11 Comments

I usually agree with most of your analysis especially regarding energy security of UK and Europe -- most of my experience is within oil and gas/ energy.

But for your analysis on Brighton parking charges, I think you are dead wrong. I have looked into Brighton as a place to live, as recently as last year, and the one thing that struck me was how car-centric Brighton is. After visiting Amsterdam or living in parts of London, Brighton fell like a traffic hellhole, with hostile provisions for pedestrians and cycling. There were so many cars that parked up on the side of the road that made it unpleasant to walk, especially with young kids. The pavements are small. And I can understand why people drive instead, even over small distances.

There is so much room for improvement if even a fraction of the transport budget was allocated to cycle lanes and pedestrian lanes. And parking charges are still too cheap for the disruption and congestion that a car causes. Yes -- one has to give viable alternatives, and the revenue needs to go into building cycle lanes or better pedestrian facilities or better public transport network.

If you have ever lived in a cycling/ pedestrian friendly city, anything within 8 km is pleasantly cycleable with an electric bike -- yes, even if you are older, or with young kids. It is a really great way to live. One gets fitter, healthier, it's more fun, it's cheaper, it is very energy efficient, and there are more community spaces as less space is taken up by parking/ roads.

But in order to do this, cities really have to cut down on car traffic in order to get the average family/ person feeling safe that they can cycle for day-to-day activities, like going to school, heading to work. Cars are a huge negative externality: they take too much space, create traffic, and they are far more dangerous than bikes.

Climate change is real. But renewable sources of energy (especially wind and solar) are intermittent, and expensive, and just frankly awful at providing energy stability. And unfortunately oil and gas and coal has a carbon problem. And one way that I, oil and gas geologist, think that we can get around that is to focus on making cities and town centers a lot more pleasant to be in, without cars.

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Hi Elizabeth, Thank you for your thoughts - you make some very good points. I guess I was reacting to the apparent contradiction in the council's policy on being surprised that the revenues from parking that they had budgeted for did not appear whilst acting in a way (raising prices) that made that almost inevitable. (I also put in a footnote that funding of local councils is very problematic as more expenses are pushed down from central govt and very limited ability to raise revenues... but thats a different discussion.

I take your point that once sufficient infrastructure is in place one can have better city centers, fewer cars and hopefully thriving businesses.

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Pandreco,

The Laffer Curve is a special case of a basic theorem in calculus: Rolle's Theorem. There is much discuaaion of the validity of dthe Laffer Curve, but no one doubts Rolle's Theorem.

George

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Thanks George - I hadn't connected the Laffer Curve to Rolle's Theorem - but yes, 100%. The "tricky bit" in economics is the shape of the curve bewteen the known end-points!

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Great points on economic realities.

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I learned long ago people make you feel as they feel. That’s how the Human works. The environmentalists are morally estranged from the deep exuberance created by the modern industrial world. They have been left out of experiencing it by their “environmental consciousness”, which is their sick way to damn the moral standing of Human flourishing by judging how much pollution it creates. So when you mention all the limitations and obstacles they burden onto a typical person’s life, it’s designed to make everyone feel their suffering of being morally estranged in a modern society.

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Thanks Richard. It was time to give a good news to us in Britain. At least we know there is coal and unconventional petroleum to be exploited after we reach the bottom of the well.

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Lots of coal, and maybe lots of shale gas... but also lots of eNGOs and "concerned citizens".

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The scary part of Labor foolishness on energy policy is that when the infrastructure gets diminished or removed, it renders what would otherwise be economically sound add-on developments uneconomic. Once they damage the oil and gas infrastructure, a lot of smaller oil and gas developments in the North Sea will no longer be viable.

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Exactly... its been looming for a while, but hard to see it not happening this time. And then there is the loss of "human capital" (experience) which is already an issue in the industry. Building stuff (infrastructure, knowledge, wealth) is a long slow process. Wrecking it is quick and easy.

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Very informed comments. Energy Security never matters (these days), until it suddenly does. I have been to Brighton at least once, loved it, although I took the train from London, in about 2003.

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