Bush’s energy bill seems pretty fairly useless—the most novel thing to come of it is to put new refineries on old military bases. I fail to see how that’ll make us more self-reliant for energy needs. Fortunately, this is America, and so people can get off their butts and do cool things without Uncle Sam’s babysitting them. Here are some:
The Post Gazette has a nice article on homeowners who are using alternative fuels and the organizations that support them. On the government front, state and federal funding gave Allegheny County’s Port Authority four diesel-hybrid buses. (Okay, we don’t need Uncle Sam to always do the work for us, but he can be handy from time to guess. So much for anarchy.)
Wired has also written on the debut of diesel hybrid locomotives. This locomotive is a “goat”, which is the railroad slang for a small engine that pushes around cars in railyards or ports. This is ideal for hybrid technology, as it’ll involve lots of stops and restarting the engine. Since ports and railyards tend to be in urban areas, the reduction in emissions will be welcome! I hope they can use this technology for commuter railroads like Chicago’s Metra system, which runs on Amtrak/freight lines; like the goats, they are often running at low speeds and need to stop all the time for their passengers.
What will the future bring? I’m optimistic that we’ll see more good stuff, and this Economist article on new allies in the war on oil dependence makes me even more so.
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Jerry