by vtsnowedin » Tue 16 Sep 2008, 23:59:19
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('doodlebug2', 'v')tsnowedin wrote:
America can and probably will cut its per capita oil consumption in half in the next few years. No home will be heated with oil, truck freight miles will be cut by more than half, suburbs will be reordered to make them viable and served by mass transit. But 300 dollar oil will not be avoided in fact it may be an important first call that change is apon us.
I agree with the first part of your post, but the above I do not see.
Homes will be heated with what (NG) and who will pay for the changeovers.
Suburbs reordered? who will buy the peoples older distanced houses in the suburbs? How will freight miles be cut?
I am not being critical, just curious.
Home heat? wood,wood pellets, coal ,active solar, passive solar and NG while it lasts. Who pays ? You the home owner of course.
Truck freight miles? First you stop UPS et. al from delivering door to door for anything less than a full load. Then you limit truck hauling to , pickup point to nearest rail station and rail station to delivery point. Then you reopen a rail station in every town that had one in 1945. No gov. mandate required here just let diesel get and stay high enough and UPS and the rail roads will merge and do it themselves.
To reorder the suburbs zoning will have to be thrown out so that each building can be put to its highest use. Older houses are more likely to be in a good place while the newest stock is at the far edges. Some of the newest houses will become worthless and will be bulldozed in and the land returned to farm or forrest. What new Fani/Fredie dose with the jingle mail is one of the things they are working on this week. Some houses can and should be converted to work shops ,stores, schools,doctors offices etc. so that the residents of the surrounding houses can walk to work and everything else they need. These will become the reincarnation of the New England village where those that choose to can live and work indefinitely within site of their house. Transportation could be mostly by truck and bus to and from the nearest train station. At the height of the rail system they had tracks about every fifty miles so no trip to the rails was over twenty five miles, a days walk for a horse. They may have to relay some track and will if the traffic is there.
All these things will come to pass by them selves if and when the cost of fuel makes them the economic competitive choice. Watch the government try to impose somthing else or these at the wrong time and place.