High Speed Rail

[JoeLeaphorn]

Originally Posted by Drover

Now, compare that to France, which has 60 million people stuffed into 210,000 square miles.

Sure. Population density of France, 297: Ohio: 277. Not a big difference and, as I said, the real issue is the end point travel between cities, not population density. We aren't talking about commuter rail,. We are talking about intercity transportation.

And you still haven't responded to my real point. Name two cities in the Midwest which are "thousands of miles" apart. Tick tick tick....

Originally Posted by Drover

Clever, though ad hominem and off-topic. When you have to make personal attacks in place of actual arguments, you know you've lost.

As I said, you are free to lobby your representative however you see fit.

But the amendment lost and the $4 billion for HSR was passed.

So who lost?

[JoeLeaphorn]

Originally Posted by KevK

Simple. China is economically just entering the industrial age- about 70 years after we did- from a largely poor agri based economy. Most people in China do not yet own private cars which is why they have lots of trains and busses moving people around. As China matures and becomes a richer nation and its people buy more and more private cars, less and less trains and busses will be needed to more them around.
Trains in the USA are dead. Yes, they made some gains last year but that was a fluke largely due to temporary sky high gas prices which have stabilized now.

Sorry. No. The US government has subsidized automobile and truck traffic and taxed and regulated rail since 1919. Not a level playing field.

And as for gas prices, you are living in the clouds if you think that gas prices are going to remain where they are. They are already up and will steadily increase over the next 10 years.

[RichMonk]

Originally Posted by 04JETTA

cellulosic ethanol from algae>

No biocrude is much more like regular oil crude. You can make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and ethanol from it. The currently preferred process is by thermal conversion which is essentially doing what the Earth did to ancient plankton over millions of years in about a few hours. For example, 80% of corn crops is tossed out as waste (stalks and leaves). Those can be thrown into a reactor along with corn cobs, grasses and sawdust from construction to make biocrude. The technology has come a long way and people are still working on a method that uses even less input energy via algae.

The marketing potential for biocrude far outpaces ethanol and eventually regular crude. In the US alone we could produce 3.5 billion barrels of biocrude compared to the 2.7 billion of ancient crude we produce today (we import 4.7 billion). The USDA estimates that that the potential global supply of biocrude would be anywhere from 34 billion to 160 billion barrels per year. That more than covers the current consumption of ancient crude which is at 30 billion barrels per year. ExxonMobil has already approved a retrofit of one of their refineries to begin accepting biocrude. The age of the car will continue it seems, despite my dislike of it.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by JoeLeaphorn

Sure. Population density of France, 297: Ohio: 277. Not a big difference and, as I said, the real issue is the end point travel between cities, not population density. We aren't talking about commuter rail,. We are talking about intercity transportation.

And you still haven't responded to my real point. Name two cities in the Midwest which are "thousands of miles" apart. Tick tick tick....



As I said, you are free to lobby your representative however you see fit.

But the amendment lost and the $4 billion for HSR was passed.

So who lost?

Who lost? Everybody. We have already-existing transportation infrastructure all over this country that could use some serious shoring up. Instead we're tossing money at new and ultimately redundant infrastructure instead of taking care of what we already have, courtesy of the train fetishists who apparently have the ear of Washington.

Our roads are crumbling, our bridges are on the verge of collapse, metro transit systems are in dire shape, but at least we'll be able to get from to St. Louis on a train about an hour slower than we can already get there on a plane. Yay for progress.

[JoeLeaphorn]

Originally Posted by Drover

Who lost? Everybody. We have already-existing transportation infrastructure all over this country that could use some serious shoring up.

Sure. Just like we should shore up New Orleans which is built below sea level on a river delta because? I'm not knocking New Orleans but I am saying that the wisdom of people who built the town hundreds of years ago has been called into question by the inevitable forces of nature.

The National System of Interstate and Defence Highways was FIRST conceived in 1919. In 1919 people were still being treated with leaches, practical antibiotics and insulin had not been invented, and thousands of individuals in the US were dead of influenza. But, sure, it was a good idea, then, and, thus, must be a good idea in 2019.

Originally Posted by Drover

Instead we're tossing money at new and ultimately redundant infrastructure instead of taking care of what we already have, courtesy of the train fetishists who apparently have the ear of Washington.

New? You mean that the automobile was invented before the Iron Horse. Wow, I musta missed that in history class. Or, perhaps, the fact that the transcontinetal rail road was completed how many decades before the first transcontinental roadway? What is new? What is redudant.

Originally Posted by Drover

Our roads are crumbling, our bridges are on the verge of collapse, metro transit systems are in dire shape, but at least we'll be able to get from to St. Louis on a train about an hour slower than we can already get there on a plane. Yay for progress.

Sure, and there are missle silos in the local county park that are now tourist attractions. Not everything that we built in the last half century has proved to be necessary or even wise, including the 5.7 million miles of paved roads that costs about $11,000/mile/year to keep in good working condition, which is about $62 billion which is greater than the budget for the Highway Trust Fund which, also, does not take into account new road developent and construction.

Sure, you have me convinced that roadways are our future. You also have me convinced about the notion of regression towards the mean, perhaps, unwittingly (excuse the pun).