hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jun 20, 2008 12:55:05 GMT -5
Bando, although I see your point, it is dangerously close to the absurd opinions that our city commissioners have down here. Encourage dense growth .... fine by me. Encourage verticle growth ... fine by me. But taking it to the next logical step is not, and that is what we have now. One commissioner in particular said something that we have said jokingly all along. Jeanna Mastodecassa said flat out that they want to make congestion and parking so bad that people can't drive and will walk or take the bus. That is taking it way too far. They envision a cobblestoned downtown full of boutiques, outdoor cafes and bearded professors wearing tweed jackets smoking their pipe. That is taking it way too far in my mind.
As for energy in particular, I still go back to solar energy. We have 13 or 14 hours of full sunlight for 6 months or more. Whatever energy the sun gives us today isn't going to be there tomorrow. Tomorrow's sunlight won't be there the next day, and so on. Solar panels need to be far more common; that is just all there is to it. There's no excuse for not being able to make solar panels cost effective. There's no reason to not have solar panels on top of almost every single building in many parts of the Country.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Jun 20, 2008 13:22:12 GMT -5
As for energy in particular, I still go back to solar energy. We have 13 or 14 hours of full sunlight for 6 months or more. Whatever energy the sun gives us today isn't going to be there tomorrow. Tomorrow's sunlight won't be there the next day, and so on. Solar panels need to be far more common; that is just all there is to it. There's no excuse for not being able to make solar panels cost effective. There's no reason to not have solar panels on top of almost every single building in many parts of the Country. They wouldn't really work in Alaska/the Pacific NW, but aside from that, well, I think Hifi just made a good point. Maybe the radical environmentalists are right and the world IS coming to an end.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2008 14:07:36 GMT -5
They envision a cobblestoned downtown full of boutiques, outdoor cafes and bearded professors wearing tweed jackets smoking their pipe. That is taking it way too far in my mind. Aside from the bearded professors and tweed jackets, what's "way too far"? God forbid we force cars to drive a different way so that we can have cities with walkable downtowns where people can walk, eat, shop and - gasp! - live. I remember in DC when they announced that the stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House would be permanently closed to vehicle traffic. There was plenty of opposition from people who argued that closing down a few blocks of a major downtown artery would create massive gridlock and traffic chaos. They closed it. Within a few weeks, people had figured out alternate routes to get where they needed to go and traffic congestion was no worse than before. Shocking, isn't it?
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jun 20, 2008 14:24:32 GMT -5
As for energy in particular, I still go back to solar energy. We have 13 or 14 hours of full sunlight for 6 months or more. Whatever energy the sun gives us today isn't going to be there tomorrow. Tomorrow's sunlight won't be there the next day, and so on. Solar panels need to be far more common; that is just all there is to it. There's no excuse for not being able to make solar panels cost effective. There's no reason to not have solar panels on top of almost every single building in many parts of the Country. They wouldn't really work in Alaska/the Pacific NW, but aside from that, well, I think Hifi just made a good point. Maybe the radical environmentalists are right and the world IS coming to an end. I think that the highest number of solar panels in any one country is in Germany, where they're heavily subsidized. This is kind of ironic given that Germany gets very little sunlight.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jun 20, 2008 14:52:24 GMT -5
Las Vegas, which probably gets the most sunlight of any major city in the US (world?) has very few solar panels in private residences. My sister and brother-in-law on Long Island, put in solar panels at the cost of at least $60K. With the tax credits and reduced energy bills they are just about paid off on their initial investment.
