Monckton: At Last, the Climate Extremists Try to Debate Us! (PJM Exclusive)
To your point about driving habits – I live in a part of California that is fairly hilly. As in most non-flat places, roads tend to be built in the troughs and houses on higher terrain. In this way, road construction costs are minimized while home views and vistas are maximized. As a result, most intersections (and therefore signals) are approached downhill and exited going uphill. Therefore, every vehicle that must stop at an intersection burns up in incredible amount of energy as waste heat in the braking system. And when the light changes, they require a great deal of energy to get moving again against gravity.
Please bear with me for the point. It seems to me that there are millions of unnecessary vehicle stops every day in California and just a little bit of effort in this area would deliver more impact on energy consumption than the sum total of all of the draconian, business killing restrictions that our regulation happy politicians and eco-extremists are proposing.
Most intersections have a “signal change on demand” kind of strategy where a timed light strategy would work much better. But this puts the burden on government to be creative and effective. It’s much easier for them just to tighten the screws on ordinary citizens and their pocketbooks knowing that we will obediently adjust and comply.
