Commentary by Martin Nix PO Box 95173 Seattle, WA 98145-2173
Warning, what you do NOT know will drive up your electric rates, and affect reliability. To put it to you blunt, Seattle City Light is a not for profit utility. You own it. If you do not pay attention, and exercise your rights as a Consumer Owned Utility Stockholder, there will be repeat, repeat, a hostile takeover by a for profit utility. Utilities are the good part of "the gov'". It is what make our daily lives work. Now get in that ballot box and start voting for prosolar candidates, or you will be solar cooked turkey. Got it. You are the government, and there is something wrong when those who are mostly younger, mostly poorer, mostly undereducated do not vote. Guess who it is that gets to pay the taxes, and guess who gets the benefits. Now that I have your attention, let's talk about how to convert Seattle to Solar Power.
ELECTRIC UTILITY RESTRUCTURE IS COMING.
Here is what is going on. Congress is looking at Electric Utility Divestiture. Remember Airline Deregulation, Pipeline Deregulation, and Telephone Deregulation. Now try ....electric utilities. You see, keeping with the Reagan era philosophy of free enterprise competition, well....competition always brings out the best, because well....the worse go out of business.
Airline Deregulation was great. Airlines went into head to head competition, with Hub and Spoke systems. Airlines started to slash air ticket prices, and consumers loved it....until airlines started to crash due to poor maintenance. Airlines even started to land aircraft at the same airport....at the same time...OPPS. And airlines bought up the smaller weaker airlines, cut wages, and airlines feel apart. It is called "ruinious competition". There was so much competition that the entire industry suffered. Airline passengers became like cattle. Guess, what the same is about to happen to electricity.
To quote George C. Loehr (Public Utilities, Fortnightly, April 15, 1998. Ten Myths about Deregulation). " We will see more blackouts. It will take just a few months or it will take years...but it will happen. Make no mistake about it. If this is so, one might ask. How come so few people know about it? Ah, there's the rub! For one thing, engineers love order and most of the people who would agree with me are engineers. We don't like to rock the boat. We'd rather work from within, and we have a devotion to authority that is sometimes far too strong. Many believe that given the present situation, the only way to help reliability is to work from within and try the best of the situation. And some of us would like to keep our jobs! There's been akind of blanket of silence thrown over the entire industry. It's not written anywhere, but everyone knows that speaking out even in private meetings, may to paraphase the Surgeon General, be dangerous to your career. Everyone knows decisions will be made at the top, and contrary opinions are not welcome.....
OK, Margaret Pageler, we know you are busy, but Seattle City Lights' smooth operation is your responsibility, and you better "make the time". In the words of a friend "Seattle City Light is one of the few areas in city government that actually work".
FOR PROFIT VS NOT FOR PROFIT....OR BOTH
Let's get this straight. Roads, water lines, gas lines, sidewalks, fire departments, sewer treatment plants, and so on are public utilities. Something we all have to use, rich or poor. Some say football stadiums, parks health care, and schools are utilities, but traditionally there is some kind of Right-A-Way. Streets have sewer, gas and water lines underneath. Power lines and cable/telephone lines are overhead.
You see, for-profit utilities work for a profit, and those at the top determine how that profit is used. Profit when it comes to a utility is just like a tax. PROFIT=TAX. When Pukit Power increase their rate-of-return to 20%,which is fair, that means that every small business and home owner pays. Everyone has to use them, and are monopolies. Supposely profit is good when it finances innovation and maintenance, and research...but more so profit in the case of Pukit Power is pure "government waste". Profit is spent more on excessive wages for engineers, management perks, campaigns disguised as marketing, contributions to Capitol Hill, or nice parking places. Ratepayers have little control over how this slush money is used.
That is the reason why for-profit utilities are regulated by state governments, so that you, that is right you the ratepayer, can stop predatory business tactics.