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jun 20, 2008 14:59:59 GMT -5
They envision a cobblestoned downtown full of boutiques, outdoor cafes and bearded professors wearing tweed jackets smoking their pipe. That is taking it way too far in my mind. Aside from the bearded professors and tweed jackets, what's "way too far"? God forbid we force cars to drive a different way so that we can have cities with walkable downtowns where people can walk, eat, shop and - gasp! - live. I remember in DC when they announced that the stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House would be permanently closed to vehicle traffic. There was plenty of opposition from people who argued that closing down a few blocks of a major downtown artery would create massive gridlock and traffic chaos. They closed it. Within a few weeks, people had figured out alternate routes to get where they needed to go and traffic congestion was no worse than before. Shocking, isn't it? Cam, I don't want to get too deep into this particular issue, since it really pertains uniquely to Gainesville, but what you just said illustrates the point. There weren't alternative routes. I have nothing against having limited access highways for example, like interstates. They serve a purpose of allowing citizens to move rapidly from one place to another. Similarly, I don't have a problem with restricting traffic in some limited area, creating a pedestrian friendly courtyard type area, but as you mentioned, there need to be alternative routes. Their ideas were to restrict Main St. (the primary North-South corridor in the center of town) to 2 lanes for 8 blocks north and south of University Ave. (the primary East-West corridor). The intersection of those roads is the "center" of town. That is where the courthouse is as well as an assortment of law offices, restaurants, banks etc... There is not nearly enough parking to begin with and Main St. is a stagnant traffic jam everyday from noon until 1:30 and from 4:30 to 6:30 as it is already with 4 lanes. Taking away 2 lanes of traffic would only create a bigger mess. Additionally, every single business owner that I have talked to was against the idea. They also complain about the lack of parking to a man as well. Without going any deeper into the particulars, the point is that well-meaning and fun-sounding ideas are often not all they are cracked up to be and to hear a city commissioner say that "we want to make traffic and parking bad enough so that more people will use the bus" is bogus reasoning in my mind. More than likely, they will frequent businesses in other parts of town rather than go through all of those headaches. What has continually happened is that one of the commissioners will visit Athens or Savannah or some other town and will try to copy aspects of those towns. But character and culture in that regard has to happen on its own. It is almost impossible to "create" atmoshpere in that regard. Even so, to do it at the expense of commerce that has already been established is flawed in my mind. It is one thing to address blight and try to improve a run-down area. But far too often that isn't what is being done.
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jun 20, 2008 15:05:27 GMT -5
Las Vegas, which probably gets the most sunlight of any major city in the US (world?) has very few solar panels in private residences. My sister and brother-in-law on Long Island, put in solar panels at the cost of at least $60K. With the tax credits and reduced energy bills they are just about paid off on their initial investment. Good points. There are actually a fair amount of solar panels in certain communities here in Florida. I think they happened at the pre-construction level though. In other words, the builders that get the contracts for certain subdivisions have the panels built into the cost. I have no problem with that a bit, but ironically in a very high percentage of those houses, the sole purpose of those panels is to heat a swimming pool. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I am talking about panels that store and pass energy all day long. They then feed back excess into the power grid. The problem, aside from the start up costs, are that the utility companies are only willing to pay a small portion for the energy. It seems to me that until we get to a situation where there is an excess of power, then the patrons providing energy to the utility grid should be compensated with something remotely close to market value.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2008 8:46:20 GMT -5
Aside from the bearded professors and tweed jackets, what's "way too far"? God forbid we force cars to drive a different way so that we can have cities with walkable downtowns where people can walk, eat, shop and - gasp! - live. I remember in DC when they announced that the stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House would be permanently closed to vehicle traffic. There was plenty of opposition from people who argued that closing down a few blocks of a major downtown artery would create massive gridlock and traffic chaos. They closed it. Within a few weeks, people had figured out alternate routes to get where they needed to go and traffic congestion was no worse than before. Shocking, isn't it? Cam, I don't want to get too deep into this particular issue, since it really pertains uniquely to Gainesville, but what you just said illustrates the point. There weren't alternative routes. I have nothing