More absurdity about oil

[JV]

WorldCitizen, that sounds nice, but how would your grandfather get to the train station? Unless you live directly under the tracks, he probably would have needed your help for that too.

There aren’t a lot of elderly people on trains because there are busses that come and pick them up. Maybe those busses will pick them up, bring them to the train station, and then another bus will pick them up after the train drops them off.

Sounds efficient! And inexpensive! And it makes me feel good about myself, so the cost doesn’t matter anyway!

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[kootchman]

I hope so. Less cars on the road…. even more mobility for the rest of us. You may not have the demands of a job that may require your presence in 10 or more locations in a day it may be perfect, Make sure your ticket price covers the cost… yea, .. we have seen what happens to the aged on public transit. They become targets.

Letter to Editor

The increasing number of armed robberies at the Orinda BART station may be worth looking into and the fact that BART police are doing nothing to curtail them.

I was robbed at gunpoint (wallet and car keys) there late in the evening on November 4th by two young adults. They too drove off easily with BART police having no video or anything else that could help them apprehend the suspects.

MARTA

Overall crime numbers for MARTA for fiscal 2011 — which ran from July 2010 through June 2011 — showed 48 robberies, 83 aggravated assaults, 216 larcenies and 63 auto thefts

Yea …. it sure can make a difference in peoples lives… but there is hope….the Georgia legislature made it illegal for the city of Atlanta to prohibit concealed weapons on MARTA… and damned if the rate of violent crime didn’t drop!

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[DBP]

Per kootchman:

Japan broke up the JNR because (surprise surprise) as a government owned monopoly, it was spending $150 for every $100 of revenue. The system was privatized in 1987… and is now profitable.

This is a diversion from the discussion of whether earthquakes are a valid reason not to develop high-speed rail. But never mind that. I’ll roll with it.

kootch, I don’t know whether your figures on JNR are correct (you didn’t cite sources as usual) but I don’t necessarily dispute them. What I do dispute is the lesson you draw from the experience of JNR. The lesson you draw is that government involvement in developing industrial technology is always a bad idea.

The lesson I draw is that there’s a time for government to be involved, and a time for governmet to step back. And JNR is a perfect example.

Like JNR, many of Japan’s industrial combines (the so-called Zaibatsu, companies like Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Nissan) were developed with heavy government subsidies. As soon as the companies got on their feet, the government bowed out.

I’m guessing the same thing happened with the bullet train.

I would recommend the same strategy for American high-speed rail and other promising technologies. It’s a two-step process:

1) The government subsidizes American companies to develop the infrastructure. In return, the government gets some say over how the technology is developed.

2) If the concept proves workable, the government hands the infrastructure over to private companies to run it at a profit. As long as they’re keeping it up nicely, they’ll make a tidy sum. If they don’t keep it in good shape, they lose it.

The idea here is public/private partnerships. I’ve said it before . . . few companies will or can bear the risk of developing new technology and building a billion-dollar infrastructure project by themselves. However, this fact, in and of itself, hardly proves that such projects aren’t feasible.

But perhaps jamminj put it best when she/he said that maybe Americans just aren’t ready to do a project like high-speed rail. Somewere along the way, we lost that spirit of dreaming big and working together for the common good.

I think it might’ve happened during the Vietnam war.

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[JoB]

I just spent a long weekend in New Orleans and talked to a fair number of people who made the decision to retire in the French Quarter…

all of them mentioned New Orleans excellent public transportation as a major factor in their choice..

we chose to go outside the French Quarter a time or two and to use the public transportation .. and i have to agree.. they have a really good system.

i can see why it draws active retirees to New Orleans.

JV..

it’s obvious that you have never used those buses that come pick you up.

As a disabled person, i have.

It’s not quite like taxi service you know…

Your pickup window can be an hour or more and you can’t go just anyplace in them.

while they are better than nothing for those who have no other options to access grocery shopping and doctor’s appts…

they are no substitute for a well functioning public transportation system that takes you anywhere you want to go.. any time you want to go there…

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[kootchman]

Funny, industrial rail was for all intents and purposes. a USA “invention”. I didn’t ignore your point re: fault lines.. but I did look at the identified faults in California. The San Andreas, Hayward, Loma Prieta are all slip strike fault lines, and are far more frequent than the Asia Pacific subduction faults that plague Japan in essentially a deepwater subduction trench.