Instead, not-for-profit utilities are owned by you, the rate payer, and you exercise your rights as a stockholder via your elected officials. Sometimes it is done via city council, or sometimes a Public Utility District, or via a Rural Electric Coop...whatever the key is this: your dividends are returned to you in the form of lower electric rates. Electric utilities tend to be very capital intensive, with little labor cost, unlike many small businesses. Thus the reason for this arrangement. In fact, not-for-profit utilities often make "payments in lieu of taxes" by donating free electricity to schools, fire departments, fire districts, water utilities, transit systems and so on. This is not some kind of "ism" but part of the free enterprise ethic. To illustrate suppose we were to "privatize" the InterState Highway System, for say one trillion dollars. Now this new King of the Road levels a fair rate of return of 20%. That is like a tax of 200 billion a year in dollars, or enough to pay off the national deficit within 30 years. That is the reason why roads are in the not-for-profit category. Roads are expensive, and literally have to be repaved every generation. That is over 60,000 miles of asphalt. Pothole repair is not, repeat not, cheap. Not that I am against for-profit corporations, I think they have a role to play. It is just that I don't like paying the mafia tax. If a neighborhood wants to get together and form their own water district, and not pay this new King of the Road.....it is our right.
GENCO, TRANSCO, AND DISCO
In theory, the plan being developed by Congress looks promising. Just like what happen to the gas pipeline industry, the idea is to bust electric utilities into three seperate companies. One set of companies could make electricity, but not transport it. We call them GENCO. TRANSCO transmit power from GENCO to DISCO, DISCO are your neighborhood wires. The idea is the consumer has a choice. We can choose Solar Corp, and maybe sell back solar produced power from the top of your roof.
By doing so, now you can choose which GENCO. Trouble is that Solar Corp is under capitalized, and can potentially undersell Nuclear Corp. But there in is the rub. Nuclear Corp has to recovery all those "stranded investments like Three Mile Island ( a cool billion dollars). So instead Nuclear Corp wants to put in a "line tax"...that way the people of Seattle pay for someone else's booboo. (Seattle never participated in nuclear power). They call it a "level playing field".
Frankly, if Pukit Power wants a "level playing field", may I suggest pay cuts for upper management. Seattle City Light does not pay for such "government waste", but instead pays salaries within reason. There isn't all those perks like baseball stadium boxes for execs.
Utility Deregulation, excuse me, restructing, in theory should work, but the laws of physics come to play here. How do you transport electricity made in Texas to New England? The line resistance loses are huge. Electricity is not a commodity. You just don't mine electricity like coal or gas. Transmission lines, just like your home wires, can overheat and melt....burning the house down so to speak.
I predict that with restructuring you will see the railroads moving heavily into electrification of the tracks, since trains move faster. But more importantly, it will allow railroads to transport cheap "solar/wind power" from Montana. I predict it will allow bankruptcy of nuclear power plants. I predict more market entry of new technologies like flywheel storage, or stirling cycle cogeneration, or godforbidit solar cells! The hopefore goal of Electricity Utility Divestiture is to foster more choices for the consumer. Praise the Lord and the SunGod.
But, and the really big Butt, is what to do about that pesky "Seattle City Light". In the words of my friend "There ain't no problem, so why fix it?".
Well said.
I contend that Electric Utility Restructuring only applies to for-profit utilities. It does not make sense for Seattle, because now you have three Seattle City Lights, each owned by the same people, the ratepayers. It is already accountable to the consumer-owner.
You heard of "Black Power", "Chicano Power", now try "Solar Power". To listen to these solar cooked turkeys, you would think diesel engines are democrat, nuclear power plants are republican, and hydropower is communist...sounds like "solarism" to me. God forbid, we may replace Welfare Mothers with SolarFare Kids. Having Welfare Moms making their own energy, to provide self-employment just doesn't sound American to those who profit off dependency.
HOW IT CAME ABOUT
Well, to make a long story short. I started it. Back in Jimmy Carter days, Public Service Co. Of New Mexico wanted to build a nuclear plant in Phoenix, AZ. Now mind you Albuquerque's biggest exports is atomic bombs, so there was some amazement when this kid was saying "no". This was about the same time Bill Gates lived in Turkey Town. At the invite of the mayor, then Jack Kolbert, I got to be guest of honor with a big meeting of SouthWest Utility Execs. They wanted to know why I was opposed to Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Facility. This event was duely documented by the New Mexico Conservation Coordinating Council at the time.
