Get Energy Smart! NOW!

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Fighting Back against Cutting Electric Prices with Wind Power

August 9th, 2010 · 2 Comments

This is another guest post from BruceMcF who, again, is worth listening to … Recently, Jerome a Paris and afew from the European Tribune published a piece in New Scientist on why having sufficient wind turbines in an energy portfolio has been observed to lower energy prices to consumers. After tweeting that article, I started […]

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Tags: wind power

Local Electric Transport and the Energy Independence Levy

May 17th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Another guest post from the extremely thoughtful and insightful BruceMcF. Bruce’s thoughts, writ large, about transport policy and, more specifically, electrified rail merit attention and action. If we reduce our oil consumption by 5% a year over each of the next twenty years, that allows use to be free of our oil addiction if we […]

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Tags: electricity · Energy · guest post · rail · the five percent solution

Work the Railroad for Energy Independence

May 11th, 2010 · 3 Comments

This is another guest post from BruceMcF, whose ideas on transportation (mainly, but not solely rail) merit heeding. See Burning the Midnight Oil. Well how the frack d’ya like me now? I’m not going to say “toldya so”, since many who will be reading this diary said much the same during the “Drill, Baby, Drill” […]

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Tags: Energy · guest post · rail

A Train Running A Profit is Charging Too Much

January 25th, 2010 · 2 Comments

This guest post by the very thoughtful BruceMcF focuses on the public transit / rail version of the need to look beyond stove-pipes to full values for a true cost-benefit analysis. Just like so many fossil fuel costs are externalized (pollution, whether causing cancers or climate change), so too are many transit benefits. Those investing […]

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Tags: analysis · Energy · trains · transportation

Supporting Rail Electrification with the Climate Bill

October 11th, 2009 · Comments Off on Supporting Rail Electrification with the Climate Bill

Electrification of rail is one of the most effective currently available technology paths for reducing carbon emissions. It should be on the top of the policy agenda. It is, basically, nowhere to be found. Here is a guest post by the very thoughtful BruceMcF, looking at this gap and providing a path forward for addressing […]

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Tags: climate legislation · Energize America · Energy · environmental · financial policy · government energy policy · rail · trains · transportation

Sunday Train: Rapid Streetcars and Suburban Retrofit

September 27th, 2009 · 3 Comments

Another in the series of guest posts from the ever-thoughtful BruceMcF (who is Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence) re rail transport.     The people’s choice award in the Re-Burbia “Rethinking Suburbia” design competition was the entry titled Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing The Urban Fabric. But I want to adapt these ideas from the repair of […]

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Tags: Energy

“Growing” Green Transport

September 21st, 2009 · 1 Comment

Another guest post from the extremely thoughtful and knowledgeable BruceMcF, offering a vision for rail transport that would be well worth embracing. On Thursday, djrekluse wrote: Despite considerable tension and even aversion in green communities to the subject, we cannot talk about “going green” without making it a discussion about growth through various hierarchies of […]

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Tags: trains · transportation

Sunday Train: The Charleston WV Hub

September 14th, 2009 · Comments Off on Sunday Train: The Charleston WV Hub

Another guest post from BruceMcF.  Quite simply, rail (and, especially, electrified rail) is one of the more important Silver BBs before us (the U.S.) to deal with the perfect storm of economic, energy, and environmental challenges.  Bruce is a thoughtful, eloquent advocate on rail (and nodal transportation) issues who is well worth paying attention to. […]

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Tags: trains · transportation

Time for the a 21st Century Steel Interstate

September 8th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Electrification of rail might be one of the most important single Silver BBs right before us for tackling economic, energy, and environmental challenges. On this, a guest post from the impassioned and thoughtful rail/transport thinker BruceMcF … Having lost sight of our goals we redoubled our efforts    – Mark Twain The Steel Interstate concept is […]

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Tags: Energy · trains · transportation · trucking

Libertarian Assault on Obama’s HSR Policy

August 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on Libertarian Assault on Obama’s HSR Policy

Here we have a guest post from BruceMcF who blogs at Burning the Midnight Oil.  BruceMcF has done tremendous work re rail issues and how to move the United States toward a better transportation system.  Here, he lays out what might be called a smear campaign against sensible rail policy. I speculated on what was […]

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Tags: Energy