Bacon's Rebellion

While vast majority of the correspondence we receive is informative and supportive, on line we hear primarily from the League of Tiger Riders. Their activities were profiled in our last column “Riding the Tiger.”

One has to wonder: “What are they thinking?” On the other hand, it should not be surprising that we do not understand how “Not Ed Risse” and others think.

In a 2 June 2008 post on BR Blog POLITICAL WISDOM AND CONVENTION NOTICE we note a Wilfred Owens quote:

“There are no transport facility (or we always add, transport facility finance schemes) that will solve transport problem – there are only settlement pattern solutions.”

We heard from “Not Ed Risse” at 5:39 PM, he commented:

“Ed Risse’s ultimate nightmare is closer than he thinks.

“Unlimited, cheap, non-polluting fuel!

“Watch this video on TED.

“http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/227

“In early 2008, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components. By sequencing a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design bootable organisms, creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can use, such as biofuel.

“Human ingenuity and freedom will lead to unimaginable prosperity for everyone.”

Lets go over this remarkable “response” item by item:

“Ed Risse’s ultimate nightmare is closer than he thinks. Unlimited, cheap, non-polluting fuel!”

No, E M Risse’s ultimate nightmare is not there will be “unlimited, cheap, non-polluting fuel” his nightmare is that more than a small minority are foolish enough to believe that “Unlimited, cheap, non-polluting fuel” will make the world a better place in any way, much less preserve the potential of maintaining democracies with market economies.

EMR’s hope is that this minority stays below the 20 percent threshold per the 60 % / 20 % / 20% Rule. About the same percentage as believe that the Earth is flat would be fine.

Not Ed Risse goes on:

“Watch this video on TED.

“http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/227

“In early 2008, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components. By sequencing a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design bootable organisms, creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can use, such as biofuel.”

Let us all agree that there a lot of smart folks with a lot of great ideas burning through billions in research dollars on what in The Shape of the Future we call “frontier science.” “Frontier science” is the pursuit of arcane answers to cutting edge questions for which someone believes there is a big payoff – not necessarily a big benefit. Among them is Dr. Venter’s team at JCVI.

With respect to “bootable organisms” JCVI has another long, difficult step to achieve their goal.

But if JCVI or someone else on the same track, does completed the quest, where will the feedstock to produce this biofuel come from?

Who will pay for the processes that generates a new fuel?

Who will control the processes?

One thing for sure, the product will not be “cheap.” One might as well count on Brazilians selling its new found petrochemical resources at below market price.

How about the Hydrogen economy? How about cheap nuclear power? Better yet just hope that Thomas Gold was right about spontaneous generation of hydrocarbons. Or perhaps cold fusion, you get the idea…

Finally, “Not Ed Risse” says:

“Human ingenuity and freedom will lead to unimaginable prosperity for everyone.”

Lets look at both ends of this “freedom and unimaginable prosperity for everyone” pipe dream.

On the front end, long ago, right here on Planet Earth humans had wonderful biological robots that did just what Dr. Venter would like these new ones to do. These servants of man spent tens of millions of years creating a cheap – and if intelligently used – non-polluting fuel. What happened?

Humans have burned through most of the easy-to-access Natural Capital including the work of these microscopic petrochemical beavers in a little over a hundred years. To make matters worse – much worse – humans polluted the air, water and marine resources in the process.

What is more, humans and their Organizations do not have the collective intelligence to conserve (as in to be “conservative” about resource consumption) what is left of the petrochemical reserves for important products like pharmaceuticals and specialty materials. Instead humans, especially in the US of A are wasting it on needless to-ing and fro-ing to overcome dysfunctional settlement human patterns.

Note: Human settlement patterns were made dysfunctional to meet the short-term interest of a few at the expense of the many and this in spite of what the market would support if citizens were offered a choice.

On the other end of the “freedom and unimaginable prosperity for everyone” pipe dream:

What has the last 35 years (since the 1973 Wake-Up Call that was ignored) of unprecedented wealth and consumption done for “freedom and unimaginable prosperity for everyone?”

Well for starters the top five percent of the economic and social Ziggurat have gotten much richer but not much happier.

The middle forty five percent are Running As Hard As They Cans (RHTCs). They have run up record setting debt and have been responsible for most of the resource burn. RHTCs are clearly not “better off” than their parents were in the 60s. Back then, one could pay for a year of college with a summers work fighting fires and clearing trails. One could buy a good car with a summers work in a grocery store.

RHTCs own bigger-than-they-need houses, many in dysfunctional locations, and own dozens of “must have” gadgets. No single person on the cutting edge of “prosperity” knows how to use all the “modern technology” that they already own, much less all the new technology and other consumption items that MainStream Media advertising tells them they “need.”