I then carefully explained the problem of the Emergency Core Cooling system and the problem of a meltdown. If you build this, I said, you will face "bankruptcy, federal investigation, lose your reputation as a progressive utility, and lose your franchise in 1991 to serve Albuquerque". That was before Three Mile Island or Chernobyle, which amply proved my point....all billion dollars worth. They then asked me what the alternatives were. I then carefully explained that "you can put your investments into more cogeneration, and develop solar and wind energy and have enough left over to construct a light rail transit system up the middle of Interstate 40."
Even Governor of Washington, Dixy Lee Radiation, went ape. They decided not to kill me, but just to make my life miserable....mind you Albuquerque is CIA central with all those military bases. I found myself blacklisted from employment, and a targeted CIA style. They were very hostile to solar development. The execs were only concerned about nuclear and hired this Navy admiral to command. They did not want to look at solar conversion of Albuquerque. Period. In the kind of humor department. Recently, Arizona Public Service Co. sold a building in Phoenix and forgot to remove some files. These files were copies of surveillance records of people who were anti-nuclear. (After all "if you are anti-nuclear you are immediately a criminal at least in their sight). The new owner gave those files to the PHOENIX NEW TIMES. The newspaper showed up with a truck, and only escaped a few minutes before Arizona Public Service showed complete in radiation garb. Har,ho,ha,ha.
I felt like I was service to nonvoters, those who had the most to lose from a meltdown. Something is wrong in a nation when mostly those who are older, wealthy and more educated vote. Guess who gets the taxes, and guess who gets the benefits! Thank you turkeys. I got to meet "Jimmy the Weasle", and we became friends. The nuclear mob did not want to discuss this from an engineering/economic view. They made sure I did not get my Masters Degree from the University of New Mexico. My Masters Thesis was conversion of Albuquerque to solar, and development of a first class rapid transit system......hmmmm. seems like the Petroleum club was upset. So I talked to Pete Domenici, a moderate republican from New Mexico, and that was how federal legislation started.
In short, for free enterprise to work, you need intelligent people to make decisions. It was obvious the Ronald Reagan gang was out to get solar technology. Patents were indeed bought up, inventors deliberately deprived of investment capital, solar businesses sabotaged, and deprived of market entry, and you got visited. Why do you think Brock Adams, Mike Lowry, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton are being set up to be perverts....simple they are prosolar. They, whoever they are, are rich and are trying to distract us from real issues and real problems. In the words of the Emir of Kuwait, when he heard of this, "We sell OIL, not SOLAR".
Ok, don't believe, but there are over 7,000 patents in solar energy, and the good news is most of this Jimmy Carter era inventions are now expiring, meaning anyone can use them without paying the inventor royalty. The Japanese are moving in. That is part of the reason for some technology, like solar powered calculators, becoming more common place. Do not kid yourself. Saddam is just as much an oil man as George Bush. Check out the CATO INSTITUTE web page on solar energy, it is a pile of lies, each with adequate response. These operations are well financed, as Hillary would say, by the Right Wing Wacos.
There is a reason for this hostility from oil/utility interest to solar energy. Most military arm sells are in some way financed via oil revenue. Checha, Niageria, Peru, Vietnam, and even the Falklands have oil, and lots of. You can literally predict the next war by watching oil. Someone is not thrilled by the idea of Albuquerque being a transit/solar economy, especially when the technology is profit making. Read THE SUN BETRAYED by Ray Reese. It is fairly accurate account of what happen. I was there.
SOLAR WORKS, INVESTORS DO NOT.
For all those naysayers, who say there is not a net energy gain, did you know that the state of Washington is now one of the largest producers of solar energy equipment. Yep, the Japanese are doing it again. What they did to Detroit they are doing for solar. Not only is Japan buying up production, they are reinvesting back into the United States. Now Japan is close to 10% solar powered, and they plan on once Japan is saturated with solar technology exporting to the United States.
