-state. They’re building a community of elders in that little town, and it seems like they all seem to enjoy it quite a lot. They’ve got a community center that offers programs of interest, and it also operates a fleet of vans. For a small fee, the elders can schedule a ride to pretty much anywhere they need to go. The vans will take them in to the hospital, the grocery store, or to the nearest Amtrak station if need be. I believe they received some grant funding to start up the van service and operate the community center, but I don’t know all of their funding particulars. However, the other nice thing about the little town is that it is a little town. It has a grocery store, a post office, some banks, a hardware store, some second-hand stores, some restaurants, beauty parlors, a dentist, a chiropractor — in short, folks don’t have to travel very far to find some of their essential services.

    So, the solution to elders moving to rural Oregon is twofold:

    1) Make sure there are services close their homes, so they can walk, ride their bikes or otherwise make easy arrangements for most daily needs
    2) Provide community-based transportation (on-demand transit services) for the low-volume transportation needs, as in the above example, or in a more formal arrangement

    A third point is one that I have mentioned before: Oregon needs a statewide passenger rail system. A passenger rail line from the Rogue Valley to Portland would be quite useful, as would one from the Bend area to Portland, and Portland to the coast. These services will grow with time, and the level of service can grow with the demand. But, we need to start building them now, to provide for automobile-free long-distance travel.

    No, the car will not go away. But, alternatives to the car need to become more prevalent.

  20. Greg Tompkins Says:

    “They’re doing a good job at it because I can never remember Portland ever being as polluted as it is today.”

    How long is your memory Greg. Like the air in most US cities, ours has not been cleaner for over 100 years.

  21. Oregon needs a statewide passenger rail system

    I actually agree with you on that! If they can spend billions on MAX that only serves a tiny geographical area then why not have a statewide system, too? I think the WA and OR DOT’s and BC’s equivalent need to form some sort of regional alliance and build a high speed electric rail and freight corridor for the entire PAC-NW area and say BYE BYE to Amtrak.

  22. How long is your memory Greg. Like the air in most US cities, ours has not been cleaner for over 100 years.

    Well I can’t remember there ever being “clean air artion days” until all the foreigners fled up here in recent years. Wasn’t there a recent article in the Tribune about how polluted the air has become in Portland due to “smart” growth?

  23. I’m a little too irritated with remarks like those of Jim Karlock’s to defend my opinion. “Where do I get this crap?”, Mr Karlock asks. I’d offer a rebuttal argument, but it would most likely be a waste of time and effort. I was reading about tolerance the other day and the author quiped that the only thing which shouldn’t be tolerated is intolerance. Mr Karlock and I disagree, no biggee.

  24. I’m sure there’s lots of “crap” to be found in the Willamette River near Portland these days!

  25. 24 comments in this thread:
    —-
    10 Greg
    2 Ross
    2 Chris
    2 Ed
    2 nwjg
    2 Wells
    1 Paul
    1 Jim K
    1 Lenny
    1 Garlynn

    I agree with Chris, we aren’t doing enough to deal with the price [read: Demand] of oil, and we even act like the US dollar losing value to other currencies is no big deal, when in truth it is a huge deal, and articles like this aren’t helping. That said: it was the first time gasoline hit $3/gallon that got me to start bicycling to work, it wasn’t that I couldn’t afford gasoline or anything like that, but simply that it seemed like too much money…

  26. Wells I’m a little too irritated with remarks like those of Jim Karlock’s to defend my opinion. “Where do I get this crap?”, Mr Karlock asks. I’d offer a rebuttal argument, but it would most likely be a waste of time and effort.
    JK: Apparently I wasn’t clear:
    You said: The larger problem with the ‘automobile system’ is the severe impediment it presents to other means of urban travel -(walking, bicycling, mass transit).”
    I asked where do you get that crap that The larger problem with the ‘automobile system’ is the severe impediment it presents to other means of urban travel when those other forms of transport will result in a lower standard of living.

    This is pretty obvious when you look at developing countries such as India and China. They are abandoning walking for bikes as soon as they can afford a bike. They are dumping bikes when they can afford a motorized bike. They are dumping motorized bikes when they can afford a car. Why do you want us to go back to the transport used by people with a low standard of living?