against having limited access highways for example, like interstates. They serve a purpose of allowing citizens to move rapidly from one place to another. Similarly, I don't have a problem with restricting traffic in some limited area, creating a pedestrian friendly courtyard type area, but as you mentioned, there need to be alternative routes. Their ideas were to restrict Main St. (the primary North-South corridor in the center of town) to 2 lanes for 8 blocks north and south of University Ave. (the primary East-West corridor). The intersection of those roads is the "center" of town. That is where the courthouse is as well as an assortment of law offices, restaurants, banks etc... There is not nearly enough parking to begin with and Main St. is a stagnant traffic jam everyday from noon until 1:30 and from 4:30 to 6:30 as it is already with 4 lanes. Taking away 2 lanes of traffic would only create a bigger mess. Additionally, every single business owner that I have talked to was against the idea. They also complain about the lack of parking to a man as well. Without going any deeper into the particulars, the point is that well-meaning and fun-sounding ideas are often not all they are cracked up to be and to hear a city commissioner say that "we want to make traffic and parking bad enough so that more people will use the bus" is bogus reasoning in my mind. More than likely, they will frequent businesses in other parts of town rather than go through all of those headaches. What has continually happened is that one of the commissioners will visit Athens or Savannah or some other town and will try to copy aspects of those towns. But character and culture in that regard has to happen on its own. It is almost impossible to "create" atmoshpere in that regard. Even so, to do it at the expense of commerce that has already been established is flawed in my mind. It is one thing to address blight and try to improve a run-down area. But far too often that isn't what is being done. But the real problem is one of mindset: if such a plan included public transit options, walkable communities, bike paths, etc. and people were actually willing to give up their cars once in a while to use these things, we could make some progress. Your argument presupposes that there are no options (and never could be) other than driving a car - that the "character and culture" of other places can't be replicated mostly because of that. I don't follow Gainesville politics, but I can - to some extent - understand the mentality that says "What could possibly change such a mindset, other than a situation so bad that people have to change their behavior?" In fact, it's happening right now. The use of public transit is up around the country because gas is so expensive. Do I think that we need to force a situation? No, but people need to recognize that these things don't get done well if they get done incrementally. The fact that there are stagnant traffic jams 3-4 hours out of the day in a town of 100,000 people is preposterous, and a result of poor planning in the first place. But to do nothing by playing the "It's just going to make life worse!" card is not an answer, particularly when there are proven examples of things that work in comparable places (and much larger places as well). Would things be worse in the short term? Yes. But the long-term sustainability of the community matters, too.
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jun 24, 2008 12:27:25 GMT -5
Cam. I think all too often it ends up being a matter of ideology rather than views on the particular issue. There is almost a resentment of "growth" among the liberal leaders we have at the city level here. There is an almost instinctive disdain towards every industry except for their pet areas. If you are a college professor or a lawyer that's fine, but they actually view most other real world businesses as the problem. They don't seem to have an understanding that it is the commerce and the economy that create the funding for their pet project de jeur. Their little parks and cobblestone courtyard areas can't sustain themselves.
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Bando
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Post by Bando on Jun 24, 2008 17:03:55 GMT -5
Cam. I think all too often it ends up being a matter of ideology rather than views on the particular issue. There is almost a resentment of "growth" among the liberal leaders we have at the city level here. There is an almost instinctive disdain towards every industry except for their pet areas. If you are a college professor or a lawyer that's fine, but they actually view most other real world businesses as the problem. They don't seem to have an understanding that it is the commerce and the economy that create the funding for their pet project de jeur. Their little parks and cobblestone courtyard areas can't sustain themselves. This is bullcrap. I can guarantee you that developers would rather build densely if they could, it's zoning laws that enhance the sprawl. If anything, an urban environment is better for commerce than one where business and customers are far away from each other. You seem to think sprawl rose out organically from the market, but the truth is that sprawl exists because government meddled in the market to skew rewards toward sprawl and costs toward density.
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Post by HoyaSinceBirth on Jun 24, 2008 17:32:06 GMT -5
to answer the title of this thread:
Yes, Really!
