U.S. Transportation Chief Visits Seattle
Mike Wussow
Seattle isn't always the first stop for U.S. Cabinet officials. But if U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters' visit today is any indication, when the issue is transportation, Seattle is a natural top of agenda locale. 
With the help of Cascadia Center and others, Secretary Peters swept into town on Friday for a series of meetings with business and policy leaders. The Cascadia Center, with its growing leadership in the alternative energy and plug-in hybrid, electric vehicle space, played a critical role in the visit by coordinating several meetings for the United States' 15th transportation chief.
Today's closed meetings and work sessions focused on the question of transportation technology, innovation, finance and the Northwest's leadership role in finding solutions to regional and nationwide transportation challenges. Phoenix Motorcars, an electric car company based in California, brought one of its prototypes to Seattle for Secretary Peters and others to see.
Cascadia Center has long argued that the U.S. reliance on foreign oil is not sustainable. As former CIA director James Woolsey has said, it's an addiction that funds both sides of the war on terrorism. Based on our research and analysis, the most sensible way to move beyond oil is to use clean electricity to power vehicles.
We'd like to see the Northwest lead in the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. It's the best way to: achieve greater energy independence, cut greenhouse gases and help reduce our trade deficit. It's clear to us that a Northwest pilot project that showed the successful adoption of PHEVs by commercial and government fleets as well as consumers could set a workable, realistic example for other regions and the country.
We're working with the state and U.S. transportation departments on proposals that would test how to recharge PHEVs at park and ride lots. (The illustration to the right is one vision.) And we're also collaborating to encourage transit use and to introduce congestion pricing to replace lost gas tax revenues when gas consumption declines with the move to alternative fuels and electricity.
Today's visit by Secretary Peters is evidence that the nation's leaders are willing to look to the Northwest for ideas and examples of how to confront transportation challenges now and down the road. We believe the region's political and business leaders are up to the challenge.
Comments
Almost all wars and terrorism in the world can be stopped. Almost all dictators and tyrants can be rendered powerless. All we have to do is to stop paying them. An alarming amount of the money Western nations pay for oil is going into the coffers of people who are terrorists and dictators. All we have to do defund the world’s most violent criminals is to become energy independent.
In the first phase of energy independence we get as much energy as possible from resources which we own or which are in the hands of friendly, stable nations. First we build new nuclear power plants in every state. If the French can make nuclear work what excuse do we have? If France’s success isn’t incentive enough, consider the success of Denmark, Brazil, and Australia in diversifying their energy supplies. In addition, we drill for oil off all our coastal waters and we build new refineries and pipelines in every state. We must burn more coal and use more natural Gas. Existing energy companies are making plenty of money in the current climate of false scarcity. We will have to find away around them. Usually the way around greedy energy companies would require political will. However, almost all existing politicians are in the pocket of the energy companies. This includes democrats and republicans. So every politician currently in office needs to be thrown out. Anyone who works for or who owns an existing conventional energy company is in my view disqualified for public office. We already know from the Bush/Cheney experience that such politicians will work in a way contrary to the national security of the United States and will start pointless wars for oil. Every time a new oil war start conservatives get paid. That is why no conservative supports plans to gain immediate energy independence.
Merely having new politicians willing to clear the legal minefields laid down by oil bought senators and congressmen might not be enough. We might have to get a little bolder. Therefore I suggest that we build terawatts of new nuclear power plans and miles of new oil refineries in Mexico and that we send the power back to the states via pipelines, power lines, hydrogen, or whatever works. This will provide work for Mexicans and energy for us. The Mexican government will have a large incentive to make the plants secure and this increased security might even spill over to the borders and make our borders more secure.
While phase one is going on we need to start on phase 2. In this phase we bring online as many green and renewable technologies as are currently viable and put as much money as is needed into producing more. I would suggest that the model cities be built in the west and south—anywhere that it does not get cold enough to snow. The idea is to build small towns or cities that will go cold turkey. There will be no fossil fuels of any kind allowed in these cities. All vehicles and houses will be powered by wind, solar and bio-mass. The best locations would be those that have year around wind, sun and enough farming in the area to produce the bio mass. These experimental towns would be off the power grid. The only way to get power to them would be to make the green and renewable technologies work. Volunteers who truly believe that the future is green would be invited to apply for residency. We would probably take engineers and farmers over other types because we would need people who were skilled in keeping the power conversion machinery going and others who don’t mind the get their hands dirty hard work of farming. Another part of the second phase will involve green government. In a free society you can not tell free citizens they must go green. But you can tell government at all levels that it is prohibited from using non domestic sources of energy and non domestic products.
Posted by: poetryman69 | April 13, 2008 3:58 PM