I've been curious about how long the slide in gasoline prices will continue. Since their peak in mid-July, they've been steadily dropping.

Today, for the first time that I can recall since that time, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in New Mexico did not drop, according to AAA. It's not clear how noisy the data is, so I don't know whether this means we've now hit bottom, or whether this is just a statistical hiccup. But the average New Mexican is paying $3.744 per gallon for regular. (Usual caveat: you could be paying more or less. That's just the average. Rural parts of the state typically pay more, and city folk pay less.) 

The folks at the Union of Concerned Scientists wanted to pony up the cash to put up billboards about the dangers of nuclear weapons in the airports of the host cities for both the Republican and Democratic conventions. But instead of "no nukes", the message seems to be "no nuke billboards", according to The Caucus, an NYTimes blog:

Hoping to draw the public’s attention to the threat of nuclear weaponry, an issue that both presumptive candidates for president regularly mention on the campaign trail, the Union of Concerned Scientists purchased a pair of billboards at the airports in Denver and Minneapolis, where the Democratic and Republican conventions will soon be held. But those billboards have now been taken down, following a complaint by Northwest Airlines, the official airline of the Republican convention.

While a lot of the renewable energy talk these days is about things like wind and solar power generation, the real technology action may be in the more mundane-sounding area of energy storage.

One of the big obstacles to making renewables work is the disconnect between the time the energy is generated - when the wind blows or the sun shines - and when we need to use it. There are a lot of options on the table. You can pump water uphill into reservoirs, for example, then run it back down through a generator when you need the power. You can compress air and pump it underground, running it back out through a generator when you need it.

Los Alamos scientist Al Miglior will give a series of talks around New Mexico about the issue, as part of the Frontiers in Science lecture series:

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.
Duane W. Smith Auditorium
Los Alamos High School, Los Alamos 

Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.
James A. Little Theater, New Mexico School for the Deaf
1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
1801 Mountain Road NW, Albuquerque

Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.
Nick L. Salazar Center for the Arts, Northern New Mexico College
921 Paseo de Oñate, Española

They're all free. 

Presidential campaigns are both the best way and the worst way to have a national conversation about important public policy questions.

They are the best way because they force the conversation. But the point-scoring, vote-tallying "gotcha" campaign culture almost ensures that the discussion that ensues will have more heat than light.

This was illustrated in dramatic fashion over the last week by the kerfuffle over John McCain's comments about the Colorado River Compact - the 1922 governing document that divides up the river's water among seven western states. In an interview published Aug. 15 with the Pueblo Chieftain, McCain said this:

I don't think there's any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties.

McCain's political opponents saw an opening and pounced, arguing that the Arizona senator's comments amounted to the opening round in a war by rapidly growing lower basin states to steal water from places like New Mexico and Colorado. "McCain wants our water," wrote LP on NMFBIHOP. (Dude, I love you, so don't take it personally, but I think you got this one wrong.) The Obama campaign set up a conference call for reporters Wednesday to pile on.

I had an insightful conversation today with someone who asked to remain nameless, because she is in a rather delicate position with respect to the politics involved. In other words, this is a person who is not a McCain supporter, but who is not willing to be named calling members of her own political tribe silly for the way they're piling on about this. She made two key points:

• First, to say that the Colorado River Compact is deficient is to state the obvious.  Everyone in the western water world understands its shortcomings, and there have long been discussions about the best way to fix its problems.
• Second, no "reopening" of negotiations on the compact, or discussions about side deals that would leave the compact intact in its current form while fixing some of its worst problems, can happen without the consent of the seven states. No one can force New Mexico or Colorado into any such discussion against their will. No one can steal our water without our permission here, which means they can't steal our water.
• Third, if you're worried our water is going to get stolen, keep your eye on Las Vegas, Nevada. They're the ones that are really looking thirsty these days.

A serious policy discussion about the shortcomings of the Colorado Compact is needed, and is already underway on an ongoing basis among the leadership of the western water community. The current round of presidential campaign "gotcha" has thus far not added much useful to the conversation.

Work at WIPP is still in slowdown mode following an early August incident in which a drum was nicked while it was being emplaced underground. Kyle Marksteiner has the latest:

Most shipments from generator sites to WIPP have not resumed, but two shipments of remote handled waste from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois arrived at WIPP Saturday. It was the first time remote handled waste has been sent from Argonne to WIPP; Argonne is only the second site to send remote handled waste to WIPP.