“”Geologists believe a 9.0 quake is virtually impossible along the San Andreas, a network of “strike-slip” faults smaller and more fragmented than the great chasm that exists where two continent-sized plates of the Earth’s crust meet along the Japanese islands. Japanese quakes will trend towards large vertical displacements in water. California quakes are shallower and have more land movement”. But. I concede that engineering has come a long way… and a red herring on my part.

Since there are high speed rails aplenty, and since most large General Contractors are now European owned in the USA… then we don’t need government to “experiment”.. it should be a viable, tested, known, risk. If it is feasible, that data set should be a known risk. Let it go out to bid … and if it is worth the risk, and has profit potential.. the government can easily authorize development bonds.. (like they did with WPPS… you all remember that massive default? When WA “took a chance ” on nuclear power, or are the memories a bit short here?) taxpayer risk, the Obama model, is shifted to private capital..the capitalist model. We have too much subsidy..and it always costs more. There are investor infrastructure projects going up all over the world.. South America is particularly active. There is no shortage of capital for a good investment… the world has a glut of sidelined cash. Ni more of the government transferring risk to taxpayers and reward to connected firms. We have a 16 trillion dollar deficit…. and even the Messiah conceded at his bobble head rally today raising tax rates is not going to solve the deficit. It was “fair” though. FINALLY he concedes the point. Now when 24% of our GDP stops going to Uncle Sugar and falls to the sustainable 18% range…. and the tax code is overhauled and revenue is one ot two percentage points above the cost of government.. maybe we can talk about infrastructure investment. Ya wanna borrow some more? Ya want the national deficit to go to 125% of GDP? We are broke.

We need to drive energy costs down.. let this broken system repair itself… before we bleed it death white. Let’s focus on a 4% unemployment rate and creating 600K jobs per month. We can pipe dream later.

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[redblack]

glad to see you’re not totally opposed to having regional and continental high-speed rail, kootch.

where we part ways is your last paragraph.

i couldn’t disagree more that we just need to keep burning oil, coal, and natural gas at increasing rates until we have a robust economy again. as you point out, to have a truly powerful economy, the debt will need to be addressed, and provided that the country has the guts to pay it down, it may take decades. or centuries.

scraping the fossil fuels industries from our boot soles is an important economic factor. they’re the players who set prices, not the government. but the government can implement policies that encourage consumers to use less.

getting people out of planes for regional travel is a good example.

regarding our “race” from seattle to portland: no cars.

you commented that you’d happily take a plane before amtrak when traveling regionally. so that’s the bet. we put down our pint glasses, pay the tab at elysian fields, and start the clock. you walk to the E3/link line to seatac in pioneer square. i walk to king street station.

next stop, rogue ale house in the pearl district. the loser buys the next round.

we don’t even have to do this together. we could just time our trips, verified by the time stamp on our receipts and ticket stubs, and the loser leaves $20 in the well at rogue.

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[JoB]

this is beginning to look like a win win bet to me ..

but then i love Portland…

no matter how i get there

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[WorldCitizen]

OK so next time you all have to go to Portland, I expect one of you to “put up or shut up”. Announce it on the Blog. Get the receipts/tickets/time stamps and post them…not just say what they are, but actually scan them and post them online for everyone to see.

It would be better if you could try the trips at the same time during the day/week.

Anything planned in the near future?

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[DBP]

so that’s the bet. we put down our pint glasses, pay the tab at elysian fields, and start the clock. you walk to the E3/link line to seatac in pioneer square. i walk to king street station.

I will donate $50 to the charity of WSB’s choice if someone can show me an undoctored photo of kootchman and redblack sitting together in the same bar!

In Seattle, Portland, or anywhere else.

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[JoB]

DBP..

don’t be so hasty.

not only did kootch and i sit at the same table in Barnes & Noble..

We planned and provided a mean together

JanS and Kevin are my witnesses

and co-consirators

if you had made that the charity of kootch’s choice..

i almost guarantee you would be paying up

;-)

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[kootchman]

That would be the NRA, National Wildlife Federation, Wounded Warriors, Sea Shepard … check or money order…. or a donation to Holy Names Academy, Holy Rosary, Holy Families, Our Lady of Guadalupe, music education departments. Salvation Army too. Those are my charities of choice.