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jun 25, 2008 13:29:11 GMT -5
Cam. I think all too often it ends up being a matter of ideology rather than views on the particular issue. There is almost a resentment of "growth" among the liberal leaders we have at the city level here. There is an almost instinctive disdain towards every industry except for their pet areas. If you are a college professor or a lawyer that's fine, but they actually view most other real world businesses as the problem. They don't seem to have an understanding that it is the commerce and the economy that create the funding for their pet project de jeur. Their little parks and cobblestone courtyard areas can't sustain themselves. This is bullcrap. I can guarantee you that developers would rather build densely if they could, it's zoning laws that enhance the sprawl. If anything, an urban environment is better for commerce than one where business and customers are far away from each other. You seem to think sprawl rose out organically from the market, but the truth is that sprawl exists because government meddled in the market to skew rewards toward sprawl and costs toward density. I think you misunderstood my point, but I wouldn't argue with yours. The "evil" urban sprawl is influenced by zoning laws and the sort. Personally, I think that zoning laws and codes enforcement are entirely too strict. There's now an endless paperwork trail for virtually everything, and the way the codes are written it is almost impossible to ever be in full compliance. But these are really two separate issues. In cases where the urban sprawl term typically comes up, the debate is over controlled growth, and basically some person or group of people are seeking to limit growth under the guise of preventing sprawl. But what exactly is sprawl? In simple terms it could be "development" or "growth." Now it's applied to housing as well. Basically the "sprawl" is the guy who moves in right after you do .... or the next guy ... or the next .... etc. In any case, for the most part it pertains to somewhat undeveloped areas. What we were debating here pertained to already developed areas that the commissioners were seeking to restrict. It's a slightly different issue, but similar to a degree. As for the zoning laws, I understand the principles but as is often the case with liberal thinkers, it is the extreme cases which we would most all agree on that are used to justify the laws which are then in to be applied in a much larger scale. If for example there is a subdivision of 60 single family homes, then they probably don't want a sewage plant directly across the street, or an airport or a jail or a bus station. Examples like that caused the zoning laws in the first place, and as I said before, we would probably most all agree that these people should have reasonable confidence that someone isn't going to be able to come build a greyhound station directly across the street. But that is a far cry from what we have now. There are laws against having more than 3 unrelated adults living in a house. In a college town, it isn't unusual to have 4 roommates who never knew each other until they got to campus. You can't have that now in houses. You can't park on the grass -- not someone else's grass -- your own friggin' grass! They can fine you for not cutting your grass. There is a widow who lives down the street from us, and the kid who routinely did her yard graduated high school and left for college. Her yard had gotten a little bit overgrown, but not all that bad. She was cited for the violation. She doesn't have much money and is living on her social security. What money she does have goes mostly to her medications. My wife will take her a hot meal a couple of times a week. Anyhow she was telling her about the violation for her yard. The codes enforcement can start fining you $500 per day per violation! That adds up really quickly. That is a mechanish that they will use to effectively steal property away. Now I don't think there is any intention to do that with this ladies house, but I have seen businesses get into that mess and there's no way to get out. They put you in violation of 6 or 8 codes. To fix some of the violations, permits are first required. But they won't give you permits for many of these procedures. For instance you will have to have one permit pulled by a general contractor, another by a roofing contractor and a third by an electrician. Very quickly it is far too expensive to get in compliance but if you don't then you start getting fined $500 per day per infraction. As a result you have to sell the property and of course in a situation like that you will not get fair market value. They are just a bunch of crooks. But I digress....
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Jun 30, 2008 15:17:03 GMT -5
They wouldn't really work in Alaska/the Pacific NW, but aside from that, well, I think Hifi just made a good point. Maybe the radical environmentalists are right and the world IS coming to an end. I think that the highest number of solar panels in any one country is in Germany, where they're heavily subsidized. This is kind of ironic given that Germany gets very little sunlight. I believe this is true. They have something called a "feed-in tariff system" whereby everyone pays a tariff to the energy companies for getting electricity from solar, and those who have their photovoltaic cells attached to the grid get, like, double the cost of the tariff/kwh in paybacks. It's a pretty sweet model, actually. I wonder if we could do that here in the US. On the subject of solar, we've got applications for literally hundreds of thousands of acres of PV cells in the west, but very few proposals to attach PV cells to existing infrastructure. Kinda seems like a wasted opportunity (and a possible ecological nightmare) if you ask me. More info on Germany's system: www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsGermany.htm
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Post by AustinHoya03 on Jun 30, 2008 20:07:27 GMT -5
I believe this is true. They have something called a "feed-in tariff system" whereby everyone pays a tariff to the energy companies for getting electricity from solar, and those who have their photovoltaic cells attached to the grid get, like, double the cost of the tariff/kwh in paybacks. It's a pretty sweet model, actually. I wonder if we could do that here in the US. On the subject of solar, we've got applications for literally hundreds of thousands of acres of PV cells in the west, but very few proposals to attach PV cells to existing infrastructure. Kinda seems like a wasted opportunity (and a possible ecological nightmare) if you ask me. I currently live in a very sunny and windy place, and recently did a cost/benefit analysis for adding solar and/or wind units to my home. Let's just say I will be functioning on coal-produced electricity for the foreseeable future. A program like Germany's would force me to take a second look at installing solar panels/wind turbines. However, it should be said that because electric grids are controlled by states and not the federal government, it would take a major effort to make such a program national within the USA.
