No More Pumps
Electrek discusses Petaluma’s Ban on New Gas Stations.
Existing gas stations aren’t being shut down in Petaluma. It’s just that no new ones will be built, because there are enough – one within a five-minute drive of every residential area in the city, in fact, as the Santa Rosa Press Democrat writes. The plan is to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, and Petaluma’s City Council, with a population of around 60,000, feels its 16 existing gas stations is enough.
Electrek’s Take
Petaluma is the first seed planted, and many will follow and sprout, first in California, and then in other US states like Washington. For example, the Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations (CONGAS) is working to ban gas stations in Sonoma County, California, and its nine cities.
Just as the world is moving away from coal and other fossil fuels and toward green energy, so too will towns and cities follow in Petaluma’s footsteps by deciding they have enough gas stations as EV numbers rise and ICE cars fall. The number of charging stations will multiply, and the number of gas stations will shrink.
Enough is Enough
If 16 gas stations are indeed “enough”, then few if any new gas stations would be built anyway.
But who should decide how many is enough?
The free market would regulate “enough” quite easily. City councils are clueless.
Amusing Comments
Peruse through the comments to Electrek’s article. There are some real gems.
Alpha Gardner: “A good step in the right direction. Please also ban existing gas stations – burning of gasoline and Diesel fuel on public streets.”
The reply by KeepRunningYourMouth is interesting: “Just cut to the chase, attack the real problem and ban making any new people. Once human population gets back below 2 billion, we should be good to go.”
Carbon Crisis?
Let’s say we accept that manmade CO2 is a problem and the scientists are 100% correct. Let’s further assume that none of the lies and data manipulations by various scientists never happened.
What’s left are proposals from Al Gore, AOC and others cost $50 trillion to $90 trillion.
50 Years of Dire Predictions
In case you missed it Let’s Review 50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened.
Here’s point #21 of dire forecasts made in 2014. “We have 500 days to Avoid Climate Chaos” said then Sec of State John Kerry and Biden’s current climate czar.
Scientifically speaking, I have a question: Have 500 days passed?
All of these hype stories are actual lies to get the politically correct agenda going now.
Key Questions
- How much money are we willing to spend to reduce our 14.5% and falling percentage of carbon emissions?
- What would it cost to cut that by half in 10 years?
- Assuming we could cut that in half in 10 years, what would it do to total carbon output?
- By what force do we get China, India, and all the developing economies in the Mideast and Africa to reduce their carbon output?
- Assuming we achieve number 4 peacefully by some sort of economic buyout like cap-and-trade what is the cost to the US?
- What about inflation?
- Sure, China is producing goods for the US and EU but do we want that to stop? When? Why? How? Cost?
- Does not China, India, Africa, etc., have the right to improve their standards of living?
- What do the above points imply about the US standard of living?
- How the hell do we pay for this?
Accepting Science
This is not a matter of “accepting science” as the climate fearmongers say.
It’s a matter of coming up with a reasonable plan to do something sensible about it, knowing full well the oceans are going to keep rising for the next 100 years anyway!
GM to Phase Out Gas-Powered Vehicles by 2035, Carbon Neutral by 2040
On January 28, I noted GM to Phase Out Gas-Powered Vehicles by 2035, Carbon Neutral by 2040
But that does not appease the climate morons who want to ban existing gas stations now and of course natural gas which produces the energy to power the electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, I have sarcastically commented a few times: The number one thing people can do to reduce their carbon footprint is stop breathing.
Since few will voluntarily do so, then I suggest do not drive, do not not eat out, do not watch TV, do not not heat or cool the apartment and above all don’t have kids.
Mish
Johnie down the street is running a great business making people “disappear”. Should the government step in and regulate that or do we let the free market decide?
Electric cars are the future. I think sooner or later the number of gas stations will start going down.
OT: Dollar strong today. Gold weak. I expect more selling pressure today. Gold is getting smacked a bit at the open. If we can bounce off 1700 today I will probably reload the fun trade.
Does it mollify you to know that a 17th one is going to be built in 15 square miles? So there will be 1.13 gas stations per square mile? And that you could have one right outside the city limits if you really felt that there was a pent-up demand for gasoline?
“(CONGAS) is working to ban gas stations in Sonoma County, California, and its nine cities.”