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[redblack]

maybe we have sat together in the same bar. we might have even chatted. but only one or two people in the city could confirm it. :)

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[JoB]

kootch..

i could find a charity to support on that list..

so i am pretty sure that DBP can

i’d fund the other half of the coin.. a charity of redblack’s choosing

and.. we could place a donation jar at the door and make it another WSB forum fundraiser ;)

i like the amazing race idea too…

you could always appoint a surrogate ;)

maybe the early bird really does get the worm

i have such fun when i check in here before my day starts..

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[redblack]

i won’t be traveling to PDX until summer, but when i do, i’ll be happy to ride the rails and scan and share my receipts and ticket stubs. i’ll have a couple of cocktails and watch the majestic off-the-beaten-path northwest scenery roll by.

my favorite part is the straightaway near longview – when we’re doing around 70 mph and slowly but surely passing traffic on I-5.

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[kootchman]

And I will be seeing a half dozen customers trying to make some money. I will have my cocktails after .. when I calculate the dyas receipts and commissions…. BTY… you do know that AmTrak rails are limited to 79 mph MAX.. usually around 50-55 with 8 stops… I wanna see this! Let me know when the Great Race is on.

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[redblack]

like i said, we can do it any time, and it doesn’t have to be simultaneous. besides, i’m afraid you might slip me a mickey. :)

so let’s set some rules, shall we?

next time you – or a surrogate – flies to PDX, keep a receipt – for coffee, beer, a cocktail, a burger, whatever – just as you’re leaving for seatac. this will establish the start time and start the clock.

next time i – or anyone else who wants to participate – takes amtrak to portland, i will get a receipt as i head for king street station.

like i said, i’m planning on using elysian fields – unless you object and want to make west seattle the official starting point. i acknowledge that it gives me a slight edge; but then again, link goes straight to seatac from pioneer square. your call.

then, you keep your ticket stub for your flight, i for my train, so we establish that neither of us used alternate modes of transportation. i wonder if there’s a way to get a receipt during the flight to establish that you didn’t just buy a ticket then drive to portland… hmm. not that i don’t think you’re a man of your word. i know i can get a receipt from the dining car, and i will, just to show you that i didn’t buy an amtrak ticket and then drive to portland.

next stop – rogue ale house? or some other downtown locale?

by the yea, regarding the speeds, they’re looking at upgrading the tracks between here and portland to allow for speeds up to 95 mph for amtrak.

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[kootchman]

The government keeps pretending it knows sometjing about economies, and energy policy. It gets it wrong most of the time. Invariably we pay for it.

Everyone is now all a dither about coal fired electricity. The new Obamanomics and his EPA have effectively banned new coal fired electricity and will close at least half of them. We had another left wing ding in the White House… Jimmy Carter. ho was as idiotic as this one. After the OPEC crisises … he passed Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978. which lead to a massive construction of coal fired power plants.

Ans what did that legislation do? It prohibited expansion of natural gas pipelines and prohibited… you guessed it… construction of natural gas fired power generation plants. So what did all the utility companies do? thy they invested billions upon billions in coal fired plants to power the grid… building over 35 major plants.

Now Obama and the current energy wise government wants to shut those billions in capital investment down. AND restrict natural gas extraction by denying permits.

One forces new construction of coal plants.. costing billions, the other forces the industry to shut them down. costing billions.

Maybe we should just prohibit Democrats from even discussing energy…forbid it by law.. they sure don’t know crap about it. Carter and Obama… bookends to the library of economic genius. It must be fun being an energy CEO …. what was it JoB said… we used to invest in energy companies for growth and steady income? The tweedle dee and twiddle dum of Carter and Obama…may they both find their inner child and both go build some houses.

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[JoB]

kootch..

of all the idiotic posts kootch..

i think this one takes the cake.

and please, don’t misquote me

you have conveniently left out the word public…

but.. you do that a lot to make a point, don’t you?

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[kootchman]

But you can’t argue the facts can you? AND those coal plants were built by public utilities. Is it idiotic? It happens to be fact. Carter banned new construction of gas fired generation facilites, the greenies were against nuclear. This was simple cause and effect.

Not arguing the substance of the post though. Not a strong trait of Democrats in any case.