Did you know that all the sunlight falling on Albuquerque's parking lots will power the entire city? Did you know that the amount of sunlight falling on the Four Corners Power Plant's coal strip mine will power the entire power plant. Serious!
Here is the reason for the hostility. Physical Deprivation is a weapon, used by those in unethical power to control those in the "throw away class". You buy oil, or your work for oil, or you go without...that is the mindset. Solar is true freedom. Solar Greenhouses help those in the 'throw away class' to not only warm your home, but get off Food Stamps. It means we can replace Social Security with Solar Security. ...uh.
The same people who are hostile to light rail, transit bus systems, windmills, and conservation, and bicycles are the same people who want to stop solar. There is just too much investment into rich people wants, not enough into working mans needs. There is too much investment in I-90 Mercer Island Bridges, B2 Bombers, Baseball Stadiums and Space Stations, and rich man's entertainment. Let's get back to basics. Yep, you can cook a solar cooked turkey in Seattle.
Oh,well, it isn't as bad as it sounds. There are some oil companies who are now "solar oil companies" Shell and British Petroleum, are moving big. As the drama unfolds, read OIL AND GAS JOURNAL. Exxon is ticked! In the words of a chemical engineer, "Change is coming to the oil industry, eventhough it is at a geologic scale". Yes George, you can solar power an oil refinery, and coal plant. It is now profitable.
WHAT ABOUT SOLAR POWERING SEATTLE
The technology is there, and there is now an industry. Bitter from Reaganonics, but there. All kids of technologies exist. Solar preheaters that heat water only in the summer, small wind turbines on top of streetlights, photovoltaics that convert sunlight to electricity and make the meter run backwards, preheating combustion air to gas furnaces. There is a new 33% super efficient solar cell, that focuses a hundred square feet of sunlight on a small surfaces. OUCH! Solar powered smelters that melt metals. Solar powered toilers...perfect export to Gary Locke's china (insult not intended but China needs and wants such an invention).
There are roof top solar collectors that pump sunlight into fiber optics, so you can sunlight the basement. Imagine trees in caves.
In all of Puget Sound (Seattle) there is approximately 10,000 megawatts of natural gas cogeneration, a system that makes electricity and heat at the same time. That is about ten nuclear power plant worth. In effect, every hot water heater and furnace running on natural gas can also make electricity. Combined with solar, it will make more gas available for CNG powered cars. Few know this, but there is no real geologic U.S. shortage of natural gas, just that there is a shortage of pipeline diameter. The pipes only carry so much gas. So solar helps utilities, load level their supply, especially in winter.
Guess what. There is now a solar powered rocket that is faster than a chemical or nuclear rocket. Really. This isn't Buck Rogers. It is real guys. Only one problem; investors are s.t.u.p.i.d. Most investment seed venture (vulture) capital groups will tell you, they will not look at any "save the world" proposals. I'm a solar inventor myself, I know. I think it has something to do with the fact that investors have microwave ovens, electric stoves, and don't cook on solar cookers in African Refugee camps. Funny how those above $50,000 dollar a year think it is a joke, but those under $50,000 a year are fascinated. I have had millionaries sitting on one side of my lawn eating solar cooked food, with half starved street kids on the other side. These millionaries didn't seem to understand they were suppose to give me the capital investment so I get these kids off the street into schools and jobs. Funny how we believe what we want to believe, the street kids get reality.
My apologies to vegetarians, but I am out to educate these dummies about the power of the sun...bigger than any coal mine. Our bodies are solar powered, and I have at higher altitudes cooked solar turkeys with 45 minutes, and pot roast 22 minutes. This was duely documented by the EL PASO TIMES, business page, summer, circa 1980.
SEATTLE CITY LIGHT AND SOLAR DEVELOPMENT
Ok, pay attention Margaret Pageler, the good news is Seattle is posed to convert to Solar, but it will only happen with YOUR leadership....and leadership from both private and public sectors. Check out what Sacramento Municipal Utility is doing with solar. Seattle City Light has not been involved in solar energy, much like Sacramento. The reason is Seattle is mostly hydropower, which is still the lowest cost option. Right now we export power to California.
