Faced with this crisis

[Marlin]

Originally posted by tomdeimos
It's getting a bit late to fix this now, but it is really simple to do:

Is it?

1 Make all cars with speed governers, set to some national speed limit.  
They could easily allow emergency situations to bypass it, but have a fine at the next inspection to provide enforcement. And the cops could stop writing speeding tickets most places and concentrate on more serious problems.

OK, this is doable. Shouldn't cost too much either, since many cars now have digital speedometers, and it wouldn't really be that expensive to require them in new cars. The car's ECU could limit the top speed.

2 Tax gas guzzlers at high rates and set lower weight limits for private vehicles.

Again this is doable.

3 Get hydrogen from solar going for aircraft mainly, and ships.

How do you legislate that? Maybe require airlines to buy only hydrogen planes starting in the year 2006? Where will they get the planes from? Maybe you would need to require that Boeing build hydrogen planes starting in 2006? They'll be expensive, since new technology always is, and the airlines won't be able to afford to buy them. Instead, they'll continue to repair their existing planes to stretch things out further, and will have to live with a dwindling fleet. Of course, you've forced Boeing to build expensive planes that no one can or will buy, and they go bankrupt. Now who will build your hydrogen planes? And while you were at it, you had to force a bunch of energy companies, through regulation, to build a bunch of solar hydrogen generating plants at high expense, but there's no one to buy the hydrogen. I guess they'll go bankrupt to. Of course, while you were at it, you triggered a recession. So now the airlines don't have worry about their dwindling fleets, because they can't fill the seats they still have. That's OK though, because they can just scale back and layoff 10,000 or so employees.

On the bright side, you did manage to reduce emissions from airplanes, because there are fewer of them in the air.

4 Bring back electric cars for commuters and remove the tax and insurance disencentives for people to own multiple vehicles.

OK, lets require the car companies to design build and sell electric cars. Maybe make it 20% of their fleet by the end of 2006. Of course, they'll be expensive and few people will be able to afford them, and of those who can afford them, few will want them. Because the current technology allows them to go only 100 miles, and they have to charge up overnight in the owner's garage, after a thousand dollars or so of power upgrades and wiring. Sure there's new technology on the horizon, battery advancements and such, but they won't be ready for production for years. Maybe you can legislate that the battery companies spend more R&D money to accelerate the development so they can be mass produced in the next year or so.

Of course, there's that whole other problem about the national power grid. You see, it's pretty much at capacity. If you're going to be cranking out electric cars, you'll need to do something about it. And it's not just the generation plants, it's also the transmission network between the generation plants and the consumer. We'll just have to legislate that they upgrade everything in time for the delivery of our new electric cars. But then again, they'll have to pass on the cost to the consumer, which would likely trigger a recession resulting in nobody being able to buy all of those new electric cars. Companies go bankrupt, causing more recession, and round, and round.

5 Get Banks and zoning fixed so everyone that wants one can have a windmill like Holland in their yard.

Yeah right, I can see the Sierra Club backing that. Although, I've always felt that we have more birds than we really need anyway.

6 Start using wave and tide power for electricity along both coasts.

And just how are you going to require that through legislation and regulation? Create a state-owned company to do it? Or are you going to force some energy company to build one on your timetable.

7 Bring back high speed trains, that are aerodynamic and can carry cars and people in them for long distance rapid transit.

Again, how are you going to legislate this?

8 Subsidize new power generation to replace coal and oil plants with cleaner alternatives and convert more buildings to electric heat.

Subsidies I like. It gives the energy companies an incentive and an ability to control the timetable and costs. Unlike regulations, where bureaucrats dictate timetables without regard for ability or cost. Of course, you'll never get that past the Democrats, because corporations are evil, and it would be just unthinkable to subsidize them for anything. But anyways, this wasn't a regulation.

9 Ban all vehicles from planes to autos that have drag coefficients worse than x, just like we require some minimum efficiency for washing machines and air conditioners today.

I assume that when you say "ban" you are talking about new cars, not existing cars. If so, then this is doable.

10 Subsidize people moving and trading houses, so those that wish can live closer to work.

An interesting thought. But I suspect that most people with long commutes, do so not because they couldn't afford to live closer to work, but rather because they didn't want to live in area where their work is located.

11 Close cities to cars entirely where mass transit is adequate.

We could do this. Singapore did it for smog reasons. You can still drive into the city, but you have to pay heavy tolls.

12 Stop pushing our production off shore so other countries can make stuff for us in much dirtier ways environmentally whether tv sets or oil refineries.

