Energy security: 55 mph and telecommuting?
The key to energy security?According to Ed Wallace of BusinessWeek, CAFE is not the best solution to America's energy problems, simply because, even if we raised CAFE to 50 mpg by 2020, it would still take decades to replace our current fleet of automobiles with the new, more fuel efficient fleet.
Thus, Wallace suggests lowering the speed limit to 55 mph and encouraging telecommuting, particularly in the short term.
While an interesting proposal, some of Wallace's numbers seem very sketchy. Finish: Energy Security: 55 mph and telecommuting.
Labels: 55 mph, cafe, energy dependence, telecommuting
posted by Dahcredyns @ 9:49 AM
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1 Comments:
Complete Story
According to Ed Wallace of BusinessWeek, CAFE is not the best solution to America's energy problems, simply because, even if we raised CAFE to 50 mpg by 2020, it would still take decades to replace our current fleet of automobiles with the new, more fuel efficient fleet.
Thus, Wallace suggests lowering the speed limit to 55 mph and encouraging telecommuting, particularly in the short term.
While an interesting proposal, some of Wallace's numbers seem very sketchy. His big savings via 55 mph is based upon freeway commuters. I'm not sure about the rest of America's urban areas, but the ability to hit 55 to, or from, work in Los Angeles is almost impossible - negating a huge aspect of Wallace's proposal.
On the other hand, telecommuting is a great idea, but it seems almost impossible, especially as our economy moves more and more towards servicing. Moreover, I can't see America's employers embracing this idea in a massive enough way. Furthermore, in today's high tech world, many IT departments would probably not be too exited about securing a massive telecommuting force, especially considering how transitional our work force has become these days.
In theory, Wallace's proposals sound good. In reality, however, they would do little to solve America's energy crisis and achieving them would probably require almost as much time as a significant CAFE increase. Nonetheless, it seems obvious that America needs both long term solutions, such as CAFE, and near term solutions, such as telecommuting - not one or the other.
Ultimately, however, Wallace does point out something very important.
"Wouldn't it be great if Congress really could legislate the U.S. out of its current energy problems? When you listen to the recent political debates, raising the fuel efficiency for new vehicles by some far-off future date sounds like a more-than-reasonable idea, provided you aren't in the car business. But the fact is that any proposed legislation of this kind can do absolutely nothing to solve our current or near-term oil problems. Even legislated help, if it were to become effective this week, would do little to help today's working-class Americans deal with the now three-year rise in the price of gasoline at all."
"That reality seems to have been overlooked both by those debating (and lobbying) about raising the fuel efficiency of our vehicles to 35 mpg (more or less) and by those reporting it."
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