But there is a downside to this heavy dependency on hydropower. What happens if there is a drought? Hydrodams do not work well when the rain does not , well rain. But solar collectors work well when there is a sunny drought, exactly when hydrodams run out of water. Photovoltaics pump kilowatts back into the system, exactly when the dams don't have water. In fact, we could pump so much power back into the system, that hydrodams could change operations to be more fish friendly. That means more water for fish and salmon.
Integration of solar technology with hydrodam operations could end this "dam vs fish" conflict. Common practices such as fish ladders, osmotic net barriers, fish friendly turbines, channeling to make fish highways, even changing the operational characteristics of the dam...all would be easier with solar. But there is new technology that can be integrated with hydrodams.
While I do not have a monopoly of ideas, it is ideas like this that will solve this problem. Maybe, we should spend the money on inventive technology. Instead of spending money on lawyers, maybe we should spend money on engineering. For example, floating wave buoys, can compress air and blow it to the lake bottom. The bubbles would move colder water to the surface, bringing up minerals for plant life. Floating swimming pool heaters could reflect sunlight back up, or even keep a lake from freezing in winter. We could design artificial floating rivers in the middle of the lake, using solar to create artificial rapids. Hmmmm....not saying I am a fish expert, but it is inventive ideas like this that will restore fish runs.
HYDROPOWER IN DESERTS
You see hydrodams are a form of solar power. The sun evaporates sea water to make steam, called clouds. The steam hits cooler mountains, creating rain, thus water for rivers are formed. HelioHydroElectric Technology is very interesting. Solar power pump salt water to the surface, so as to flood now dry lakes in the desert. In the American West there are about 7,000 to 9,000 dry lakes, which can be flooded from a huge underground untapped alkaline water formation. You have to drill down to sealevel to get at it, it is deep so will not affect present freshwater formations. But once you flood these lakes, it makes for solar evaporators, which create more clouds. These clouds bump into mountains which inturn make rain. There rest a solution to this fish, dam, farm, ranch conflict. More rain means more water for fish, dam, farm and ranch. Much like a Billy the Kid water war, this could end the "tree hugger vs tree killer" conflict.
Ironically, something is being looked at similar in the Saharra desert. Somesay this is a manmade desert, created by our own actions. The idea with HelioHydroElectric power is that it will restore nature and farmlands to the desert. This is ironically one of the few areas where the Israelis and Arabs agree. Perhaps, HelioHydroElectric power just might cool off those hotheads! Maybe put out a few forest fires.
But there is a solar lining. All those artificial lakes grow a very interesting species of algae which is high in protein and viatamins: Spirulina. Think about it. Artificial turkey meat. When I did my research on HelioHydroElectric technology at New Mexico State University, Ronald Reagan's energy secretary, John Herrington first act was to shut me up. My conclusion was it would feed the world.
We could even grow it on the Navaho reservation and ship it to the Makah Tribe in Washington state to feed the whales and fish. Wow! Feeding fish food in the ocean. That is about as revolutionary as feeding hay to cattle. It was obvious someone likes world starvation.
There is another silver lining in HelioHydroElectrical power. This salt water pumped to the surface also contains minerals like silver, gold, manganese, etc. Using electrolysis, these minerals can be mined. Hey we could build these in Eastern Washington. Take note Weyerheyser.
CENTRALIA STEAM PLANT AND SEATTLE CITY LIGHT
Seattle City Light is well aware of the drought threat. Thus the utility is a 8% owner of a coal plant in Centralia WA. In effect, this thermal power is sold to other utilities on a KW to KW trade. It is like a bank, when we need it back, we get it back, we cash in. The idea is simple. Since Centralia is for drought protection, we could sell our portion for say 300 million dollars. Then use the funds to finance a "solar bank". Brilliant idea. I theory these monies would be perpetual, kind of like Washington Mutual. We use these monies to install solar collectors on our houses. Then as these loans are paid off, they are used to finance more solar collectors. Even finance solar collectors on Fred Meyer parking lots, or finance cogeneration. But there is another reason for solar: Earthquakes.