What is worse, these RHTCs are not better off – not better educated, not healthier, not longer living and not happier – than citizens in other First World nation-states that have spent half as much of that “cheap” fuel.

And the bottom 50 percent of the economic and social Ziggurat?

By some measures, some citizens are, thankfully, better off. But most are falling farther and farther behind. The Wealth Gap is widening at an alarming rate. The Quality of Life is eroding and the ladders to self improvement are rotting away.

You may have noticed that citizens are demanding “change.” If one understands what happens in democracies that create conditions of massive disparity it is clear that it will not be long before over 51 percent will vote for demigods who promise easy solutions. That will end the gravy train for all but those on the “central committee.”

Humans have not shown the ability to achieve “freedom and unimaginable prosperity for everyone” with the resources they have burned through since 1870. What would cause “Not Ed Risse,” or anyone else, to think they will do better with some new gift house, if one actually arrives?

What are the members of the League of Tiger Riders thinking?

What is even more scary is that everyday comes a new barrage of misinformation and emotionally loaded defenses of Business As Usual and the mantra of the Tiger Riders. (See the discussion of Institutions in THE ESTATES MATRIX.

Have a nice weekend.

EMR

Well, Wonkish Ones, I am departing today on the uniquely American hajj — the mandatory, once-in-a-lifetime trip with a 10-year-old to Disney World. I will be gone all next week. I may or may not have wireless Internet access, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay in touch.

But never fear, Ed Risse has promised two file a couple of posts, and Peter Galuszka has dangled the prospect of dropping a bombshell or two, time permitting. And, if you’re lucky, Norm Leahy will cross-post from Tertium Quids.

If any of you read Ed’s column, “Learning from the Mouse,” on Bacon’s Rebellion, you’ll know he’s referring to Disney World. I suspect that I’ll be far more interested in Disney’s transportation solutions than its jungle rides. With luck, I’ll be able to gather enough notes to submit a coherent column when I return.

Do not expect much help on Mobility and Access from the presumptive Donkey Clan presidential nominee based on today’s action.

Eric M. Weiss has the story in WaPo today: “Road Plus Rally Equals Snarls” Obama Event at (Nissan) Pavilion Promises Epic Back-Ups.”

You would not expect Sen Obama himself to understand the self-inflicted Mobility and Access disaster caused by approval of Nissan Pavilion over a decade ago – but his handlers, staff and the host / promoters from the Commonwealth?

The settlement pattern solution? Do not hold any event in the Pavilion.

The Autonomobile industry image solution? Get out of the naming “rights.”

The political image and turn a red state blue strategy? Do not hold this event in the Pavilion.

EMR

Let me say up front that the Aptera totally rocks. The super fuel-efficient vehicle is so awesomely cool — the hybrid gas-electric vehicle gets up to 300 miles per gallon — that it makes me proud to be an American. (Detroit, watch out, the company that designed the vehicle is based… where else… in Carlsbad, Calif.)

The designers are pricing the all-electric vehicle at $26,900 and the plug-in hybrid at $29,000. That’s more expensive than a Prius, but with gasoline selling at $4 a gallon, you can save some serious coin with this bad boy. I would be amazed if this vehicle doesn’t make big inroads into the marketplace.

I first saw the vehicle profiled last night on NBC News. Then this morning the blogger “Not Ed Risse” posted a comment linking to the Aptera website, along with a triumphal note aimed at the real Ed Risse: “300 miles to the gallon! Autonomobility is here to stay. Deal with it.”

On the philosophical spectrum, I reside somewhere between Not Ed Risse and the real Ed Risse. I have confidence in America’s creative genius. Now that energy prices have risen to a new, higher plateau, we will find ways to both conserve and produce energy in ways that were unimaginable a few years ago. While I do perceive a risk of civilizational collapse due to the unsustainable consumption of energy, I’m pretty confident that our market-based economy will be able to muddle through.

But it’s premature to high-five each other over the end of the automobility crisis. Permit me to touch upon a couple of issues:

• The Aptera doesn’t touch the problem of traffic congestion. Take ten million SUVs off the road and replace them with Apteras, and you still have ten millions vehicles on the road, jockeying for scarce roadway capacity and requiring parking spaces.
• Widespread adoption of the Aptera and comparable vehicles will accelerate the collapse of our highway funding system based on the gasoline tax. Let’s estimate the impact on tax revenues… 300 miles to the gallon vs. 15 miles to the gallon. You do the math. If we don’t pay for roads with a gasoline tax, how will we pay for them?
• Dysfunctional human settlement patterns are not rendered miraculously functional by low fuel costs. The Aptera will cut down the gasoline bill and reduce pollution — two very good things — but it won’t reduce time spent commuting or reduce the cost of providing public services to inefficient patterns of development.

