A reader writes:
Manzi’s glossing over a lot here.
First, the price impulse in the 1970s was inflated away pretty quickly – I recall 10-15% annual inflation in the late 70s, so that within 4 years of 1979, the price of gas had lost half of its impulse value. The price increases we’ve seen recently have also been pretty short lived – gas was cheap (< $2.00/G) as recently as 1/2007, and it is cheap again. And it only crossed $3.20/G as of February of this year.
Second, saying that the US average population density is 1/7th of Germany’s glosses over the details of distribution. We have huge empty states (Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas for example) that will never have serious mass transit, but also have few people, burn little gas but push down our population density.
I live in Pittsburgh, and we have very poor mass transit unless you’re going to downtown Pittsburgh, but a $2/G gas tax would certainly bring in enough money to create some real options along the busiest corridors (279 / 79 / 376 West).
Furthermore, money from that tax could also provide incentives for subsidizing plug-in hybrids and other cars that get better gas mileage. And it would increase the motivation for people to buy smaller and more efficient cars. The technological options available now, in short, are much greater than available during the 1970s.
We could also put more of an emphasis in new nuclear plants, further reducing our carbon footprint in general, and for powering plug-in hybrids specifically.
It wouldn’t surprise me if a combination of increased use of nuclear power, plug-in hybrids, and targeted mass transmit improvements couldn’t reduce the oil consumed in a medium sized city like Pittsburgh by 25-40%. And a significant gas tax would definitely be an important factor in hitting that number.
The Dish 