DISASTER HAPPEN
Blackouts happen also. By making our homes energy self sufficient, we can have energy immediately after the big one. The lesson of San Francisco is clear: solar collectors and rapid transit do work after an earthquake. Bay Area Rapid Transit was up and running, abet slowly. Highways and gas lines were pure death. Impressed or not, transit systems and solar are a disaster recovery technique. Message to car drivers. Do not expect to drive after an earthquake, ride the solar powered bus instead. Yep, monorails are survivable also, along with bicycles.
BOTTOM LINE
Ok, Margart Pageler, pay attention. You are in the solar hot seat. So let's state solarizing Seattle NOW. We know you are busy, but this is your job and your responsibility. Or better said, to all those Solar naysayers. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE MY PLANET GET OFF. But now to discuss solar conversion of the transportation system. Mind you this was written to make you think. With more and more money spent on traffic congestion, oil wars, and paving.....that means less money for other things, like homes, education, health care.....and solar technology. We must also change our transportation system. Close to one half of the nation's energy supply goes to transportation, and transportation is mostly dependent on one energy resource OIL! And most of the nation's oil is now imported from outside the United States. However, the good news is very little oil is burned to make electricity and power our homes. Most nontransportation uses do not use oil, but are more dependent on Made In U.S.A. energy resources like coal or natural gas or hydropower. Now a few honest words about traffic and energy.
21 IDEAS THAT WILL SOLVE SEATTLE'S TRAFFIC CONGESTION QUICKLY
The problem: too many cars. The solution: kick them out.
Idea number one: paint HOV (high occupancy lanes) on all streets wider than two lanes. Make that third and fourth lane into a restricted lane to just buses, trucks and vanpools. Let big trucks use them. One third of all traffic is trucks, buses, and carpools, so let's give them one third of the road space. The cause of traffic is purely one-driver-three-empty-seats, so seperate out SOVs (Single Occupancy Vehicles). Put a cap on the number of SOVs (pronounced snots). Trucks are important, and when a truck is stuck in traffic, it cost often as much as forty dollars an hour....only driving up the cost of our groceries.
Idea number two: Move parking to only one side of the street, not both sides. Use the other side for a motorcycle/bicyle lane. Make some residential streets one way, thus making room for the lane. Better yet, this can reduce our garbage/recycling rates, if we were to put in bicycle paths on all residential streets. The trucks only have to travel up the street once, not twice, thus reducing cost.
Idea number three: Convert alley ways to bicycle/motorcycle paths. Put in traffic signals, speed limits,etc. Neighbors could still access their backyards, but only at 5 Miles Per Hour.
Idea number four: Transportation Radio. Roll over RushHour Limberger on big lie radio. It's time car drivers faced reality and stop esposing lies and believing what you want to believe. Cars are heavily subsidized, and it is time cars got off welfare. Highways are not just paid for out of gasoline taxes but also out of income, corporate, sales and property taxes. State general funds are used to pay for traffic courtrooms, and medicare is used to pay for injuries. Creating a transportation station dedicated just to traffic issues would increase the IQ level of these gasoline addicts.
Idea number five: Eliminate free parking. Replace with paid parking even at Safeway or Nordstroms. Bluntly free parking is not. The real estate value of the nation's parking lots would literally pay off the national deficiet. And use the revenue from paid parking to reduce the sales and property taxes. Using sales and property taxes for street paving is a tax "upon those who do not drive, to subsidize those who do drive". Solar powered parking meters can read credit cards. And replace the 25 cent parking meter with Suzanne B Anthony one dollar coins. Put parking meters or pass parking on residential streets, and eliminate free overnight parking. Eliminating free parking in Seattle would shift the tax burden to those who drive into Seattle....that way Bellevue, Everett, Redmond....well pay. Most congestion is caused by out of town drivers, so lets stop being nice.
Idea number six: Eliminate meter maids and parking tickets. Replace with tow trucks.