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jul 1, 2008 14:16:32 GMT -5
Austin, obviousy when you say you will be using coal produced electricity, I presume you mean that the amount of savings to your electric bill would pale in comparison to the start up costs. But did you factor in any "extra" energy which could be sold back to your local grid? That, combined with government rebate incentives is what would make the system work. Now personally, I am not much on guvernment subsidies in general. But IF the government is going to hand out assorted entitlements and IF the government is going to give incentives for various activities, then I think encouraging alternative sources is a decent choice for one.
In any case, did you factor those into the equation at all or solely the direct costs and savings?
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Jul 1, 2008 15:42:30 GMT -5
You can actually avoid government involvement altogether -- the German system takes government completely out of the equation (other than in terms of start-up and regulation) by way of a feed-in tariff relationship between the energy sector and the consumer. However, a calculus as hifi suggests makes sense. Government is already heavily "subsidizing" the energy (oil, gas, wind, solar, and coal) industries by allowing cheap use and extraction activities on public land, through tax breaks ($billions to O&G every year), and otherwise. Shifting those subsidies toward development of sustainable, renewable sources of energy on existing infrastructure (like buildings in sunny places) should be a triple boon: increasing non-fossil fuel based sources of energy, protecting natural resources, and incentivising public involvement (i.e. not break Austin's bank to do it). That, or Austin could just take one for the team
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Post by AustinHoya03 on Jul 1, 2008 17:47:26 GMT -5
Austin, obviousy when you say you will be using coal produced electricity, I presume you mean that the amount of savings to your electric bill would pale in comparison to the start up costs. But did you factor in any "extra" energy which could be sold back to your local grid? That, combined with government rebate incentives is what would make the system work. Now personally, I am not much on guvernment subsidies in general. But IF the government is going to hand out assorted entitlements and IF the government is going to give incentives for various activities, then I think encouraging alternative sources is a decent choice for one. In any case, did you factor those into the equation at all or solely the direct costs and savings? In Texas, my electric provider would be required by law to compensate me for any KWH I put back into the grid at the same rate they currently charge me for electricity. However, in order to produce enough electricity to make money off an investment in solar panels or turbines, I would have to spend about what an average GU grad makes in his/her first year of employment. The systems I was looking at would cut last month's energy bill by about 2/3rds, but I probably would still have been forced to purchase some power from the grid during the summer. If I want to increase my energy efficiency, it is probably going to be more cost-effective to install new windows and insulation in my 1940's-built home. Most places in Texas do have electric choice, and I would simply purchase an all-renewable power plan through a utility if I weren't forced to buy electricity from my municipally-owned power company (despite living less than 100 miles from two gigantic wind farms). If Coast2Coast can talk my state legislators into deregulating the entire state, I will gladly "take one for the team" and pay a slightly higher power bill in an effort to fund renewable-energy infrastructure.
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Jul 2, 2008 10:03:02 GMT -5
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Jul 3, 2008 9:51:33 GMT -5
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jul 3, 2008 11:08:22 GMT -5
ed, even though I think you and I are fairly closely aligned with regard to this issue, I must admit that an anecdotal example such as one particular event in one particular location is certainly far from convincing evidence. I expect that if someone wanted to search deeply enough, he could probably find a record high and a record low somewhere on many a day.
Austin: that's interesting that Texas has such a law. Not that I am in favor of more laws, but I would like to see Florida enact such a law. That would put a king sized carrot out in front of the horse striving to make solar energy more efficient. Right now I just don't think that there is sufficient incentive for the R & D costs.
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