Here’s the Act as written:

Title II of the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 (FUA), as amended (42 U.S.C. 8301 et seq.), provides that no new baseload electric powerplant may be constructed or operated without the capability to use coal or another alternate fuel as a primary energy source. In order to meet the requirement of coal capability, the owner or operator of such facilities proposing to use natural gas or petroleum as its primary energy source shall certify, pursuant to FUA section 201(d), and Section 501.60(a)(2) of DOE’s regulations to the Secretary of Energy prior to construction, or prior to operation as a base load powerplant, that such powerplant has the capability to use coal or another alternate fuel.

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[JanS]

that was 34 years ago…things change….

the internet was a pipe dream back then, too..things change…

I love how you go back to Carter and Clinton, but bring up Bush? ..OMG, NO, we can’t do that…

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[kootchman]

Yea? Goes to the heart of liberals and Democrats. When you build plants with a 50 plus year life cycle cost… and then get told those budget models … throw em out the window. That’s what makes investors take their money and put it in stable environments. Now, that.s fine… is the federal government now prepared to reimburse all those untility companies who followed the federal directives? You can bring up Bush all you want.. he was no TEA Party darling… but that’s all Obama CAN do… blame it on Bush. I wish Obama’s “investment” record had a 78% success rate like Bain did… because he did something. Clueless about the private sector.. profoundly so. That’s the problem with this president… invest today.. and he will chop off your legs to any fringe zealot vote. Now, private companies went ahead and developed natural gas.. in spite of Democrats… and guess what? we have it in surplus and the consumer is enjoying the least cost energy in natural gas in history. Who repealed the act? why the 1987 congress, William Jefferson Clinton… and the natural gas boom was on. Exploration, pipeline expansion, …with the help of congressional and sentate republicans. Best Republican president we have had since RR.

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[JoB]

kootch…

Do you think 30 years of coal have taught us anything?

I do.

Jimmy should have stuck to his guns

if he had there would be wind turbines

or solar on the coast of Kaui

not a coal fired power plant.

but, as an indictment of all democrats

it fails

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[kootchman]

JoB.. wind is not reliable power. Solar is not cost effective and reliable enough, the industrial NE needs btu’s on demand, not when cloud cover is groovy and the wind is far out cool. we have to power cities, large industrial plants and windmills are not reliable. Just how did you intend to transfer that electrical energy from Kaui to Cleveland? Your wind turbines don’t generate power in any efficiency… that’s why they are taxpayer subsidized. Guess we will shut down all the jobs in PA, OH, MI, for a week… overcast and wind gusts over 34 mph… pulls em all offline. Hey, you are a staunch liberal… have YOU disconnected from the grid yet? wanna see some video of wind turbines collapsing under a 75 mph wind… when the blades are sheared off and become rubble?

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[redblack]

sure. i’ll watch those videos of failing wind turbines.

…while you watch videos of china syndrome happening in japan, rivers of mud and grease filling valleys in appalachia, natural gas emitting from domestic water pipes in middle america, and billions of gallons of oil exploding into gulf coast waters.

and we subsidized every one of those disasters. (except fukushima, of course. but we did have three mile island. and we almost lost detroit back in the ’70’s.)

so go ahead. keep picking those winners with federal money for old, dirty, poisonous forms of energy that suck the life out of the ecosystems around them.

and please, try the new orleans 10W-40 crayfish.

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[HMC Rich]

Obviously the goal of many is to have safe energy sources. But lets be real here. Oil seepage naturally happens every day of every year. I don’t want man made oil spills either.

Wind generated problems occur also. Even wind power has environmental impact and negative human impacts …. http://www.ehow.com/list_7486500_dangers-windmills.html

and speaking of picking winners with federal monies, Kootchman has said it before. Solyndra.

Most of us want a safe and sane energy policy. The newer technologies need to improve to be competitive. Right now our gas prices are artificially high, which the President wanted, and he is doing nothing about it. He is demonizing coal while pushing electric cars. I don’t see windmills or solar panels on those vehicles. And I guess the Waste Management company contracted by the city government must be idiots to use Natural Gas in their vehicles because CNG is much cheaper than gas.

Your emotional arguments won’t work. You used those when Bush was Prez and gas went over $4.00 briefly.

Why the hell aren’t you complaining now? And this administration from Steven Chu to the President has stated that they want higher fossil fuel prices.

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