9 good ideas

Josh Cohen wonders what can we do about high gas prices and came up with a list of 10 ideas (note that he originally blogged in September of last year). I would say that 9 of those ideas are good, with one stinker:

8. There’s a lot of unused land. It’s not being farmed. It’s not a nature preserve. Put a refinery on it. Unfortunately, since our love affair with the SUV seems unlikely to end anytime soon — despite the upward swing in gas prices, SUV ads are still all over the place, and Hummer even came out with a new SUV just recently — one of the best options is to put new refineries into play. But, as was pointed out in the above article, a combination of NIMBY and rabid environmentalism prevents new refineries from being built. The environmentalists can’t have it both ways; you can’t blame the government for high gas prices because you won’t let refineries be built. It’s your fault, not ours.

Although this idea would help lead to lower gas prices, I’m against it because a) I’m an environmentalist that only wants it one way — fewer refineries and b) I’m cheering for *higher* gas prices, not lower ones. Cohen’s ideas #1 through #6 will never gain any traction unless people get hit in their wallets.

The Reason Foundation article that Cohen links to gets it almost right:

Even as gas prices have soared beyond $2.50 per gallon in many parts of the country, Americans have not stopped driving. We might tighten our budgets elsewhere to make up for the added expenses, but we show no signs of giving up our cars. At some point, we need to admit our dependence on gasoline and add the capacity and refineries that will help lower gas prices.

The real solution is not more refineries, but to drive less and drive more efficiently. I’ve put about 350 miles on my bike and about 3500 miles on my car since January. At first glance, it’s obviously a 1:10 ratio, but that number doesn’t capture the fact that all of my bike miles are city miles, whereas most of my car miles are highway miles.

Here’s to the $hundred-barrel.