Meeting of Minds Offers Hope, But With A Dash of Gloom
By John O'Dell July 30, 2008By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
PORTLAND, Ore. -- I'm sitting in my hotel room after a day of panels and seminars at the 2nd running of an event called Meeting of the Minds, and am wishing I had a better one than was issued as original equipment.
This is a by-invitation gathering of about 250 people, mainly concerned with transportation and urban planning, and was convened to consider, as the confab's subtitle states: The Innovations We Need for More Sustainable Cities.
The reason an automobile writer, albeit one specializing in green issues, was invited (and I have to confess I'm not the only one) is that these folks get it -- most cities in the U.S. were built to accomodate the car, and there's no cure for what ails our municipalities without addressing transportation-related woes.
After a full day of discussions, it is clear that a lot of people are working hard to head off disasters that could be caused by horrid traffic congenstion, rapidly degrading infrastructure and a national political malaise that has robbed us of leaders with the guts to stand up and lead the charge for things we need.
Those things include a willingness to divert money now being sent overseas to purchase expensive foreign oil to programs that could help wean us from same; to demand that our fuel companies invest in alternative fuel infrastructure -- incuding hydrogen and electricity -- and to consider that rather than cheaper gasoline that would continue to feed the idea that we have a natural right to drive all we want, we might need fuel made more expensive by taxes that would be used to foster improved inner and intra-city transit, ride-sharing programs and development of vehicles that don't use oil products at all.
The program began this morning with a montage of iconic late 1950s car commercials -- Dinah Shore singing "See the USA in your Chevrolet" among them.
Then emcee Gordon Feller of the Urban Age Institute think tank near San Francisco offered this tidbit: When Dinah was singing, the U.S. had 185 million people and a national highway system that was just a few years old. Now that population is 300 million, still growing and taxing our infrastructure.
Half the nation's population now lives in urban areas, and the percentage is growing as fuel prices drive people from the suburbs as they seek shorter and cheaper commutes.
About 97 percent of the cars and trucks on our roads use gasoline or diesel fuel, at at the present rate of development it could be a decade or more -- years we may not have -- before oil-free alternatives are available in appreciable numbers.
There are bright spots -- a handful of cities (including Portland, one reason the assembly was held here after the inaugural session in San Francisco last year) and states aren't waiting for the federal government to step in but have begun their own urban improvement initiatives, most revolving around improved and greener transportastion systems.
Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski used the conference to announce that his adminstration is funding the aftermarket conversion of 10 of the older Toyota Prius hybrids in the state fleet to plug-in models that will help gather reliability data about plug-in hybrids, which use additional, rechargable batteries to extend the car's electrical boost, all-electic travel capabilities an overall fuel econjomy.
And at least a few automakers are moving forward with plans for greener, cleaner vehicles including more and better hybrids, all-electric cars using batteries or hydrogen fuel cells and factory-built plug-ins with extended electric power for fuel economy that could approach 100 miles per gallon.
Among them are global hybrid leader Toyota Motor Corp., principal sponsor of the event, fellow Asian automakers Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Subaru, European car companies Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Renault and BMW and, in thge U.S., General Motors, Ford and in distant third place right now, Chrysler.
There's no consensus among the minds meeting here, however, as to which will emerge as the industry leader in green autos, or which will get to market first with high-volume production.
Electric cars -- whether powered by rechargeable (or plug-in) batteries or hydrogen fuel cells -- are clearly the favored type of future car, but the only real consensus seems to be that for the forseeable future our transportation system will rely on a mix of fuels and powertrains and that we meanwhile are running out of oil -- and time.
Conference sponsors will post a full compliment of papers and presentations later this week and we'll post a link to them so you can read for yourself what the invited speakers had to say.
And we'll be following up in coming weeks with in-depth articles about some of the thinkers we met and ideas they tossed out.
And we'll leave you with this thought, the fruit of a day of mulling the messages and pleas being delivered at this meeting of minds:
Though we often rail about the inadequaces and ineptness of industry and government, nothing much is ever going to happen until we, the people, get our collective act together and demand, in no uncertain terms, that our businesses and politicians start delivering what's good for us instead of what's good for them.
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