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Pastimes : The California Energy Crisis - Information & Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (884)	8/16/2001 12:28:03 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1715

Hi Mrs. Peel, If I might chime in here briefly on one of your comments, you said: but as with oil, you saw what happened when Clinton released the "reserve"...bowing to the political pressure of high price due to insufficient supply and distribution. From my perspective what happened in October, 2000 with the SPR releases was that Clinton successfully broke the speculator's stranglehold on the price of crude. Within days, the price went from $37 to less than $30. This is a good thing for the nation as a whole, IMO. Of course, I realize YMMV. <g> Secretary Rodriguez of OPEC, commenting at the time said that during the crude bubble about $7 of the price could be directly attributed to speculation on the Nymex, etc. I'm sure you will disagree with me that this snake pit of trading serves no real economic purpose, but is in fact a parasitic drain on the real economy. Still waiting for your answers to my previous impertinent questions, BTW. :) Best, Ray :)

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (884)	8/17/2001 3:17:13 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1715

The thing that generally motivates conservation on an individual and corporate level is price. And pricing for utilities is not as cut and dried as it is in the "regular" marketplace. Agreed on the corporate level. On the individual level I don't think pricing is very effective. Extreme pricing has an effect. A lot of conservation on the individual level is done because one believes it is the right thing to do. Lots of people just don't like to waste resources...no matter the price. most people would consider 10% something of an accomplishment. Most people don't care. So my question to you is, if conservation is THE answer, then it would seem to me that HIGH prices would be the best mechanism to drive behavior. Painfully high prices.... acceptable to you? Or a combination of supply and conservation and stable pricing. I don't think there is a need for painfully high prices...unless our leaders are asleep at the wheel.....which seems to be the current case. High prices can act as a mechanism to wake people up...draw attention to a situation. Bureaucratic government tends to be reactionary. Good proactive leaders are rare. Certainly we can agree a combination of supply and conservation and stable pricing. is the way to go. I'll bet we can agree that we all want to be healthy and have clean air and water too! Getting there is the issue. I certainly don't have all of the answers. I would like to see a national energy debate. The Internet would be the best forum. The behind closed doors Cheney approach doesn't cut it with me. His dismal results are evidence of his failed approach. Innovative leadership seems too much to hope for. Of course the energy issue has to be approached with conservation and supply issues. My conservation point is it can be implemented immediately....virtual over night success. Education would be more effective than pricing IMO. Simply changing to CF bulbs would have a significant effect on demand. IMO a majority of the people don't know how significant the savings can be...just changing light bulbs. Obviously the do not see the "demand" for such a vehicle. At least not at the price point they have determined to be profitable. Of course if they could put one on the market at a reasonable price, consumers would beat the proverbial path... I don't think so. Again people just don't care enough about energy conservation. Style, color and comfort is more important than energy conservation. A better approach on the demand side IMO is reasonable government mandated minimum standards of efficiency. Zeuspaul

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (884)	8/21/2001 1:01:39 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1715

I just heard a report yesterday that the auto makers are now complaining to congress that they will not be able to meet the requirements for manufacturing an automobile (mandated 80 mph) by 2004. There was a joint federal private initiative to come up with an 80 MPG vehicle. I don't think there was a mandate as far as producing such a vehicle....at least not in large numbers. What is the point? If the car manufacturers can't triple the gas mileage then they should give up? Is it a wasted effort to increase fuel mileage twenty percent? I have been shopping for a compact pick up truck. The compacts get a couple more miles to the gallon than the full size eight cylinder trucks. Cars have MPG standards so should trucks and SUVs. This is so basic a concept it seems almost criminal they have been left out. I have a ten year old eight cylinder three hundred horse power car that gets 25 MPG long term average which is equal to or better than many of today's four and six cylinder cars. Ten years and no improvements? As you point out the reason is there is no market for high MPG cars. Without a market incentive the responsibility falls on the feds to impose minimum MPG standards. Minimum standards keep the playing field even. The manufacturers can improve MPG and will as long as they don't put themselves at a disadvantage producing technology that significant numbers of consumer consider unnecessary. Today's cars are 95+ percent cleaner than cars produced twenty years ago. Government standards were the impetus for change. Left to market forces it would have never happened as there is very little market incentive to produce clean cars. Zeuspaul