Leading Off (10/14/09)
1. Kay Baily Hutchison is keeping them guessing. Yesterday on Mark Davis’ radio show, she was vague about when (or if?) she’ll vacate her Senate seat to run against Rick Perry. Our mayor has no interest in these developments. Okay, maybe just a little interest. Oh, all right, he’s got about 15 RSS feeds set up to track Hutchison’s every move.
2. The squirreliness with county constables continues. County Commissioner Jim Foster ordered a pre-dawn raid on a constable’s computer to copy the entire hard drive. Said Foster: “If there is not something on that computer that they don’t want anyone to know about, then what is the problem? There is nothing on my computer that I would be embarrassed to share with any investigator.” There is at least one difference between me and Foster.
3. See if you can follow me on this one. DART is going to buy 600 buses. The question is whether they should run on diesel or compressed natural gas. Last year, DART was saying it would go diesel. The new diesel engines burn just as cleanly as natural gas, and they’re much cheaper. But then Mayor Tom Leppert stepped in and said, “Look at my enormous hands! T. Boone Pickens owns a company that sells compressed natural gas. Natural gas buses will make Dallas cool. Diesel is boring. Have another look at my hands — and this purchasing decision!” So yesterday DART reversed its thinking. Sure, the natural gas buses will cost $142 million more than the diesel buses, but over 20 years, DART projects, they’ll more than make up for that higher initial cost. Why? Because in the last nine months, the cost of deisel has gone up, while the cost of natural gas has dropped. Do I understand this correctly? Is DART about to make a $142 million bet on the price of natural gas 20 years from now? How many times has T. Boone Pickens gone broke making bets like that? (And, sure, gotten rich making bets like that. But, still, you get my point.)
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In the infobox at the bottom of the story, the average life of the bus is estimated to be 12 years, but they’re projecting saving all this money over 20 years.
Can someone please explain?
C’mon Tim, you know that governmental entities love to bet your money like this. If they lose, they can just take more of your money to make up for it. It’s like hitting the restart button on a videogame!
Tim, are you really criticizing someone for betting ridiculous amounts of money on a favorable future outcome, no matter how remote the odds of success? Because I’ve seen your hands, and they’re not usually so big.
Shifting to natural gas as a transportation fuel is a good long term bet for national energy policy, considering that we appear to be the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. The latest Diesels, if equipped with expensive urea injection and particulate catalyts, can be effectively as clean burning as gasoline engines, but natural gas burns cleaner still. Fleets are the easiest thing to convert to a new, not yet available everywhere fuel, as they generally refuel at a central location. I’m extremely pleased that DART will be ordering natural gas busses.
Oh.. way to go Boone! And here I had almost sold DART on my Flux Capacitor model.
Sounds dangerous. I think they should go with horse & buggies.
Dart buses will be a rootin-tootin
Those Dallas County Constables are the urban equivalent of a small-town speed trap.
Technically, Jim Foster is the County Judge, not a Commissioner.