Idea number seven: Increase the gasoline tax, and use the revenue to pay for Operation Desert Shield. Simple, start a gasoline war, gasoline tax goes up. The gulf war was not cheap, direct cost are estimated by the Department of War at over 50 billion dollars. With indirect cost at over 400 billion, that is cost like covert CIA operations on Iran, reflagging tankers, rebuilding Kuwait city, military arms sells to Saddam himself, need we continue. No more use of the national deficiet to pay for mercenary operations. Car drivers are so addicted to gasoline, that they honestly want to use tax money meant for schools for street paving. That way you have lots of dumb kids to join the army to kill other dumb kids for oil. Call the Gulf War what it is, a riot by auto drivers. Look at all those little Saddams on the free (subsidized) way.
Idea number eight: Make it manditory for employers to get their employees to leave their private cars at home. Let's see Microsoft put in it's own transit bus system, complete with satellite parking, or telecommunication/daycare centers. Even put computers on buses, along with latte stands. Have a dial-a-ride minibus for those gurus, even run the vanpools on natural gas. It's less expensive than building huge parking lots. Employees can leave their Saddammobiles at HOME, and who says this isn't free-enterprise....it is.
Idea number nine: Clamp down on drinking and driving, no alcohol twenty four hours before you drive. Driving is not a right, it is a license, and impounding the cars of drinking drivers, even if only one drink, would unclog the courts. Less than one half of all accidents involve alcohol.
Idea number ten: Put in a ferry boat system on Lake Washington. And have buses with bicycle trailers travel from schools to ferry terminals. That way the educational system becomes one big giant classroom, even allows teachers to get to work without driving. Parking from highschool students has become a real issue in Seattle, and it is time we put in a 24 hour transit system that highschool students can use. A combination of buses with bicycle trailers, traveling to the ferry system and to other schools, would not only employ highschool students, but also could be integrated as part of driver education. It is time teachers, staff and students did something else besides "bulldoze down forest for parking".
Idea number eleven: Stricter driving test. Make all drivers watch a video on traffic reduction, and how you can reduce your driving. Test for such driving skills as "how to read a bus schedule".
Idea number twelve: Call the state legislature back into special session. All utilities including water, power, sewer, sidewalks, and roads are monopolies, something we all must use. Whether it is private or publically owned, it is still the duty of the state legislature. Utilities are not like free enterprise but monopolies, there is only one street out front, only one power line, only one water line...bluntly the present auto transit system is nothing more than a tax upon those without cars. O yea, witness that one billion dollar noise lid on Mercer Island. That way the upper class don't have to listen to freeway noise, but if this had been someplace else, it would have been 'government waste'. Vote the oil lobby out. Nonvoters help out. If you don't vote then do jury duty. This isn't room service. The poor drive shopping carts. Upper class SOVs don't like riding with those kind of people. Just like the oil lobby shut down the streetcar system of Los Angeles and Seattle, we can make them put it back in. Make the legislature do their job.
Idea number thirteen: Tear up the parking lots and replace with housing. Widen the sidewalks, and plant more trees. Already over 50% of our land area in city is asphalt (go look!). We don't need more parking, what we need is more land for housing, factories, farms, etc. Get shopping centers to stop building more parking, and replace with other ideas like home delivery, free taxi ride home, shopping carts on buses, or connect up with monorails.
Idea number fourteen: Alternative fuels. Let's see Detroit get serious about making every car alternative fueled. Make it manditory for all resold cars in Washington to be dual fuel, like natural gas. Funny if Japan can do it, howcome we can't. Special message to Gulf War (syndrome) Vetereans....want to go back? Mind you with turkeys like 'bin Saudi' and Saddam, these people half way around the world are ticked. The next time there is a Gulf War, the U.S. Navy just might be swimming. That is not an undefeatable military. Bluntly using the military as an excuse to not rid ourselves of gasoline addiction, well is not the answer. The nation should use the military for national defense, not for mercenary purposes. Got it!
Idea number fifteen: Put tolls on the freeway and bridges. You drive you pay. Call the I-90 what it is, a two billion dollar driveway to Mercer Island...that means the rich pay. For those that complain, about government interference, well let's talk about the real government, those "behind the wheel".
