Hillary's superficial plan to "fix" gas prices (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

It seems that Hillary Clinton wants to tax big oil, but only on their record profits. She would do this to make up the revenue lost while putting the federal gas tax on hold for a while. While I'm sure this is more of a ploy to pander to voters due to her faltering campaign, the whole thing is incredibly superficial for a couple of reasons.

The first is that taxing big oil is only going to shift the cost to consumers. While you might see a temporary drop in prices at the pump, businesses typically shift such burdens on to the consumers. Doing this only makes sense for their bottom line. Beyond this, it will cause an increase in demand, causing prices to rise naturally. But then, Hillary apparently doesn't care what economists think.

Secondly, there's the temporary nature of the repeal. Reinstating the tax after it's been rolled back for a while will be unpopular on an epic scale, but I suppose Hillary is mostly going for a short-term boost to get her through to the November elections. Naturally, I've heard nothing about rolling back the tax on big oil's profits once the federal gas tax would go back into effect. That means that the consumer is going to be doubly hurt in the end anyway.

This leaves big oil's profits right where they're at now. Taxing big oil's profits isn't the answer — and neither is breaking up the oil monopolies. (Though the latter might not be a bad first step.)

The real problem is that demand has exceeded supply. This is a result of the American way of life. We depend on oil for literally everything: we are a spread out nation of roads where a child's first thought of freedom = getting their drivers' license, and whose development has, for generations, been driven by cheap oil. Every aspect of our lives is controlled by the road: everything from our food to our consumer goods arrives via truck. Auto companies have been complicit as well, and in some cases actively undermined attempts to create efficient mass transit systems that were a direct threat to their business model.

This isn't a problem that can be fixed overnight, nor is it a problem that will be cheap or easy to fix. Comparisons to European nations and Japan with their comprehensive mass transit systems are inherently flawed because of the US's relatively low population density and sheer size of our country. While effective, efficient mass transit is certainly the answer in urban and larger suburban areas, those systems do not scale well in more rural areas.

In that respect, we will always be a nation of cars — or other personal transport devices[1]. The mantra that we need freedom from foreign oil is trite, and it misses part of the point: we need freedom from petroleum in general, inasmuch as that is economically and techonologically possible. We will always be somewhat dependent on combustible fuels so long as the internal combustion engine is our primary mode of getting from Point A to Point B. (And really, aside from bicycles and our feet, there's nothing out there that's as efficient from top to bottom as a modern internal combustion engine.)

So in that respect, even if Hillary's plan had a prayer of a chance of long-term success, and if she had any ability to get it passed — which she doesn't because it's an idea for this summer, not after January — it would be like prescribing a pain med instead of removing the thorn from one's foot.

The proposal is just astonishingly dumb on every conceivable level.

I do have some related thoughts about the next ten years…

1) We'll see a small resurgence of the railroad industry. Rail travel is more efficient than air travel, and solves some of the mass transport problems presented by our spread-out nation. This will resemble the current hub-and-spoke airline system in the short term. Business travelers won't mind taking the train as much due to the ubiquity of wireless internet access and the fact that you can use cellphones while on a train. Trains don't have to be slow, either. So while you won't be taking the train from NYC to LA for a one-day affair, you might well take it from Boston to Washington DC for the same.

2) More effective car-pooling systems. Thanks to the Internet, it's easier to more effectively carpool with folks headed in your direction. This could be supplemented by mass transit systems — buses in the beginning, and trains later on — where people gather at smaller, de-centralized staging areas for a trip into the city. Many suburban areas already have these systems, but there are many, many larger cities that don't.

3) More and better research into biofuels as a replacement for traditional petroleum. This goes beyond corn-based ethanol which was a failure of epic proportions, as it resulted in increased food prices and is energy-intensive to produce. The graphic below (click for larger) demonstrates some of the more promising alternatives, particularly algae and switch grass.

(Preserved against link-rot from this article.)

I think America is getting to the point where they're ready to think about letting go of their precious four-wheeled transportation. Drive by a used car dealership, and you're likely to see quite a few gas guzzlers sitting on the lot. This alone is anecdotal evidence that the PED of gasoline isn't zero. A more formal study finds that when the price of fuel goes up and stays up by 10%, the process of adjustment is dynamic and far reaching:

• The volume of traffic will go down by roundly 1% within about a year, building up to a reduction of about 3% in the longer run (about five years or so).
• The volume of fuel consumed will go down by about 2.5% within a year, building up to a reduction of over 6% in the longer run.

