The Pennsylvania Turnpike is part of my heritage. Rolling into a toll booth, I look at it as the gateway to a national treasure of transportation history.

I have a vested interest in supporting and preserving - whether that just means not throwing trash at it or becoming actively involved when it's threatened. It's public, non-profit status gives me a say in it's future and ensures that my toll is actually going to the generational preservation and enjoyment of it. Not to financing a capital investment group; someone else's dream or worse a shady future deal that I am inadvertently supporting with my toll.

When an investment group is pushing very hard to enguage me in a public debate they view it as a sales pitch, but the true beauty of this moment is that I still have control of the power to guide my destiny.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics Public Transportation

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Interesting opinion article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Hidden costs will make Turnpike deal a bad one
Summary:

• Huge unseen financial incentives pull from the tax base during the deal


• Costs associated with ensuring the contract gets inforced


• With tax subsidies greatest in the first 15 years, the profit window will rapidly close, leaving the company with aging and expensive infrastructure and large debt remaining for the rest of a century.


• This deal was negotiated in secret without public input and information. Pennsylvanians now have less than a month to read and digest a 686-page contract and attempt to predict and value how its thousands of conditions might affect the commonwealth through 2084

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics Public Transportation

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I was walking around my village today and a couple neighbors were responding to my blog entry Why can't "WE" keep making a profit on the turnpike? (6/25)

One neighbor was blaming Gov. Ed Randell for siphoning the money off to Philadelphia under the current set-up. I drop off the mail for another neighbor who often is listening to Gary Sutton. She just plain asked my opinion on the merits. I have yet to hear anyone, except the governor, say they think it's a really good idea, "it's slam-dunk" he said.

I believe the heart of the matter is a difference in perspective that has widened between the ever increasing transience of business and what the great population hopes government's long-term commitment is to them.

When you privatize a public entity ownership is moved from government to the interest of a group of investors. Government is you and me because we elect and reject those who represent us.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission was created in 1937 to build, finance, operate and maintain the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The commission is comprised of five members. Four members are appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania. So ultimately the turnpike management is an arm of government, made of people we elect and reject.

Barcelona-based Abertis Infraestructuras, Abertis investor Criteria CaixaCorp of Spain and Citi Infrastructure Investors offered $12.8 billion to lease the turnpike. (AP) I will not be on a seat of the board of directors of a company in Spain or the equally nebulous Citi Infrastructure Investors group. What is my recourse if i had a concern about the business of the turnpike or what my tolls are financing.

Meanwhile, up north 80 percent Interstate 80 needs resurfacing to replace more than half of its pavement, which was applied between 1958 and 1970. Officials proposed replacing 60 bridges within the first 10 years. Sixteen of the interstate's bridges are structurally deficient and 13 are in worse condition, which the turnpike described as "fracture critical." pittsburghlive.com

The scramble is on to get tolls on I-80 because PennDOT cannot fund a complete rebuild. Any bids on I-80? Going once, going twice... hello, any takers? Mmmm, must not be such a good deal.

From personal experience over the past 28 years of driving on it, The Pennsylvania Turnpike have been a very well maintained road in road surface and snow removal. It

The turnpike is currently a non-profit meaning they have to put the revenue from tolls into the road.

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics Public Transportation

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Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record / Sunday News

The Bureau of Land Managment holds a wild horse adoption program at the Red Man Ranch & Arena in Shrewsbury Township.

Prominent ribcages, scars and shyness made it obvious the animals weren't accustomed to a domestic environment. And while there was no way to gauge the level of fear the horses experienced when they were captured, the lucky ones would end up safe, loved and cared for in a good home.

Windsor Township resident Missy Thomas-Brandt understands that a feral horse needs personal space and can also warm up to the human touch.

On Sunday, she was at Red Man Ranch and Arena in Shrewsbury Township for a wild horse and burro adoption program where she saw mustangs she said are similar to a horse she got in a package deal with the house she bought a couple years ago.

"I already have a wild mustang. . . . She is the best horse," she said of her 16-year-old mare, Star.

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I supposed the clinical thing to do would be to calculate cost vs. environmental impact and come up with a nice squeaky green conclusion, but recently my conclusions seem to be made more out a belief that our open ("free" doesn't really apply) market for energy needs to be placed in check by the only force that can bring change.

Calculated, individual consumer choices multiplied by millions of people.

