Re: Samuelson on OIl Drilling

"JCrowe" <bongofury@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:9DHSj.1840$3O7.1355@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> John Galt wrote:
>> "Joe Steel" <JoeSteel@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>> news:Xns9A9172767AA5JoeSteel@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>
>>> I like the idea of a Manhattan Project for energy but it should go 
>>> beyond
>>> merely finding an alternative to oil as a liquid fuel.  We have to
find
>>> ways to eliminate the use of liquid fuel; for instance, telecommuting
>>> rather than driving to work, online retail rather than travel to
stores,
>>> electric railroad trans****tation rather than diesel fuel highway
>>> trans****tation.
>
>    Online retail already is happening for many people. Of course, you
> will have the issues of point to point delivery on large scale and many
> people will wail about how small businesses cannot compete. It seems to
> me that with online retail, states and localities have little
> justification for charging sales tax, not that it stops them. As to
> electric railroad trans****t, is the cost of electrical generation vs.
> internal combustion compelling? You will see these ideas more
> seriously considered when gasoline hits $6 a gallon later this year.

Well, its a good observation that the WalMart model (buy on the Internet, 
****p to the store, you go pick it up) is more energy efficient than
billions 
of point to point ****p to transactions. I suppose if one were to
concentrate 
penetration of alternative fuels into the point to point sector, that
would 
make sense, but the fact remains that a rather amazing number of Americans

live within two to five miles of a Wal Mart.

The other point is also well made. It's rather difficult to figure out who

you can trust on the "net evnrionmental impact" of switching to anything.
To 
me, it sounds desireable to have a pluggable hybrid that gets 100 MPG, but

the truth is that's because my sense is that what gets plugged into an 
outlet is free, or close to it, the refrigerators, freezers, AC, and heavy

appliances are what really drive my electric bill.

What I mean to say is that if my electric bill with a pluggable hybrid
jumps 
up the same amount by which my gasoline expenditures go down, then I've
just 
bought an albatross that will need a massive cash expenditure every few 
years when those batteries need to be replaced.

>>
>> Without getting into the details of each proposal, I generally agree.
>>
>> The big enchilada would be to move to a telecommuting based model where

>> office workers go into the office twice, once, or not at all per week 
>> depending on the nature of their jobs. That not only cuts down on
actual 
>> usage, but also traffic congestion, and decreases the need for large 
>> office towers.
>
>    This was predicted years ago by Alvin Toffler in a book called Future
> Shock. There are upsides and downsides to telecommuting.

Yes. I live them every day.

> A slightly more
> realistic idea is to distribute satellite work centers close to where
> people live and likewise with services. In older cities in Europe which
> developed before the advent of the ICE, neighborhoods have grocery
> stores, restaurants, bars, shops etc. within walking distance and a
> challenge for parking. This is not true of the burbs in the U.S.A.
> The "Smart Growth" folks would have people forced into small, crowded
> areas but that sort of blows the hell out of the concept of property
> rights...or civil liberties in general.

Yep. However, such facilities could be located in shopping plazas. There
are 
no shortages of plazas where an anchor tenant has moved on, leaving the 
owner with the problem of how to rent a large box space. Plazas in the
burbs 
generally have Subways and Chinese restarants in them, a fast food joint
in 
the parking lot, and some might be next door to a chain restaurant. Good 
planning can get around the land use problem.
>>
>> Having lived in a 100% telecommuting job for eight years now, I can
tell 
>> you, however, that it's not for everyone. There will always be a need
for 
>> some level of cor****ate interaction.
>
>    To 100% telecommute requires self-discipline. There is some value to
> being physically around workmates, if for no other reason than to
> provide social interaction. That said, the technology is in place to
> make telecommuting 100% feasible for many types of jobs, especially
> high-tech ones. It will not work so well for service sector jobs.

Doesn't work well for medical care, either.

JG