Idea number sixteen: Put in more traffic circles. In fact, blockoff residential streets and make them one way. Make it more difficult to drive around. Get drivers to stop parking in crosswalks. Repeat, Make it more difficult to drive around! Get drivers to stop parking in crosswalks, and give pedestrians priority.
Idea number seventeen: Passenger trains. The tracks and righaway is there. Let's see free enterprise work. Merge AMTREK and GREYHOUND and form a true national bus system. Put bar and restaurants on buses. Make it nice. Many tracks in the USA can be used for streetcars, do it. Explore such ideas as platform loading not only for trains, but buses. Did you know the Emir of Kuwait is a large owner of railroad stock...now you know the rest of the story.
Idea number eightteen: Close off downtown to cars. Only let trucks, buses and local residences, and vanpools, drive in. It's people that shop in stores not cars...idiots. Bus and train riders shop also. Infact busriders have more money to shop because they don't spend it on gasoline. While we are at it, make University Ave, Capital Hill and Ballard into transit/pedestrian malls. Ban cars from shopping districts.
Idea number nineteen: Electrify the nation's railroads and buslines. One sure way to bankrupt the Emir of Kuwait. Electric trains move faster, quieter and allow more trains to move each hour. It is much easier to control for pollution from a large power plant, than from a bunch of autos. Most electricity in the USA is made from nonoil sources, and electricty is Made in the USA, not Saudi Arabia. Electrifying the nation's train and bus lines would make the nation oil embargo proof.
Idea number twenty: Lower the Speed Limit. It is not those who drive too slow who cause accidents, it is those who drive too fast. When you speed there is more kinetic energy, that is why car accidents are much more violent at high speeds. Put in electronic speed limit signs on free (subsidized ways).
Idea number twenty one: Get Educated. All these ideas have on thing in common. They are practical and quick to implement, and cost effective. As more and more is spent on traffic, people will have less to spend on such luxury items like airplane tickets. This will in turn impact even airlines, who are dependent upon recreational customers. Sure body shops fix cars and hire people and pay taxes, but are all those fender benders really "supply side economics". Read END OF THE ROAD by Wolfgang Zuckermann. Or read ASPHALT NATION by Jane Kay. Each year we spend over 50 billion alone on traffic congestion, and these are real cost. Eliminating traffic congestion will help alleviate the national deficiet.
What will it take, a tornado striking the 520 bridge? An earthquake under Bellevue Square? Want another Snow Storm? The problem: too many cars. The solution: kick these turkeys out.
CONCLUSION
What built the railroads, was coal. Railroads hauled coal to steel plants which built more tracks and trains. Today, automobiles and highways run on oil. Asphalt comes from oil, tires come from oil. Just like rails were built by coal, cars were built by oil. It is like cars were created by oil. I contend that monorails are to solar, what oil is to cars, and coal is to trains. When you change a nation's energy source you also change a nation's transportation system. The good news is it can happen, the bad news is it will not happen when the leadership in both private and public sectors......well do not provide that leadership. Change will happen....like it or not, OPEC and the oil embargo is returning! But with "solar leadership" it does not have to be violent, as the Gulf War has amply shown.
Solar Technology is much like money in it's own way. If for example, I have a suncoin...a solar cell that makes electricity... I can trade it for a solar produced garden fruit. You take home that suncoin, place it in your bank on your roof and sell electricity back to the utility. Suncoins are much like a barter economy, and in many ways StockMarket Crash Proof, and resistent to inflation. Solar energy is our medium of exchange, and thus a method of getting people off welfare, insulating ourselves from Market Crashes, and best of all self-employment. But it will only happen if you make the effort. The American Dream is no longer " a chicken in every pot, and car in the garage" it is now " a solar collector on every roof, a wind mill in the back yard, and monorail up the street". The vision has now changed.
I am not interested in hearing what I SHOULD DO. I am doing. The big question is WHAT WILL YOU DO. Conversion of American to a solar and transit based economy can be profitably done, that is the good news. The bad news is we have too many that profit off our pains. It does not have to remain that way. It will only happen if YOU make the effort.
May the Sun be with you. Martin "Solar" Nix.