    That planners don’t understand this natural progression from poverty to affluence merely reveals their lack of understanding of how the world works, or their desire to shove us back into poverty..

    Thanks
    JK

  27. Greg Tompkins Says:

    “Well I can’t remember there ever being “clean air artion days” until all the foreigners fled up here in recent years. ”

    You haven’t been here very long. We had “clean air action days” all summer long in the 80’s. I don’t think we even had one this year. We had parking limits imposed because of the bad air in the 70’s and 80’s.

    Days exceeding the EPAs tough new eight-hour ozone standard dropped more than 50 percent nationwide between 2003 and 2004…. Levels of fine particulates (PM2.5) are also at record lows…. Thirty-three percent of U.S. monitoring locations violated federal PM2.5 standards in 2001, but only 15 percent as of the end of 2004.”

  28. Actually JK, the full quote and context is:

    “Wells The larger problem is its detrimental impact upon the development of local and regional economies.

    JK: Where do you get this crap? The automobile is responsible for a significant portion of our high standard of living. It allows people to live on lower cost land. It allows a wider choice of jobs and hence a higher paying job.”

    Beyond your point of view, I think that the issue (at least for me) is the aggression and word choice.

  29. JK: Why do you want us to go back to the transport used by people with a low standard of living?

    This is your opinion and by no means fact. I feel that I have a higher standard of living by not requiring an automobile to accomplish daily tasks. This is individual perception, and by you simply stating your opinion as though it is fact is not going to convince me otherwise, no matter how many times you repeat the same argument. People are allowed to have differences of opinion in a democracy such as ours. Additionally, it is the responsibility of government to provide transportation options for all of it’s citizens, and enough citizens want options other than the automobile that our government is obligated to provide them for us.

    Your whining about how this is turning back the clock and forcing us to live a substandard quality of life is no more true than it is likely to convince me to change my preferences about my mode of travel.

  30. I can tell you my experience…. After attempting their “live close to your work B.S.” I got punished instead, having my parking rates AND my rent raised through the roof just because I CHOSE to live downtown! My salary didn’t increase as much. Why would I want to live in an area where they extort as much as possible and give you nothing but a shoebox to live in and polluted air and water in return? This is what they call “sustainable” and “livable”? Maybe if your basis of comparison is NYC or LA but as a lifelong Oregonian I find the Portland living experience a joke and an insult to humanity. I was also running a small consulting business. I learned about the ridiculous taxes, fees, etc. of doing business in Portland and Multnomah County. It’s no surprise to me that many companies have left. They are downright oppressive up there! So after my 20% rent and parking hike I decided enough is enough so I moved back down to Salem. Hopefully the insanity doesn’t spread down here any time soon.

  31. Joseph Says: Additionally, it is the responsibility of government to provide transportation options for all of it’s citizens, and enough citizens want options other than the automobile that our government is obligated to provide them for us.
    JK: Please quote chapter and verse of the U.S Constitution, the Oregon Constitution or the Portland City charter to show us that it is the responsibility of government to provide transportation options for all of it’s citizens. I some how must have missed that part.

    Thank
    JK

  32. Jim, it is in that section of the Constitution right after where it requires the governement to pay for you to go to a doctor and right before the part where the governement has to provide you with food and housing.

  33. I do not wish to engage in useless debate with Mr Karlock. But the question of government accountability relates to my earlier point, that “the larger problem with the ‘automobile system’ is the severe impediment it presents to other means of urban travel -(walking, bicycling, mass transit).”

    It is a “Constitutional Inequity” that gasoline taxes be solely directed to “roads only” construction and maintenance.

    When roads are designed with little or no consideration for their public right-of-way to safely accommodate pedestrian and bicyclist use, then a legal challenge to this constitutionally inequitable mandate can be made.

    Mr Karlock. You may disagree with this position, if you wish. I doubt you will present an argument worth further response.

  34. When roads are designed with little or no consideration for their public right-of-way to safely accommodate pedestrian and bicyclist use, then a legal challenge to this constitutionally inequitable mandate can be made.