I'm not sure how you are going to legislate this. And in fact, things like the Kyoto Agreement actually encourages it. China and India are exempt from the Kyoto Agreement. So if we complied with the Kyoto agreement, our manufacturing costs go up and their's don't. They are already more competitive than us do to labor costs, and we will simply increase the gap. Therefore even more production goes off shore.

Now, all that you propose could probably be accomplished via incentives and subsidies, allowing these things to be phased in when the time is right for everyone involved. But remember, the call went out for "Proper Regulations" and not for subsidies, incentives, and market forces.

You see, the problem with regulations is that if you come out with a "Thou shalt reduce your emissions by 50% by next Feburary" kind of regulation, it will ignore the cost of compliance with the regulation. It won't matter if the company trying to comply with the regulation has $3 billion in equipment that hasn't been paid for yet that will have to be scrapped and replaced with $6 billion in new equipment. It won't matter if the regulation requires the company to build something that nobody can or will buy.

If they can, they'll pass the new cost on to the consumer. If they can't, they'll go bankrupt. Bankrupt enough companies and you trigger a recession. A recession puts even more pressure on the companies that were just managing to squeek by complying with the regulations. Some of them will go bankrupt too. Then lots of really bad stuff starts to happen.

Now maybe, just maybe, you could design the regulations in cooperation with the companies you will regulate, and therefore build in time tables and targets that can be accomplished. That way the government gets the regulations it wants without putting too much pressure on the economy. But as soon as the Democrats see you talking to corporations, either in public or behind closed doors, be prepared for the backlash.

[kirbinster]

As the previus poster showed some interesting ideas, but nothing is ever as simple as it seems. I question the soundness of two of your ideas:

"6 Start using wave and tide power for electricity along both coasts. "

No one knows the climatic impact of these things on a large scale. If you slow the winds down and slow the waves down - as generating power from them will do, what impact will that have on the overall ecosystem. Think about it, on a large scale you could have a very bad impact on the planet.


8 ...... and convert more buildings to electric heat.

Electric heat is the most ineffective way to heat. To make electricity you burn fosil fuel and then suffer a loss of over 65% of the energy to go to electricity, you then have transmission losses moving this electricity around. Why not just use a high eff gas furnace to heat your house. I have one that converts 96% of the energy to heat.


A more appropriate way to do things is to make them economically viable. Here in NJ there is a small fee everyone pays on their electric bill (based on how much they use) that the state then uses to encourage people to both conserve and generate green power. The current system encourages photovoltaic solar panels. The state will pay up to 70% of the cost of a system you install on your house. I did this last year. The system has a 100% payback in only 4 years with this subsidy. After that I will have free electricity for the life of the system which is estimated at between 25-30 years. That is how you do things - make it a win-win for everyone.

[tomdeimos]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(kirbinster\";p=\"106683)</div>

As the previus poster showed some interesting ideas, but nothing is ever as simple as it seems.  I question the soundness of two of your ideas:

\"6 Start using wave and tide power for electricity along both coasts. \"

No one knows the climatic impact of these things on a large scale.  If you slow the winds down and slow the waves down - as generating power from them will do, what impact will that have on the overall ecosystem.  Think about it, on a large scale you could have a very bad impact on the planet.


8 ...... and convert more buildings to electric heat.  

Electric heat is the most ineffective way to heat.  To make electricity you burn fosil fuel and then suffer a loss of over 65% of the energy to go to electricity, you then have transmission losses moving this electricity around.  Why not just use a high eff gas furnace to heat your house.  I have one that converts 96% of the energy to heat.


A more appropriate way to do things is to make them economically viable.  Here in NJ there is a small fee everyone pays on their electric bill (based on how much they use) that the state then uses to encourage people to both conserve and generate green power.  The current system encourages photovoltaic solar panels.  The state will pay up to 70% of the cost of a system you install on your house.  I did this last year.  The system has a 100% payback in only 4 years with this subsidy.  After that I will have free electricity for the life of the system which is estimated at between 25-30 years.  That is how you do things - make it a win-win for everyone.[/b]

Wave power may have environmental effects, but so does everything. I don't see us getting all energy from windmills. But every bit must come from solar, at least till someone perfects hydrogen fusion. Nuclear is another stop gap solution at best till we run out of places to store the spent fuel.

Gas furnaces are no help at all because it makes more CO2. Once we fix the problems with vehicles, heating our buildings will be a big remaining problem. We can heat with solar directly some places, and for the rest it pretty much comes down to hydrogen or electric. Electricity should always be cheaper to distribute than hydrogen I should think and be cheaper.

Tidal power should be great for our coasts, by protecting them from storms much like lakes for water power do today to protect cities along rivers.

Wave power I can' imagine any major harmful effects unless it was done too many places. If we grow our economies till the planet is engulfed, nothing will work.