Comments Paula Craig has made

  • Sooner or later we will be switching to biofuels

    Biofuels definitely have problems.  The most important one is exactly what you are discussing here:  biofuels are fine in small quantities, but they simply can't be scaled up enough to support the high-energy lifestyle we think of as normal in the U.S.  But what is the alternative to biofuels?  The cheap, easy-to-produce oil, gas, and coal are already burnt or vanishing fast.  Fossil fuels are the product of millions of years' worth of stored sunlight.  When they're gone, they're gone.  Speeding up drilling and mining now will only speed up depletion.  Sooner or later the world--including the U.S.--will be making a transition to a low energy lifestyle.  We can either make reducing energy use and limiting human population the first priority of our economy now, while we still have some fossil fuels left to build what we need, or we can do it later when we don't have a choice.  Either way, in a few decades' time all those fantastic freeways we've built may well be used mostly by bicycles and horses.  Postpone dealing with the problem, and we may find the Grim Reaper making the biggest contribution to reducing human energy use. On Why are biofuels losing steam in Europe -- and barreling ahead in the U.S.? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 4 Responses

  • Biofuels can only work with reduced energy use

    Sooner or later the U.S. is going to have to make the transition from fossil fuels to biofuels.  The fossil fuels are already running out, and shortages will only get worse.  Unfortunately, biofuels cannot possibly recreate the present high-energy lifestyle of the U.S. Biofuels certainly can be produced without net carbon emissions, but it's going to take organic farming techniques.  It will probably be more like Amish farming than today's farming with its tractors and chemical fertilizers.  All that is going to take LOTS of land.  There simply isn't enough farmland in the U.S. to produce enough biofuels to maintain a high-energy lifestyle for the present U.S. population.  We are going to have to either enormously decrease our per capita energy usage, or decrease the U.S. population by half or more.  We can choose to make this choice now, while we still have enough oil and gas to build the infrastructure for a lower-energy lifestyle, and enough time to decrease population by reducing birthrates.  If we put off making the transition, it will happen by way of sky-high prices for both energy and food, and may well involve the Grim Reaper helping us to reduce our energy use.  On Biofuels not helpful in climate-change fight, new studies say posted 1 year, 9 months ago 28 Responses

  • Free parking is always a subsidy

    Wal-Mart subsidizes automobile travel every time it provides a free parking space.  Parking lots cost money to build and maintain, but only shoppers who drive use them.  For more on this, see Donald Shoup's great book "The High Cost of Free Parking."  Try to get it at your local library.  On The impossibility of a green Wal-Mart posted 2 years, 7 months ago 27 Responses

  • Urban Design

    The best writer I've found on the subject of cities is James Howard Kunstler.  His books "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The City in Mind" discuss in detail what's wrong with American cities.  He points out that many of our urban problems today are caused by well-meaning zoning regulations and building codes which have unfortunate side effects. The beautiful cityscapes and lively streets and shops of Paris would be illegal to build nearly anywhere in the U.S.

    Another book worth reading on this subject is Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking." Shoup points out that a large part of the reason why U.S. city design is so poor is that local regulations require that huge numbers of parking spaces be provided around all businesses and residences.  Unregulated locales tend to follow suit, providing enough spaces to ensure that everyone can park for free.  Even where parking is charged for, prices tend to be set too low to cover the cost of providing and maintaining the spaces.  Free and subsidized parking amounts to a subsidy for the automobile industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars every year.  Free parking also means that everything is placed far apart, making walking mostly impractical.   On An urban denizen beseeches nature writers to focus on cities for a change posted 2 years, 10 months ago 28 Responses