    Certainly, the same argument can be given to TriMet and Metro’s discrimination against bus riders.

    After all, it is Metro’s insistence against bus projects that deprives federal dollars towards bus system improvements.

    It is TriMet’s insistence to take dollars that were designed for bus system improvements, and used to build not one but TWO light-rail lines, resulting in creating a poor financial situation for TriMet, service cuts, the second highest transit fares on the west coast, an aging and increasingly less-reliable bus fleet, artificially induced crush conditions that cause busses to skip over passengers (due to TriMet’s unwillingness to acquire articulated busses to match service with demand), and TriMet’s unwillingness to invest in environmentally friendly technologies that have been embraced by every other major transit agency.

    Meanwhile, despite the “constitutional inequality”, new bike lanes are funded through the gas tax, and so are many sidewalks.

  35. Yet another oil-crisis article. How about we think of the Whale Oil Crisis, in which humans were able to overcome an obstacle to use a new fuel source.

    Oddly enough, it sounds kind of familiar.

  36. JK: Please quote chapter and verse of…

    By that rationale, it is no more or less the responsibility of government to provide roadways for our cars than it is for them to provide any form of transportation infrastructure whatsoever.

    However…

    ORS 267.200: “A mass transit district shall constitute a municipal corporation [and] shall be considered a unit of local government.”

    (4)”[It shall] Build, construct, purchase, lease, improve, operate and maintain, subject to other applicable provisions of law, all improvements, facilities or equipment necessary or desirable for the mass transit system of the district.”

    Sure sounds to me like the State of Oregon is charging a local government entity with providing a transportation option to the public.

    And I don’t know what the hell your problem is nwjg, but if it is the will of a majority of voters that healthcare and /or housing and feeding of the poor be paid for the government, then so be it. It certainly isn’t written into the constitution, but I see nothing wrong with that policy if it is the will of a majority of voters. This is, after all, a democracy, and the popular vote has it’s way.

  37. My problem is that people think this is a democracy. It is a republic for good reason. The tyranny of the majority.

  38. And the problem with a republic is that republican leaders use that term and their powers to conduct tyranny. With a democracy, the majority decides what’s best for the majority. With a republic, a tiny minority decides what’s best for that same tiny minority even it leads to oppression of the majority. Case in point: the Bush political dynasty, neo-conservativism, the military-industrial complex, Pax Americana, etc. Too little progress to be proud of republican control of this democratic republic ever since Nixon.

  39. The last I look Oregon was a state, not a republic. And the state constitution seems to make the public the final, direct arbiter of decisions through initiative and referendum. Isn’t that how democracy works?

  40. Oregon has strong democratic traditions but it seems the last few years its become a tyrrany with Democrats from Portland trying to dictate how the rest of the state is run. Take SB100 for instance and M37 in response now they are trying to scare everyone into believing the rest of the state is going to become urban. (Again, it’s OK for Portland to be a concrete ghetto and for its citizens to escape and enjoy the beautiful countryside but god forbid the rest of the state following their lead.) I still think Metro counties should declare independence and create their own state.

  41. Bush’s crusade for democracy in the Middle East is a good example. What has that achieved? Afghanistan, where a man can face the death penalty for what he thinks. Iraq, where tribal gangs kill each other because they go to different mosques. Palestinian territories, where a brutal terrorist group, Hamas, gets to be in charge. And Iran, where a belligerent theocracy bent on destroying Israel and the United States continues developing nuclear weapons unopposed.

    Bush’s pursuit of democracy, where the unfettered majority rules regardless of whose individual rights are trampled, can’t bring freedom to anyone. Democracy has led those who choose submission to Allah as their way of life back to where they started–a primitive society that shuns the mind, abhors Western values and cries “Jihad” against America. Except, of course, that this time they voted.

    Let’s not repeat that folley over here.

    Democracy allows the will of the majority to trump principle of individual rights, and it is therefore contrary to freedom, because an individual’s life and property are at the mercy of the mob–and any tyrant that may be democratically voted into power.

