One Way To Conserve Energy...

...would be to reinvigorate our passenger and freight railroads. In Europe, rails are a prime method of transport. In this country, railroads, especially passenger service, have been trashed due to Americans' love affair with the automobile. That will have to change.

If you do any amount of highway driving, you probably have had some scary moments with trucks. On the New Jersey Turnpike, there are car only lanes in the Northern part of the road, thankfully. I'd like to see less trucks on the road and more use of rail for transport of both freight and passengers.
Read the following to see how railroads can help with our energy problem:

If 25 percent of truck traffic were shipped instead by freight trains, by 2025
the following benefits could be achieved:
• The average person traveling
during peak periods would save 44 hours per year (equal to more than to five
8-hour work days) as the reduced truck volume eased traffic congestion. In the
most congested urban areas, annual savings could exceed 100 hours. Nationally,
we would save 3.2 billion hours of delay.
• Fuel consumption would be
reduced because of faster speeds and more fluid traffic flow on the less
congested roadways. Diesel and gasoline fuel consumption in 2025 would be an
estimated 17 billion gallons lower than it otherwise would be - equivalent to
more than 250 gallons annually per motorist.
• The savings in travel time
and fuel would yield significant economic benefits. A typical household would
enjoy $620 per year in reduced congestion costs, equal to $44 billion overall,
in urban areas nationwide.
• Air quality would improve thanks to an
estimated 900,000 fewer tons of air pollution, including lower levels of carbon
monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide (NOx).

This is from the "Go Rail" website, which can be found here.

Once again, where are our political leaders when it come to advocacy for his sort of thing? Probably, they are securely in the pocket of trucking industry lobbyists.

PHOTO: One of our historic boat houses has its own attached lighthouse!

Jim

What Ever Happened To Energy Conservation?

It used to be something we heard about all the time: the need to conserve energy. What happened to that idea? It's not like we all of a sudden now have plenty of oil. What has happened is that we elected a corporate hack as our president, someone who is more concerned about his fat cat oil buddies and their companies making big profits than what is good for the country. We still need to conserve energy - now more than ever, and our leaders should be hammering this idea home. Instead, we hear virtually nothing from Washington, while the price of oil skyrockets and the stock market begins to teeter. Wall Street gets it about what we're facing. The 300 point plus drop yesterday may be just the beginning. Washington is missing in action. What is Bush doing?

We were told of the need to conserve gasoline decades ago. So how are we doing? This if from today's New York Times:

If gasoline prices are causing motorists to drive less over all, it is not
evident in the national statistics. Americans have consumed an average of 9.3
million barrels of gasoline a day so far this year, an increase of 0.6 percent
from last year, according to the Energy Department.

This country is on a collision course with the reality that cheap and plentiful energy is a thing of the past. Meanwhile Washington is asleep at the switch. I hope our economy doesn't crash and burn when the energy s*** hits the fan!

PHOTO: Another in the series of boat houses here in Philadelphia

Jim

Oil: What Is To Be Done?

A reader has posted a comment to my previous post wherein he mentions the amount of energy used in pleasure boating and flying private aircraft. He also advocates nuclear power and burning coal to produce electricity.

I thank him for the thoughtful post. He makes some good points about the fuel use involved in recreational boating and private aircraft. The problem there is that the rich don't care - they have plenty of money to go boating, flying in their private planes, and to continue to drive their gas guzzlers down the highway. That's one reason why I would favor much higher taxation on the initial purchases of pleasure boats, small planes and SUVs.

On nuclear power, however, I am not convinced that it is the way to go. I still consider it too dangerous and ecologically problematic.

Should we burn coal to generate power? Can we do it without contributing to greenhouse gases and global warming? I doubt it. We must face the harsh reality that we have to wean ourselves off of our dependence on foreign oil, and we must find ways to reduce our use of fossil fuels before we destroy the planet.

Our national leaders may not be able to control the price of oil, but there is a lot that they could do to foster conservation and the development of alternate forms of energy, both of which have been ignored under "Dubbya."

Americans are in for a rude awakening and a shock that might make the energy crisis of decades ago, with the large lines at the gas pumps and purchases limited to several gallons, pale in comparison.

The president should address the nation now on the looming crisis, to start with, except that he doesn't care as long as his big oil buddies are raking in the profits. I've written before that we need a "Marshall Plan" focused on our energy situation, but we'll never see it with Bush. He is a disgrace, and our do-nothing Congress is no better.

Jim