Argentina - credit where credit is due

'bout time argentina got a little positive recognition...

U.S. drivers look to what's in Argentina's tank: natural gas

More vehicles run on natural gas in Argentina than anywhere else in the world, and that success is attracting a burst of interest from the U.S., where a big push is under way to convert buses, taxis and cars to natural gas.

Representatives of American companies are flocking to Argentina to buy natural-gas compressors, conversion kits and fuel tanks to sell in the U.S., said Alessandro Carlo, president of Tomasetto Achille, a major Argentine maker of these products, based in Buenos Aires.

[...]

Argentina's success began with a decision by the government in the early 1980s to keep natural-gas prices artificially low — something the U.S. is unlikely to try.

The Argentine government also made it easier for service stations to install the equipment needed to fuel vehicles and created a special program for several hundred taxis in Buenos Aires to convert to natural gas.

The U.S. seems to be moving in this direction, albeit slowly. Bills in Congress would create incentives to encourage consumers to buy more natural gas-driven cars, for service-station owners to install natural-gas pumps and for manufacturers to build more natural-gas cars.

[...]

Today, about 1.7 million vehicles run on natural gas in Argentina, or about 15 percent of all Argentine vehicles.

By contrast, less than 1 percent of vehicles in the U.S. run on natural gas.

i observed the widespread use of cng (gnc as it's called in spanish) in argentina when i first visited there in 2004... currently, regular gas is selling for roughly $2.89AR (that's 2 pesos, 89 centavos) per liter (3.89 liters = 1 U.S. gallon) while gnc is selling for 89 centavos per liter, no small saving... you can also go online in argentina, Ruta 0, a site which will not only show you the exact routes to take when traveling from point to point but will also display the routes best taken if you're fueled by gasoline, diesel or gnc, will show the location of the stations, compute the cost of the fuel you use for the distance you will be driving, AND show any applicable tolls...

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More triple-A, context-free journalism from the WaPo, this time on Colorado's western slope

Drilling at the edge of Grand Mesa on
Colorado's western slope

i grew up in colorado and, although i haven't lived there since 1977 (with the exception of 2002), i still carry the mental and emotional scars of the ceaseless environmental rape of my home state... too bad the washington post, with all its supposedly first class journalistic resources, has no access to history, recent or otherwise...

The Bush administration's aggressive drive to promote oil and gas drilling on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains has sparked growing anger here among traditional Republican constituents who say that the stepped-up push for energy development is sullying some of the country's most majestic landscape.

The emerging backlash from ranchers and sportsmen, which is occurring despite an economic boom driven by drilling, is threatening GOP primacy in at least one corner of what has been a solidly Republican West. Long the most reliably conservative expanse of a state that has gone red in six of the past seven presidential contests, Colorado's western third shows evidence of the "purpling" that has made Colorado look increasingly like a swing state.

the western slope and particularly grand mesa contains some of the most beautiful country anywhere, but leave it to the bush administration to not give a shit about anything so poofy as that... what's almost as bad is when a major newspaper ignores history and leads you to believe that what's happening is just another political power struggle... here's what i wrote to the wapo...

what incredibly irresponsible reporting...! i simply cannot believe you wrote this entire article without a single reference to the nearly century and a half of economic boom and bust and environmental rape colorado has suffered in the name of mineral and other resource "extraction," the most recent of which took place in the very same western slope area 30 years ago, leaving rifle, parachute and parts of grand junction and glenwood springs in economic ruin... yes, the oil shale industry that descended on that area in the 70's with all the attendant fanfare turned out precisely as predicted by then governor dick lamm, a huge source of jobs that created an equally huge demand for state and local resources (roads, schools and other infrastructure), which then took a nosedive, leaving behind virtual ghost towns and the voters holding the bag... had you deigned to include that part of the story, the ire of the republicans and the rest of the populace would be infinitely more understandable...

fools...

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