America's addiction to automobiles could sink Obama presidency?

That would be bad since things like gay rights and Supreme Court nominations are effected by the presidency. Americans grumble about high gas prices.

According to one conservative talk show host I listen to, Dr. Bill Wattenburg, Obama's administration may be shooting itself in the foot by overlooking natural gas for fueling vehicles. Instead, Obama officials have opted for more distant and harder to implement strategies; green energy technologies. Natural gas is not quite as green as some of the other ideas, but it's greener than oil and according to Dr. Bill, it is so plentiful here in USA that prices could be a lot lower than the oil based gasoline that so many Americans are grumbling about now.

Of course fracking for the gas is an issue and Dr. Bill tends to downplay those problems.

Wattenburg thinks Obama should issue an executive order getting the government to buy natural gas powered vehicles when it orders new vehicles. This major buyer would help jump start more natural gas vehicle manufacturing with the related infrastructure, filling stations and so forth to keep the vehicles on the road. We just need a big buyer, such as the Federal government, to get that ball rolling.

He says that finally, a bit late, Obama's energy secretary is starting to take natural gas more seriously and describing it as a "bridge fuel" toward greener technology.

I am not against natural gas, of course, but I'd also add that we should find ways to reduce dependency on automobiles in our city planning and personal lifestyles. If nothing else to reduce obesity.

I hope the gas price situation does not lead grumbling short sighted Americans into sinking Obama's hopes for a second term.

Nuclear power for cars

As fossil fuels lead to global warming, I remember thinking that nuclear power may make a comeback as more vehicles go toward using electricity. For the electric car, the power has to be generated somewhere.

The disaster in Japan is likely to put a chill on future expansion of the nuclear power option. That leaves us with other choices such as solar power and wind farms. In many ways, solar is ideal, but it's fairly hard to collect thus making it somewhat expensive. Similar problem with wind power.

There's also the T Bone Pickens plan to use natural gas in vehicles. It's cleaner than oil based gasoline from a global warming standpoint, but still a global warming fuel. I once heard that natural gas is about 40% cleaner than oil when it comes to greenhouse emissions. Maybe my figures aren't exact, but ballpark idea.

Looks like we may have to adjust the economy to the reality of more expensive energy. The automobile is one of our biggest energy hogs so switching it over to electricity may be problematic. That's one of the reasons why I've kept advocating bicycling, walking and public transit. Making our residences more compact, rather than sprawling countryside living. Having jobs and errands within walking distance of at least the bus line is a great way to plan.

Ironically, we may have to live more like the Japanese. Use less energy per capita and rely more on public transit. One reason why Japan uses a lot of nuclear power is the fact that they don't have much domestic energy. They have to import just about all their fossil fuel.

The US started out as a large oil provider and built it's infrastructure around cheap gasoline. Now the US must import most of it's oil as well. The US is sometimes still called the "Saudi Arabia of coal." We could go back to burning coal and then generating electricity to switch gasoline running cars to coal; I mean electricity.

Someone wrote to my blog once calling electric cars "coal cars."

Maybe the greenhouse gas from coal can still be sequestered into the ground, rather than spewed into the atmosphere, but that ads to the cost of energy also; if the technology even becomes available.

Nuclear is still an option and the newer designed nuclear plants would be a lot safer than the older technology. I read that the plant in Japan that's having problems was built in 1971. Safety technology has come along way since then, but nuclear would be a hard sell.

We may just have to figure out how to have an economy that is less dependent on cheap energy. Ironically, like the Japanese who have been used to living on an island with little fossil fuel resources, we may have to rely more on public transit, walking and bicycling to combat global warming; rather than some magic "electric car" fix. Learn to build our suburban areas more compact. Live in smaller and better insulated homes. More of us live in apartments. My brother doesn't live in an apartment, but he does have solar panels on his roof. Gets a large part of his electricity from the sun.

Technology can still create magic, but it needs to be more "low energy per capita" style of magic. We should think about the advent of light emitting diodes, for instance.

Someday, gasoline powered cars will be the stuff of old car shows

Part of display in Boulevard Park during the Ski to Sea race.

From what I hear, natural gas (often used in home heating) could power vehicles. There's still quite a bit of that in the USA and it burns a bit cleaner than oil. Might work for a while at least.

Lots of bicycles parked around Fairhaven District for the festival at end of Ski to Sea weekend.