There won’t be one right outside city limits if the county bans new gas stations as well.
What, you’re opposed to local control and citizen input now?
Just the term climate fear mongers tells me this isn’t a serious question but a rant
“We have 500 days to Avoid Climate Chaos” said then Sec of State John Kerry
That was a mindless rant.
As an owner of 2015 Leaf, I still disagree a city deciding to ban new gas stations. If someone REALLY cares about environment, and carbon emission is just one variable, they need to first recognize an ICE (internal Combustion Engine) car design is so wrong in many levels for transportation of regular folks’ daily travels. An ICE that needs so many supplemental “cooling”, “oiling”, “transmission”, “breaking” services -and dispose of hazardous materials- that when you own an EV, it is like day and night. My 6 year old car needed only a 4 new set of tires and 2 sets of windshield wipers until now and that’s it. But yes the range is not long and it is getting shorter each day -growing pain of a new technology-. For that the city instead should encourage installation of new charging stations and giving incentives for EV owners to install in house tier2 (30A, 220V charger, 6.4KWh) charging systems to allow grid stress friendly way to charge their cars. You can only encourage a new technology by allowing it grow not artificially killing the alternative.
EV owners go through tires about 2x as fast as comparable ICE cars because the cars are much heavier. Which also increases wear and tear on roads.
Curb weight of a Nissan Leaf 4 door hatchback is 3538 pounds. Curb weight of a Honda CR-V 4 Door Hatchback is 3398. A difference of 4% doesn’t seem to be “much heavier” to me. I know that back in the 1970’s electric cars burned through tires, not because of weight, as a Sebring-Vanguard Citicar weighed in at only 600 lbs, but because ozone was generated by the electric motor, and also was generated during the charging process. Ozone destroys natural rubber (i.e. tires).
If you smell a clean fresh smell, like after a thunderstorm, that’s ozone, and it will damage tires.
Raising the price of a technology is you want to see less of is a perfectly valid and effective way of influencing change. The normal approach, though, would be to tax it to raise the price, rather than raising the price by increasing the profit margin of the businesses sell it.
Data USA
Petaluma, CA
meh If this little town wants to not grant building/occupancy permits to gas stations..let em. But when they will only allow persons of color that have incomes less that 24,000 a year reside there or only persons with disabilities or only LGBTQ persons or…. than maybe get in a huff
New outrage every day….
That’s kind of the definition of snowflakism.
How hard do you have to be looking for these outrage sources?
Is there a special outrage network out there (oops, FOX, WSJ, Breitbart, Newsmax, OANN). I guess there is.
No additional gas stations in Petaluma. It’s a decision for the city to make. Average clean-up costs for a gas stations leaky tanks is $ 275,000 and the life of a tank is about 15 years.
Is there a shortage of gas in the area? Will prices go up? Most likely no–it’s not a closed system and prices of the existing ones are in line with the region with the 16 that are there. Would 10 more make prices go down, or drive out the existing ones.
Because CNN and MSNBC never get outraged over anything.
This is symbolic feel good posturing.
The number of gas stations has been declining in the USA over the last 40 years.
By 2060, they will be extinct.
Market forces.
Nah. They will be replaced by hydrogen fueling stations.
Volvo will be all electric by 2030. GM and Ford soon after. The country is going electric.
What are the recharge stations going to do for electricity
From whence comes the electricity for the recharging stations? Not from solar or wind, Only option in most places is coal or natgas
its much more efficient. gas engines lose energy through heat. and that’s excluding pollution
Since gas stations are environmental hazzards i’d say the cities very much get to decide. Petaluma has a population of 57,941. we’re not talking Los Angeles or San Francisco. That said California has always been rather progressive. The best way to get the country converted which is going to happen and is not open a debatable point is not by baning petrol stations but by encouraging electric filling stations. The best way to do that is to move state and federal fleets to electric. This will immediatley spark demand for the private sector to meet. There are potentially thousands of federal, state and city vehicles. This is how its done.
Sloppy thinking / government abuse of power /collectivist mindsets are far larger hazards. I say we outlaw those first.
Crazy how we so freely question the status quo defacto scientific priest class regarding climate change (rightfully so), but cringe and coil back at questioning them regarding the Rona.
The same points Mish makes at the end of the article apply to both.
