Google, Apple, Facebook all have the means to afford any possible telecommuting technology, yet they also bus their employees 40 miles south from San Francisco to the office.

I have no doubt that telecommuting works well for some teams and some employees, but does it work well in the general case?

I don't think that encouraging spread out housing in large homes on large pieces of land is going to solve any energy problem. People still need to go out for food, errands, entertainment, etc. And single family homes in general are less water and energy efficient than more high density housing.