The reason why fuel consumed goes down by more than the volume of traffic, is probably because price increases trigger more efficient use of fuel (by a combination of technical improvements to vehicles, more fuel conserving driving styles, and driving in easier traffic conditions). So further consequences of the same price increase are:

• Efficiency of use of fuel goes up by about 1.5% within a year, and around 4% in the longer run.
• The total number of vehicles owned goes down by less than 1% in the short run, and 2.5% in the longer run.

Prices have certainly gone up by more than 10% in the last 12 months, and the snowballing effect of this phenomenon is that many people of my generation have gotten rid of their cars where and whenever possible, and instead opt for healthier, less expensive modes of transportation: walking or biking. When they need to travel a longer distance, they rent a Zipcar.

I certainly would if it were realistic.

[1] I could see motorbikes becoming more popular, as they are in the UK, as gasoline prices continue to rise. For Americans who have not been to the UK, it is not uncommon to see motorcycles and scooters out and about, even in the rain.

Posted in: 2008 election , business , cars , culture , economics , fuel , gas , hillary clinton , politics

But why's the rum gone? (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, as I said yesterday in Google-enhanced Spanish, I was freaking out about the gas line dig. They started early, too. Around 8:15am I heard the sounds of the small digging tractor, and visions of Arthur Dent lying in front of a bulldozer entered my head. Of course, they weren't here to technically demolish my house, but I feared the worst. Maybe giant ships would come and demolish the planet to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

I didn't want to meet any Vogons today.

So I tossed on my jacket, grabbed my camera, and watched them toddle this small tank across my yard. They had already started digging this huge hole near where my gas meter was, and they were setting up the pneumatic jackhammer to destroy my sidewalk that surrounds the house.

I had visions of bodies being dug up, ala the "Poltergheist." On this tech board I am on, they regaled me with personal horror stories of utility digs and their yards, punctuated with jokes about "move the bodies before they dig." (I assured them I used chipper shredders and seagulls). I discovered quickly that I had rather healthy, loamy soil. Nice dark rich color.

"Hola," I said. I already knew they spoke Spanish by their shouting. "Lo siento, mi español no es muy bueno. Como estas?" I got some response back, and one of the men came up to me. What can I say that would convince them not to shatter my sidewalk, which I was positive would not be repaired, ever?

"Mira..." I stared. And then I said, in broken Spanish and English that I didn't want them to break up my sidewalk. One of the men spoke broken English, so we kind of met in the middle. The men conferred for a bit, and said something about the pipes. Yeah, I know, the pipes. I showed them what they could do instead, mentioning the power line. They seemed uneasy about this. Then this idea just popped into my head. I am not sure what did it, whether it was my mother, who once bribed garbage men with beer to pick up our trashcans in our shed rather than drag it to the curb, or the thought of digging like Jack Sparrow's liquid treasure, or Ford Prefect taking Arthur Dent out to a pub before the planet blew up. But this came out of my mouth:

"Okay... Yo tengo una ... bottle... ron... Parrot Bay ron..."

THAT got their attention. A bottle of rum? I quickly made a deal if they were nice to my yard, they could have a free bottle of unopened Parrot Bay rum. Quickly, the deals started coming my way. Much laughter, and I went and got them the rum. One of the guys quickly took it and put in in his truck.

The rest of the dig? With the care and detail of a fine quality job. They raked, cleaned up, and only dug a 1" wide trench. It took them probably twice as long to do my yard as it took them to do others, but they even put down grass seed for me. My sidewalk was saved. There was not dirt and hay everywhere. No scattered mounds of soil left behind. In fact, apart from the 2" stripe of hay and grass seed, my house was untouched. And the whole time they were really friendly to me.

Something to keep in mind.

Before:

After:

Posted in: bribes , dig , gas , rum , utility

What is this, an International Blog? (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Mira...

Cuando yo aprendí el español, de tres años de español en la escuela secundaria para ser exactos, no sabía yo que lo esté usando para sobornar a los trabajadores hispanos no cavar hasta mi casa.

Me acordé de algo que mi mamá le hizo a los trabajadores obtener la basura para recoger la basura en nuestra nave en lugar de la acera: ella sobornó con cerveza. Nuestra cerveza había ido "skunk", por lo que sobornó con una botella de "Parrot Bay" ron.