“If you care about economics more than you do old people…..” blah blah blah.
The idiocy is everywhere. Fear is the justification for every inch that is being taken.
It would also be good to do something against the damage caused by the production of devices that will replace the old energy, based on fuel or gas, for example batteries. This damage is produced outside California and US. Is it a good reason to ignore it ?
Does your 14.5% include the emissions caused by products that you use, imported from China ?
“Does your 14.5% include the emissions caused by products that you use, imported from China ?”
No, but so what?
And what about billions of Asians and Africans who will decide they want a better lifestyle.
How does that happen and at what expense? Wind and solar are not going to power the world any time soon.
Population growth and lifestyle changes are huge issues that no one bothers to discuss.
Petaluma isnt a place that’s been growing a lot anyway.. it is literally just a small town on the way to the coast or to wine country. When was the last new gas station built there anyway? Most of these smaller towns in northern california were never excited about growth anyway. Ironically some of these places feel like a rural midwestern town.
I have no problem with a town being a Guinea pig on this as long as I don’t live there. I am curious to see how they will pay for repairing and laying new roads. I bet they put on a tax on electricity. That should be very popular.
If you presume that switching to EVs is the only way to “save the planet”, you have to face facts and the only way generate the amount of electricity is to fully embrace nuclear.
The owners of those 16 gas stations are sitting on a gold mine because they will become defacto monopolies if the city sticks to that. In fact they could easily collude to charge any amount for fuel that they wanted knowing there would be no competition possible.
I also wonder what would happen if a pump breaks or a gas station burned down. Would it be allowed to be replaced?
I was about to say the same thing. They have to be celebrating. I would guess that the value of their stations just went up 25-50% overnight.
I always get the rental car with the full tank at SFO, and so I drive right through Petaluma on my way to the part of Cali I like the best, which is just north and east of there. Since Cali doesn’t put service roads on the freeways, you have to look hard for gas stations already, if you don’t know where they are. I gas up in Calistoga, on the way back. Nothing in Petaluma but massive strip malls. If they didn’t burn down.
Hmmm, gas is SOOO expensive in Petaluma. Guess I’ll mosey on over to Sonoma, Roehnert Park or Novato to fill up, all within 5 minutes of Petaluma.
Like a California city is a closed system. Never been to California, huh?
Although there may be other near by cities, I wouldn’t expect people to drive to them other than a few dedicated ones unless they already happen to be going there.
Here in Florida, the town of Jupiter is about 10 miles from where I live. My office used to be there and all the gas stations on the main drag were owned by 1 person who always charged 5 cents more a gallon. I found this out when I worked there and was warned to never buy gas there (I checked at it was indeed always roughly 5 cents more a gallon there than anywhere else). Since I drove 10 miles there I always gassed up locally. But those stations did not go out of business so either locals who lived there weren’t aware they paid more (unlikely) or just couldn’t justify spending an extra 20 minutes (plus gas) to drive somewhere else to save $1 (20 gallons x 5 cents).
I would imagine Petaluma will eventually charge 5 cents or so more and make thousands of extra dollars a year in pure profit thanks to the city. This is not an anti-trust issue, it’s just pure profiteering by what will be a cartel thanks to the city.
Are you in NPB?
I used to be. Now I live in Lake Clarke Shores, another few miles south since my office is now in the West Palm area.
My parents moved there from upstate in 1976. They are still there. Beautiful place to live. It’s one of those rare places that have gotten better and better.
I wonder if I’ve met your parents. There are a lot of people I’ve met here who have been here since the 70’s and 80’s.
And your right that it’s one of the rare places that has gotten better over time.
You might have. My father is an avid golfer even in his mid-nineties so if you played at the country club there you might have run into him.
Incidentally, I lived in the East Bay Area (Walnut Creek) from 03-05 so I know where Petaluma is.
Ok, so I would say you should know better. The option to vote with your wallet is always available to those to whom it matters. Why would anyone have sympathy for those who choose convenience over price?
I live in Orange CA. 87 runs $3.19 at my corner station. I jaunted over to Tustin CA, all of 10 miles away and 87 is $3.89. There is literally no justification for a 30% margin there, just a slightly higher class of resident but not Newport Coast wealthy.
This problem exists whether or not a given city experiments with zoning controls and alt-fuel experiments.