    In a free society, voting is an appropriate mechanism for selecting a nation’s political representatives–not, as democracy demands, its political principles. The great achievement of the U.S. Constitution was to limit the power of the government to a single function: the protection of individual rights. Our system here in Oregon sort of leans more toward democracy thereby ursuping our freedom.

  42. nwjg,

    “The West” vs. “Islam” conflict has been going on for thousands of years. I highly doubt oil has anything to do with it really. That new movie that came out last week, “The Kingdom” is really good.

  43. My point is that if two guys on a desert island vote to kill and eat the third, that is a democracy. Just because the majority want it doesn’t make it right.

  44. The great achievement of the U.S. Constitution was to limit the power of the government to a single function: the protection of individual rights.

    All historical evidence to the contrary …

  45. Wells Says: But the question of government accountability relates to my earlier point, that “the larger problem with the ‘automobile system’ is the severe impediment it presents to other means of urban travel -(walking, bicycling, mass transit).”
    JK: Of course, without auto taxes, there wouldn’t be much in the way of roads for you to bike on and mass transit would double or triple it’s already high cost.

    Wells Says: It is a “Constitutional Inequity” that gasoline taxes be solely directed to “roads only” construction and maintenance.
    JK: No it isn’t it is simply a pretty good example of user pays via government collected fees. It was better before transit stated stealing 18% of the gas tax receipts.

    Wells Says: When roads are designed with little or no consideration for their public right-of-way to safely accommodate pedestrian and bicyclist use, then a legal challenge to this constitutionally inequitable mandate can be made.
    JK: How about bikes and peds pay their way, like cars do.

    Joseph Says: By that rationale, it is no more or less the responsibility of government to provide roadways for our cars than it is for them to provide any form of transportation infrastructure whatsoever.
    JK: Actually there is a thing about postal roads in the constitution. But the government function on roads is mainly that of collecting user fees and using them to build an maintain roads. (With a chunk now stolen for mass transit.)

    Joseph Says: However…
    ORS 267.200: “A mass transit district shall constitute a municipal corporation [and] shall be considered a unit of local government.”

    Sure sounds to me like the State of Oregon is charging a local government entity with providing a transportation option to the public.
    JK: Not to me. From you clip, it sounds like a set of laws about how a transit district works, instead of a mandate that a city have one.

    Thanks
    JK

  46. Actually, I am looking forward to $80-90-100.00 oil. Why you ask? Well just for starters, it will get all the poor schlubs with little or no insurance off the roads. Also, I invested many months ago in Chevron Corporation and enjoy those $2.09/share didvidend checks that show up every 90 days.

  47. without auto taxes, there wouldn’t be much in the way of roads for you to bike on

    That isn’t true. In fact, before the automobile people were biking on Portland streets and there were complaints even then about “reckless” bicyclists.

  48. I was just reading that Honda will bring out a diesel engined car in 2009 that will get 52 mpg. (EPA est. I guess,) How long before other carmakers follow suit?

  49. SWEET! I’ll buy one. Now if all the manufacturers becomes this efficient that will obviate mass transit. Has anyone ever done studies on what the amount of energy consumption is for the entire transit system divided by how many people use it daily? Sometimes I’ve seen very empty MAX and buses – I can’t imagine this is a wise use of resources.

  50. People who can’t imagine the energy efficiency of mass transit give even less consideration to the energy efficiency of the gargantuan numbers of cars plying the nation’s roadways. The term energy efficiency hardly applies to automobiles in that larger sense.

    I support the plug-in hybrid technology. All combustable fuels increase their effective mileage furthest in that drivetrain configuration. And there are many significant additional benefits in vehicular safety features, household electricity supply systems, fleet and industry applicabilities, compatabilities and practicalities. The diesel engine in a standard drivetrain is obsolete.

  51. Does anyone know anything about the “AMERO”?

    Oh, yeah, the currency that’s supposedly going to be used when the U.S, Canada and Mexico form an EU like mega-country? Why even bother building a fence for billions of “Ameros” if they’re just gonna merge them all together by 2012 anyway?

    http://www.spp.gov

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