It is hard to stop business growth, and it would be a shame to halt such a good thing for Boise. Sometimes, the best way to treat a problem is not to stop but to work through it. With growth comes diversity, of which Boise and Idaho need a little. So, why not embrace the inevitable and work on solving the problems that come with it? Boise needs better public transportation, and maybe people shouldn’t be so attached to their SUV’s.

I have read every major book on energy over the past 4 years and have studied renewables extensively.

-hydrogen is a energy storage medium that is a big net energy loser. You end up recovering only about 25% of the original inputs. This is a rediculous solution for a world of spiraling energy problems.

Try reading “The Long Emergency” by James Kunstler, or “The Party’s Over” by Richard Heinburg as a primer for what our dire energy situation portends.

Bob

We have highly developed solar ray panels that can supply all energy needs of the one building. In the west we have geo-thermal,water power and entreprenuers using various USED ( FOR COOKING) OILS INTO fueels for their cars. Lets stay away from the destructive,money making fuels,-methane,nuclear fission etc and concentrate on the former.

Meanwhile if we spent 1% of the money we have spent on our last few genocidal wars investigating the scientific use of nuclear fusion we would probably come up with a way to turn that into a useful energy source in 15 years. Remember the russians have already contained a nuclear fusion reaction in “Tokomak” that put out more energy than it spent!

Rod, by your logic the Apollo 13 Command Module didn’t suffer from an explosion that robbed the crew of their mission-critical oxygen supply – NASA just put too many astronauts in the capsule. I’m sure if you had been aboard, you would have jettisoned the other two crewmembers while they slept (confident that you were the most important of the three on board).

There’s just too much hubris in such comments – e.g. “we” don’t need to cut back on our exorbitant patterns of consumption, “you” just need to stop having so many babies. That way, “I” can continue to drive my SUV from the suburbs to the grocery store so I can buy my 10,000-mile Caesar salad.

And FYI, per the US Census (I know, I know – a bastion of liberal left wing nuts) the average commute time in the Boise MSA grew from 19-minutes in 2000 to 20-minutes in 2005. The Boise MSA covers all of Boise, Garden City, Meridian, a part of Eagle, and Nampa. Although this isn’t a really huge leap in commute times, given the demonstrably poorer air quality this past year, it does show how sensitive the Treasure Valley air shed is to minor increases in emissions. And what do our elected leader do to solve the problem – widen the freeway!!!

It’s like prescribing Viagra to cure priapism.

The very geography that made the Boise Valley so attractive to farming (temperate low lands, sheltered from the high desert wind & chill) make it the worst place to drive so many cars. An inversion is the orchard farmer’s best friend in the cold months, but the bane of the modern car-driving valley resident. LA at least has the Santa Ana winds – no such “luck” here.

Rod, by your logic the Apollo 13 Command Module didn’t suffer from an explosion that robbed the astronauts of their mission-critical oxygen supply – NASA just put too many astronauts in the capsule. I’m sure if you had been aboard, you would have jettisoned the other two crewmembers while they slept (confident that you were the most important of the three on board).

There’s just too much hubris in your comments – “we” don’t need to cut back on our exorbitant patterns of consumption, “you” just need to stop having so many babies. That way, “I” can continue to drive my SUV from the suburbs to the grocery store so I can buy my 10,000-mile Caesar salad.

And FYI, per the US Census (I know, I know – a bastion of liberal left wing nuts) the average commute time in the Boise MSA grew from 19-minutes in 2000 to 20-minutes in 2005. The Boise MSA covers all of Boise, Garden City, Meridian, a part of Eagle, and Nampa. Although this isn’t a really huge leap in commute times, given the demonstrably poorer air quality this past year, it does show how sensitive the Treasure Valley air shed is to minor increases in emissions. And what do our elected leader do to solve the problem – widen the freeway!!! It’s like prescribing Viagra to cure priapism. (ED NOTE–For you non-library types it is something most women think most men have and most men would love to have it)

The very geography that made the Boise Valley so attractive to farming (temperate low lands, sheltered from the high desert wind & chill) make it the worst place to drive so many cars. An inversion is the orchard farmer’s best friend in the cold months, but the bane of the modern car-driving valley resident. LA at least has the Santa Ana winds – no such “luck” here.

Its ludicrous to say that the eight lower dams on the Columbia system are not destroying Idaho’s runs of anadromous fish. Tell me what else explains the precipitous decline of those runs within years of the construction of those dams? Commercial, sport and Indian treaty fishing does not explain the sharp decline in returns.

The ice dams on Cabinet Gorge were at least 600 miles upstream and occurred more than ten thousand years ago. Even if the representation is accurate its hardly a relevant comparison.

The lower Snake dams were constructed primarily to create slackwater not for power production, which was done as an afterthought. Now silt (another cost not internalized in your power bill) is filling the reservoirs leaving an environmental disaster for your kids and making the dams’ main purpose, barges, unusable.

I agree that hydro is one of the cleanest energy providers in terms of air pollution but that ignores the other consequences. Its not too late to correct our mistakes. We need to replace the power production of those ill conceived dams in favor of fish freindly in-flow turbines or we’ll lose a great Idaho asset, forever. And when the relatively short life of those dams has run the true cost of that power will become apparent, filthy rivers and no fish. Not a legacy I want to leave.

We revisited Hidden Springs on Sunday – it has grown a lot but there still was no sign of a “mercantile” store – I think it is just a soda fountain and coffee shop. There is a grade school. As best as we could tell, to come and go there you have to put a lot of miles on your car. I think you could call this “planned” community a plan for lots of homes and poor ingress/egress. The narrow two lane road doesn’t seem to have any place even to pull over, and before you get to Hill Road you would have the garbage guys crawling up your tail pipe, since they are always in a hurry. Perhaps people use Dry Creek Road and connect at Bogus Basin Road? Is it open?

Do our commissioners even revisit these earlier decisions regarding “planned communities” aka “sprawl” before they approve the next one?

And as Whidit mentioned, commute distance is also important. We need to have more infill commercial developments that can provide more of the services that we need everyday. We also need to have more housing closer to where people work, ie… downtown, so that the need to get into the car is minimized.

But that is only part of the solution, one must also re-look at all parts of the economy. “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawkins, talks about how different industries can change how they are doing business to help the environment and still make money. Many of these changes also have positive side effects.