Excerpted from th WSJ Op-Ed “Boone Doggle”, Aug, 6, 2008
Note: the Op-Ed questions Boone Picken’s plan to exploit solar power for electricty and free up natural gas for vehicle use. I didn’t think the argument was very compelling, but took away a couple of useful bullet points.
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Over time, the price mechanism and technology will tell us how to harness the energy that is infinite around us. There’s the sun, the tides, geothermal and nuclear — energy is not in short supply; only know-how is.
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Asserting that something would be good to do is not “a plan.” Having reasons (to do so,ething) is not “a plan” either … Saying how to do it is “a plan.”
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Talk is cheap. Talk favors radical solutions to get rid of problems that we are all sick and tired of hearing about. Calls for Manhattan Projects and moon shots invariably decorate the op-ed pages … in a form of social peacockery, the greater the misallocation of resources proposed, the more lavish the ovation.
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Re: CAFE Standards and Fuel Efficiency
Take the universal recrimination over our failure to impose tougher fuel-mileage mandates . . . These complaints are lofted without the slightest attention to what we’ve actually learned in 30 years of such mandates — that car buyers simply amortize their forced investment in fuel-saving technology by driving more miles. They buy more affordable homes farther from town; they commute longer distances to work; they trek across two counties to buy groceries at Wal-Mart rather than the pricey supermarket down the street.
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August 7, 2008 at 5:32 pm |
If implemented and regulated properly, I still think the CAFE standards are a good idea. Within reason, there is no limit to the MPG gains we can achieve over time (decades), but there is a limit to how far people can/will drive. Already we are seeing a revitalization of many urban areas, and expensive gas is only one factor. People are realizing the insanity of commuting over 2 hours per day, and dealing with traffic on suburban roads that is actually worse than city streets. I don’t believe the people who currently commute 50+ miles *each way* to work will find it reasonable to commute 100+ miles because they are getting 50 mpg.