rufwork’s Recent Comments

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  "Lemme see a politician sell that."

  I believe that politician was named Ross Perot.  But then aren't you proposing the same thing when you say, "But that shortcoming can easily be remedied by pairing feebates with higher gas taxes"?  Are you Ross' buddy or not?

  I guess I'd argue that gas use is an elastic demand when taken with a long enough horizon.  Though profits went through the roof for oil companies with higher prices a year or so ago, I'm guessing people still drove less.  I'm also guessing that if there was no reason to expect prices to drop, people would do more long term planning, and make at least a lateral move into a similarly priced smaller car for personal use. I didn't see diesels or 55 mpg speed limits make their comeback during this "gas crisis."  It wasn't enough to show the power of increasing gas prices.

  And I'm betting the Efficient Vehicle Leadership Act is only for new cars.  Until you make it for used cars in some format, it's the same as a regressive tax.  Unless you believe in trickle-down "feebates", such a system won't help the many Americans who depend on used vehicles to get around.  I mean, now that I own part of GM I'll all about new cars, but let's be real.

  I wonder if systems like the one you only implicitly propose (where people drive the hatchback the most miles) favors leases -- and the forced continual "upgrade" for cars that we see with conventional consumer goods.

  Finally, I think the real lesson of cash for clunkers is that too many American households have extra cars.

  On Like Cash for Clunkers? You'll love feebates! posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago 5 Responses

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  Hrm, seems like I read a comment to this effect earlier on in the thread.  ;^)  Follow the money, right?

  On How to shut down 93% of coal without building new plants or reducing power supply posted 5 months, 1 week ago 27 Responses

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  "Obviously, that is very sensitive to fuel price assumptions, but this range is hardly unreasonable for current markets."

  So no way to judge if there'd be a significant impact on the price of gas from the increased demand of maxing capacity?

  On How to shut down 93% of coal without building new plants or reducing power supply posted 5 months, 1 week ago 27 Responses

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  Good idea by me

  Langdon Winner's "Do Artifacts Have Politics" might be worth a good read if one doesn't like the Smart Car Garage idea.  There's a bit in there accusing some part of Long Island (iirc) of building bridges too low for city buses to pass through, effectively eliminating a certain sort of folk from entering the high scale neighborhood.

  That's obviously a nefarious use of technology, but the small garage seems less so.  It's not like you could only put a Smart Car in there there; I bet a 60 mpg motorcycle fits fairly well too.  And this could contribute to a new size standard smaller than the lanes we're used to today, slowly doing its part to encourage car makers to create more Smart-sized cars, potentially with much better mpg, parked in these sorts of spaces in the future.

  I guess the practical question becomes if there are enough alternatives that folks in this condo do something else with their garages.  That is, is there long term, full sized parking nearby that would likely turn the garage into storage for many would-be condo owners?

  In any event, I'd agree with the initial blog; there's nothing particularly bad about helping folk think small when they think auto.On Asheville developers go big with eco, at the worst time ever posted 9 months, 1 week ago 3 Responses

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  Odd behavior

  That's odd.  I think that's the same URL you used.  It's truncated in Chrome, but shows up in full in Firefox unless I try to use the version for printing.  All I can think of that I do wacky there is run FlashBlock.

  Go figure, I guess.On Interesting food articles from around the web posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 2 Responses