re: #350 Gus 802

The energy costs is a huge issue - and it’s likely to be a central focus heading into election season this year - and towards 2012. Maybe, for the first time in several generations, the country will finally recognize the importance of a coordinated and coherent energy policy that does more than plant platitudes and empty slogans.

Energy costs are going to sap the economy significantly, and improving efficiencies can do only so much here in the US as demand for oil elsewhere will keep oil prices high, such as increased demand in China for their own burgeoning auto industry.

It means cutting red tape and improving electric power distribution systems in the US, increasing r&d for alt energy, and looking at new nuclear power technologies in a major way to handle demand for power, including for what some think will be a major EV renaissance. It also means that automakers and the public have to reset their thinking about horsepower being the dominant trait for cars, and look at efficiency. Even with the new auto show in NYC this week, the focus is schizophrenic - on one hand you’ve got a couple of new hybrids/evs, but the rest of the show focuses on the usual new higher horsepower vehicles (which coincidentally get same or similar mpg as the vehicles they replace).

It also means that the trucking industry has to do much more to wring improvements - using new efficiency techniques such as fairings and other modifications to their trailers and rigs to increase fuel efficiency, and expand reliance on rail for long haul cargo. HSR has a role, but it isn’t nearly as important in reducing energy usage as the trucking and bus industries improving fuel efficiency.

Consider for a moment that the typical bus gets less than 3mpg. It’s awful, but a modest improvement to 4mpg, could significantly reduce costs to transit agencies and energy demands.