My friend Matt has a company car with paid gas for personal use. He said to me today, "I don't care if the gas is free - I just want to use my motorcycle because it doesn't use (uses half) gas." In 2004, he purchased (which he can't sell now) a Chevy Suburban that gets 15 mpg and never considered the price of gas.

My neighbor Chuck's new full-sized pickup is now collecting dirt around the wheels for sometimes two weeks at a time. He drives a 115 mpg scooter to work.

My retired neighbor on a fixed budget told me today, "I am going to hold on to my economic stimulus check so i can pay for fuel oil this Winter" A tax money give-a-way to spark the economy, funneled into the oil machine that is squeezing the economy in the first place.

We are entering the uncharted free market waters. Huge global energy monopolies that use raw materials that are irresistible to investors and tied to everything as a reason to make it more expensive. We can't regulate it, tax it or force it to do anything. The concept of oil just got too big in business and in our hearts.

The only force that can save the world from suicidal greed; the consumer stands alone with a choice to become super hero or victim.

I like the electric lawn mower more than the gas, simply because it does not use gas. It's two gallons of gasoline that went unsold this Summer.

Posted in All posts from the start Electric History Oil Machine/politics Tax incentives

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Dragging a cord around isn't really an issue with some planning. The maximum length needs to be the maximum distance from your outlet.

The trick is always working your way away from your power source. I tried mowing forward and backwards, but rotary blades just don't cut very well backwards and feet can get cut off on grades.

Up and back working away from the cord; always turning away from the cord. The electric mower is very quiet with no exhaust or gasoline to breath. I don't add any fluids and has virtually no maintenance.

Posted in All posts from the start Electric Environment

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Oil closed at $136.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 3.8%, the biggest daily loss in value since March 19.

In a monthly report released on Tuesday, the Energy Information Administration projected that U.S. petroleum consumption will shrink by 400,000 barrels a day in 2008, nearly 40% more than EIA's June projection of a decline of 290,000 barrels.

The change was "based on prospects for a weak economy and record high crude oil and product prices extending into 2009," the EIA said in the report.

The EIA also said global oil consumption will grow by 900,000 barrels a day in 2008, as demand growth in developing countries will more than offset declines in the U.S. and other developed countries. marketwatch.com

Posted in All posts from the start Oil Machine/politics

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The Lawn-boy's 2-cycle engine is a mostly marvelously simple, low maintenance machine. You get a power stroke every other stroke instead of one in every every stroke for a four-stroke engine. Dump a small can of 2-cycle oil in the gas and you never have to worry about oil changes. They even put stabilizer in the mix so that winterization is automatic for the forgetful. However, by nature of burning oil in the gas creates more pollution than a 4 stoke engine and the 2-cycle has been phased out of the lawn mower market in the US. Shame on me... but it was free!

My first experience with an electric lawn mower was when I was a kid. A neighbor lady in a house dress had this orange Black & Decker. I stood mesmerized waiting for her to mow over the cord, just waiting for the explosive lawn show. It never happened.

Posted in All posts from the start Electric Innovation

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I have debated the benefit of using an electric lawn mower over a gas powered mower for some time. I never spend more than about $10 for a lawn mower, as people usually throw them out and they still work with some cheap repair. My current mower is a free Lawn-boy. A friend put a new piston and rings in it after his brother-in-law ran it with straight gasoline which seized it.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), traditional gas-powered lawn mowers are a public nuisance to say the least. Using one of them for an hour generates as many volatile organic compounds--dangerous airborne pollutants known to exacerbate human respiratory and cardiovascular problems--as driving a typical car for 350 miles. The EPA estimates that, with some 54 million Americans mowing their lawns on a weekly basis, gas lawn mower emissions account for as much as five percent of the nation's total air pollution. Beyond that, homeowners spill some 17 million gallons of gasoline every year just refueling their lawn mowers. scientific american

About a month ago, I bought an electric lawn mower. I have used it for about a month in tandem with my gas powered mower to cut four different lawns. One lawn has no access to electric power. Follow along with this series as I share my observations.

Part II - 2-stokes, wires and batteries.

Posted in All posts from the start Electric Environment

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Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record/Sunday News

Quo Vadis Days is a time for young men from the Diocese of Harrisburg to learn about the priesthood, meet seminarians in an active environment, and learn how to discern whether God is calling them to serve.

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