People can eat longer than they can drive cheap, there's still oil in the Bakken Shale. It's just a bit more expensive

If housing and other things can be real expensive, so can energy.

Biking through North Dakota in 1998, I passed quite a few oil wells in the hay fields.

My 1991 trip.

While offshore drilling and Alaska's Anwar are being debated, quite a few people don't even think about North Dakota. Where's that? Who's ever heard of Williston or Lake Sakakawea?

I hear there's an oil boom going on in that area. Even this article, from 2 years ago, explains things.

Supposedly, there could be lots of oil there. Some other articles have even suggested oil comparable to the reserves of Saudi Arabia. It's just more expensive to extract, but at over $100 per barrel it might be doable.

New technology, such as sideways drilling into the Bakken Shale.

Expensive.

It isn't strip mining. Just letting it drip out, I guess.

Reassuring news, in some ways.

At least we aren't likely to starve. There's still oil for agriculture and trucking. It just gets expensive. We can still eat.

What's hit harder than eating is driving; especially long distance commuting.

In the cost of food, "energy" is just one of several expense items. In driving, it's "the elephant in the room."

With shorter commutes, even driving might still be affordable.

I've never driven though. Bicycling really shines these days.

Living in town helps. I hope living in town remains affordable. Pretty soon, a lot more people may want to move to town.

I do bike long distances, but it takes time. My lifestyle in the slow lane. An "alternative lifestyle."

In 1998, I biked through Williston, ND. and had lunch at Lake Sakakawea. Out in the grasslands. I was on my way from Bellingham, Washington to the Great Lakes. Took 2 months and I came back on Amtrak.

The world was a bit different then. Oil prices were really low. Low compared to other things in our economy. China was still a big consumer, but less of a consumer than it is now.

1 billion 3 hundred million people makes a difference.

In the late 1990s, Asian stock markets tumbled. Those economies slowed down and oil demand dropped. This freed up lots of oil for the West.

Energy was cheap and much of America was booming. Not the North Dakota oil country, however. It felt kind of quiet, like a back water.

Meditative however.

Miles of hay fields. Not a lot of human excitement.

Don't need to pay $400 for some Buddhist "quiet the soul" workshop. Just bike across miles of hay fields.

Meanwhile other parts of USA were almost exploding. Real estate was going up out of sight. The dot com bubble was growing.

Places like Santa Cruz, California were getting expensive. Rents and house values were skyrocketing. Pushing poor working souls farther out into the boonies.

Longer commutes, but gas was cheap.

"Drive till you qualify."

Remember?

Energy complacency.

Of course Americans didn't really address the energy issue back then. It was "back burner."

Most of us somehow survived spiraling health care and housing costs.

Now it's energy's turn.

I'm not necessarily for or against drilling. I just keep biking. People have to do what they have to do.

Now the news is full of our presidential candidates who have stances that evolve with time.

That's OK.

Both McCain and Obama starting to see the need for some offshore drilling.

North Dakota also, I guess.

Obama talks about the need to transition into cleaner energy sources. Transition toward more renewable energy. Solar power. Wind.

Here's even a picture of a wind mill somewhere in North Dakota, but wind power is a different kind of windmill.

Campaign strategies must now be saying, "oil is still needed to transition us to better futures."

For the long view, McCain is a big advocate of "non greenhouse gas emitting" nuclear power.

I'm still for Obama, but "nuclear" might be needed as well.

Also windmills, solar panels, my bicycling lifestyle and a lot of other things.

Other parts of the economy have boomed and gotten pricey. Now it's energy's turn.

You say, what about oil company profits?

Well, maybe they'll invest them in a variety of energy sources. Sideways drilling. Even solar power. Can get expensive.

If houses can be so expensive in places like Santa Cruz, CA., I guess energy costs something also.

Senate Approves Oil Drilling In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

I am not surprised. More Republicans than Democrats in Senate.

Also, there was a recent survey, done here in Bellingham, about how people transport themselves. The survey concluded that people "talk green," but still rely on the automobile for a very high percentage of trips.

The "green means" of transportation, such as walking, bicycling or public transit, only account for a small percentage of trips.

In other words, talk is green, but not action.

The study also has funding to sit down with people and discuss transportation choices. It reported an increase in the use of "green travel," after people were counselled, one to one, on their options.

This second part of the study was encouraging.

Basically, many green talkers are hypocrites, before the study, but after the one on one counselling part of that study, people improved.