Creo que funcionó. A pesar de que sólo habla un poco de Inglés, y yo sólo habla un poco de español escuela secundaria. Creo que se llegó a un acuerdo.

Perdóname, mi español es terrible, y en parte proporcionados por Google. Me carnicería de otra hermosa lengua. Posted in: bribes , childhood , gas , spanish , utilities

Ugh... my poor yard! (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

The Gas Company has decided to replace all our pipes in the neighborhood.

I was first alerted to this when a small set of construction equipment started at both ends of my long street, and started digging up people's yards asunder as well as stripes of the street. My son, when walking to school, has noticed that some people have lost significant portions of landscaping, and when they put back your sod, they toss some hay on it, and that's the end of that. A girl at his school said they got no warning, and one day, her garden was gone.

I wondered if they were coming to our house. At first it seemed as if they were only doing a few houses here and there, and I didn't know who it was because they are doing it with unmarked equipment. The men don't even have uniforms other than safety vests. Then it seemed they were not skipping as many houses as I thought, and in fact, now everyone's yards were getting ripped apart in a 2-foot wide stripe of sod that went from the street to who knows where in their back yard. Fences broken, bushes dug up and tossed aside... I began to worry. But I never got notice of anything even as both ends of the construction narrowed down to the middle where I lived.

Last week, I found a green notice in my yard (it was supposed to be a door tag, but oh well) that the Gas Company needed to "dig in your yard to access your meter." Then MSUTILITY sent some hobos to paint all over my yard where the lines were (again, no uniforms, anyarm thought they were burglars casing our house at first). The most alarming thing I noticed was the gas line goes under a large tree, then under my driveway, right to the house, banks left under the sidewalk around my house, and the goes under my sidewalk past the entrance to anyarm's apartment, and then to the meter. Oh. Shit. Are they going to dig up my driveway and the sidewalk right next to my house?

The tag had a number to call to schedule the appointment. No one answered at that number for a few days, but finally an answering machine picked up after the fourth call. Turns out, this is a guy's cell phone. But he did call me back the next day (a Saturday, even) to discuss the problems. Get this: our Gas Company hired this guy (named Mike) as a general contractor, which then hired companies to do the work for him. I suppose this is not too unusual, but right away there's the layers where people usually hide during "the blame game" when something goes wrong. I could tell Mike was a little stressed out, probably from being yelled at by people around here, and said he remembered our house the second I described what I saw.

"Yeah, what we can do it cut off the old pipe, and let it just sit underground. We'll lay new pipe in that space between you and your neighbor's house. We'll have to dig up your sidewalk on the side of your house the meter is on, but that's not so bad because most people had their in the back yard and lost their gate and fence as well." He also assured me he hired "some company" that will come by and replace the sidewalk and all the other damage they do. "They'll start sometime in late April," he assured me. I am not assured.

The trouble with his scenario is that there is no straight unobstructed line between the street and my house: it's occluded with large trees. The only "straight" path is already taken up by the power lines. And I think I know why.


* Our house used to be 10 feet shorter. When it was added on to, they rerouted the gas lines around the new space. Who "they" were I don't know, but I will tell you the former residents didn't do anything according to code, so it could have been "some guy."
* This also widened the driveway to fit two cars instead of one car like everyone else has.
* Two of the trees were not there when the addition was made. The maple tree next to my driveway was added right after the new addition was built in 1996, and the tree in the middle of me and my neighbor's house was added in 2001 by our neighbors; it's birch tree, and has gotten quiet big.


What I think they will do is cut down the birch tree, and possibly my maple tree, which is not that big a deal of a loss, really (the maple is growing roots into my driveway, buckling it, and it was planted in such a way its own roots seem to be strangling it). But I am rather upset and having my sidewalk ripped up. I am not comforted that "some company" will "fix it up." I suspect "no company" will "show up" or if they do, they'll lay down a line of gravel or put down a shitty set of slate stones or something. This will put the entrance to the guest apartment about a foot over naked bare ground, which will also be freshly dug. And given the previous messes they have made to all the other houses... I fear this will be a long fight.

I am going to take a lot of "before" pictures. I am not sure how this will help, but at the very least it will serve to the memory of my previous nice looking side yard.

And I have to spend time home from work that day so they can relight all my pilot lights and so on. Which means no heat while they work.

Any advice on how to lessen the pain or prepare intelligently for this? Posted in: gas , house , incompetence , utility , workers