So, let us salute the creators of the Aptera and praise American ingenuity. Let us hope that Aptera goes mainstream, inspires imitators and weens millions of Americans from their big cars. But let’s not forget the many other costs — few of them so easily addressed — associated with automobility.

Virginia’s Department of Corrections has dreamed up a clever way to solve its financial problems: Take in 300 prisoners from Wyoming, charging roughly $85 per prisoner per day, while keeping state prisoners housed in local jail and paying only $14 per day. Pocket the profit of $71 per prisoner per day.

Three hundred prisoners adds up to real money — about $21,000 per day, or more than $7.6 million a year!

Virginia Beach Sheriff Paul J. Lanteigne doesn’t think it’s such a good deal. He’s on the receiving end, collecting only $14 per day for 67 inmates who are required by state law, he contends, to be housed in a state prison. Meanwhile, the jail’s population is 1,479, but the jail is rated for only 889 inmates, reports Frank Green with the Times-Dispatch. “The jail is severely overcrowded,” Lanteigne said in papers filed yesterday.

All told, there are 1,799 such “out-of-compliance” inmates in local and regional jails across the state, according to DOC. The Department hopes to import as many as 1,000 more inmates to offset more than $40 million in budget cuts over the next two years.

Tough call. I admire the ingenuity of the DOC for engaging what amounts to prisoner arbitrage. I’m wondering if someone could create a market that evens out the variations in supply, capacity and price between prison systems. I’ve got 200 New York prisoners here, costing $120 per day per head. South Carolina, your cost is $50 a head. I’ll pay you $90, New York saves $20 and I pocket $10. I’ll tell you what, for that price, I’ll throw in free prisoner transport!

On the other hand, there is the problem of prison overcrowding in Virginia Beach and other municipalities. While I don’t normally get all worked up over the living conditions of the criminal class, some local jails are atrocious. On this particular issue, call me conflicted.

(Image: Butch Cassidy, one of Wyoming’s more celebrated prison inmates.)

At last! Dominion Virginia Power is moving ahead with a pilot program for one of the potentially most effective electricity-conservation strategies available. The power company will test demand-response technology in 2,000 homes in Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia this summer, deploying small, programmable communicating thermostats (PCTs) and intelligent load-control switches in approximately 2,000 homes.

In theory, the demand-response solution will allow utilities to respond to rising peak loads by reducing energy usage at critical times. The load management system will send a communication signal to the demand-response devices installed at the home to cycle air conditioners. Additionally, the program allows participating residents to program and control the temperature setting of their home thermostats using the Internet.

Dominion hasn’t released details of the initiative, but Comverge, Inc., developer of the technology, has. (Read the Comverge press release.) You, the readers of the Bacon’s Rebellion blog, find out first because your editor is all seeing, all knowing!

By curtailing peak power demands, the demand-response system potentially could save Dominion Virginia Power hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions of dollars, in avoided costs. The key to making it work is making it worth the while of electric consumers to endure reductions to their power supply when they need it most. Will DVP offer them a rate cut? Details to come.

In one of the coolest parts of his new book, “Who’s Your City?”, creative-class guru Richard Florida argues that regions, like people, can have personalities. He identifies five standard personality types — openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion (sociability), agreeableness and neuroticism — and, based upon 600,000 survey responses from individuals around the country, plots the responses geographically.

VCU and its President Eugene Trani are coming off very badly in a public relations disaster that is largely to their making. In a recent front page article, The New York Times asked reasonable questions about taking money from Philip Morris USA under provisions that appear to violate even VCU’s rules in terms of research disclosure and academic freedom. But Trani – and the Richmond establishment – obfuscated, giving the school and the region a national black eye.

VCU spokespeople confirm that the language in the so-called “research services agreements” from Philip Morris USA forbade anyone from even talking about the contract. In a creepy stipulation, if the news media even asked questions, they were to be reported right away to the tobacco firm. Even VCU admits that its other “research service agreements” do not claim such stringent language.

Trani says the Times misunderstood and that all is on the up and up. The American Association of University Professors does not agree. Some 15 elite universities have banned tobacco funding altogether. And even when the nation’s No 12 researcher, Duke University, accepted a $30 million grant from Philip Morris to get people to stop smoking, it insisted on tough language that gave it complete freedom over research and the scientific inquiries, unlike VCU.

The research from the VCU contracts will be published after a review for proprietary information from Philip Morris. There may not be a massive erosion of academic freedom in the VCU case. It seems more that a less prestigious school anxious for corporate funding agreed to contract language that a more prestigious school might have refused on principle.

