$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'W')ithout immense amounts of political will, appropriate changes are impossible. To change our ship of state would require a Marshal Plan (rebuilt post-war Europe) X 10. Or X 100.
PeakOil is You
On Schlesinger's keynote, politics, and the US gas tax level
Re: On Schlesinger's keynote, politics, and the US gas tax l
by Arthur75 » Mon 01 Nov 2010, 19:08:28
Pstarr, agree (or at least understand) most of your points, however I think you should also not downplay too much the "overall dynamic effect" that an increased tax on fuel could have, that substantial economies are possible in the US, and this without necessarily defining a "global target". What I mean by that is that still everyday people buy cars (heard that the SUV market is in fact back on track pre 2008), they also buy homes, and make decisions around all these. If you look only at the cars fleet, without technological break through a 30% or 50% efficiency gain is easily reachable, of course this wouldn't happen overnight, but 5 years would already make a serious difference. As to urbanism, for sure a key if not the major aspect in the issue, there are still plenty of appartment buildings being built in cities like , SF, LA, Chicago, Oakland, NYC, even Dallas or Houston as far as I know. And here again, this is associated to many buyers decisions, and a trend could develop of either a "house with a serious garden where you can grow food" and work online or "back in the city", to me its really the middle ground of typical suburbian houses with small plot which is the issue (and also Mc mansions), otherwise it isn't one or the other (everybody in the country or everybody in the city). Seems to me this trend is already developing in some places in the US (also in France in fact, where for instance hypermarkets, wallmart style, which in fact started here, are now losing business to smaller more localised ones). But for sure the cities have to be reinvented somehow.
But overall the simple "pressure aspect" of a tax without defining the solution, if associated to new trends in housing and transport (doesn't need to be bike for everybody) can for sure gain quite a few % or even tens of them in US consumption (and associated trade deficit towards oil producing countries as well).
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Re: On Schlesinger's keynote, politics, and the US gas tax l
by Xenophobe » Mon 01 Nov 2010, 21:14:07
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'M')uch transport-fuel demand is not discretionary. Freight and shipping account for 40% of transport oil use.
"In the short run, much of the burden of adjustment will likely be borne by decreases in
consumption from discretionary decisions, since 67 percent of personal
automobile travel and nearly 50 percent of airplane travel are discretionary."
Hirsch, R.L., 2005, Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management, DOE/NETL-IR-2005-093; NETL-TPR-2319 p. 24
I'll stick with Hirsch on this one.
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Re: On Schlesinger's keynote, politics, and the US gas tax l
by Xenophobe » Tue 02 Nov 2010, 00:21:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')Hirsch knows what scared is all about.
')Hirsch knows what scared is all about.
Hirsch has been scared since he started seeing a phantom oil crisis back in 1987. Why? Well then, it was because crude was so CHEAP. His fear predates Colins prediction of peak in 1989. His research experience stood him in such good stead that he couldn't even see the American natural gas bubble coming...while standing smack dab in the middle of it. From Fort Worth in 2005 he could have thrown a ROCK and hit a rig drilling a Barnett gas well, but could Hirsch do that? Of course not. Why? Because he is uni-directional...HE BELIEVES. Instead, the physical reality of drilling to the contrary, he claimed that those who actually knew this was coming (a year before he published his report) and were completely familiar with what was going on:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2004/3022/fs-2004-3022.html
obviously must be wrong, and he predicted a cliff!! Lions and tigers and bears...oh Hirsch!
Worse yet, he then predicated his oil argument on the same lack of overall practical experience...and just this year we found out if he's as wrong about long chain hydrocarbons as short ones....by Jan-2010 it became quite obvious that lack of oil isn't going to be the problem any time soon.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2386
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')Your second mistake is confusing " personal automobile travel" a small subset of "light-duty vehicles" that uses the same class of vehicles. So reducing use of the former hardly impact on that latter.
You don't like it when you make inaccurate statements which have already been refuted by YOUR kind of expert? Here's a hint...stop making inaccurate statements.
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