Philip Morris is what it is – a rich, secretive company that makes deadly products and is not afraid to throw its weight around. VCU is what it is, a third tier school. Trani and VCU have some soul-searching and some answering to do, especially since they hope to boost the school’s R&D at the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park, heavily funded by Philip Morris. Sleazy and secretive just isn’t the way to go. Read the column in Bacon’s Rebellion.

The June 2, 2008, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine is now available for viewing. You can read it in all of its original splendiferous glory here, and you can sign up for a free subscription here. Or, you can simply read the current sampling of column here:

Personalities and Prosperity
Ever wonder why New York is full of neurotics and L.A. full of surfer dudes? In his latest book, Richard Florida suggests that regions, like people, have personalities — with big implications for prosperity.
by James A. Bacon

Riding the Tiger
Many citizens, abetted by the MainStream Media, are clinging to oil and autonomobile dependency to the bitter end. A dismal reality of ever-climbing energy awaits them.
by EM Risse

Time for Systemic Reform
Crafted for the industrial, post-World War II era, Virginia’s government institutions are failing. More money won’t work. Tinkering won’t work. We need systemic reform.
by Chris Braunlich

Give Charters a Chance
The Richmond school board has just approved the state’s fourth charter school — a rare victory over political forces that sacrifice children’s welfare at the altar of left-wing ideology.
by Norman Leahy

VCU and the Evil Weed
VCU President Eugene Trani blew Richmond ’s reputation by going along with a noxious Philip Morris research contract.
by Peter Galuszka

Nice & Curious Question
Big Government in Virginia: Does Size Really Matter?
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

Sen. John C,. Watkins (R-Chesterfield) said a mouthful when he stated re the upcoming special session on transport:

“I don’t think anyone has put something out there that solves the problem.”

John, my friend – and all politicians are my friends – no one can put something out there if you are looking for facility or finance “solutions.”

Wilfred Owen said it almost sixty years ago, restated it in every book he wrote and repeated it every time we talked during the last decade of his life:

“There are no transport facility (or we would add, transport facility finance schemes) that will solve transport problem – there are only land use (human settlement pattern) solutions.”

THIS JUST IN:

The regular Friday “See My Pigs Fly Higher” convention of Tiger Riders United and the Association of It’s Government’s Fault Conspiracy Theorists has been relocated the Millennium Dome. It is the only venue that was not already booked and is large enough to hold everyone who has RSVPeed via Blogs due to the invitation extended to the League of 12 ½ Percenters. Tip of the Hat to Larry Gross for forwarding this information.

EMR

Virginia metropolitan regions are among the biggest contributors to global warming, asserts a new Brookings Institution study, “Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Urban America.” According to the study…

Washington: The average resident in metropolitan Washington emitted 3.115 tons of carbon from highway transportation and residential energy in 2005 — ranking it 89th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States in energy efficiency. Another way of putting it, Metro Washington residents had the 12 largest carbon footprint per capita. What’s more transportation and residential energy use increased 7.2 percent between 2000 and 2005.

That compared to 2.24 tons of carbon emitted by the average 100-metro resident and 2.60 tons of carbon emitted by the average American from transportation and residential energy.

Hampton Roads: The average resident in Hampton Roads emitted 2.340 tons of carbon from highway transportation and residential energy in 2005. That made it the most energy-efficient of Virginia‘s three major metros, with the 36th smallest carbon footprint in the country. What’s more, the region has been trending positive: Energy use declined 0.86 percent between 2000 and 2005.

Richmond: The average resident in metropolitan Richmond emitted 3.039 tons of carbon from highway transportation and residential energy in 2005, giving it the 15th largest carbon footprint per capita of the top 100 metros. Richmonders can take some consolation, however, that transportation and energy use decreased 2.68 percent between 2000 and 2005.

Commenting upon the Brookings study, Trip Pollard with the Southern Environmental Law Center said:

Virginia has lagged far behind other states in funding energy efficiency, but has taken some initial steps to promote a more balanced transportation program. Governor Kaine has recognized the importance of global warming and the threat it poses to Virginia, including creating the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change.

We must be particularly careful, though, when reviewing new transportation funding, not to advance more oversized, expensive highway projects that would lock us into decades of sprawl, driving, and pollution by subsidizing fossil fuel-dependent development patterns and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Here are strategies that Brookings recommends for metro regions to pursue:

• Promote more transportation choices to expand transit and compact development options

• Introduce more energy-efficient freight operations with regional freight planning

• Require home energy cost disclosure when selling and “on-bill” financing to stimulate and scale up energy-efficient retrofitting of residential housing

• Use federal housing policy to create incentives for energy- and location-efficient decisions

• Issue a metropolitan challenge to develop innovative solutions that integrate multiple policy areas