Environmentalists won't quit until we are walking and have no vehicles

[lilranch2001]

Apples and oranges. Might as well give up on cars based on the Model T having the same number of wheels.



Last time I checked, a 747 doesn't do curb side pickup, either. If I want to fly somewhere the nearest airport is Nashville, TN. Only the HS rail is 4 times more efficient. Do you have a point?



I'll state this in a language you speak fluently, sarcasm:

Just like how all highways are privately owned..
Government doesn't have any hand in airports, highways and current rail, nope..
And all of the wars we continue to fight for oil so shortsighted people can continue burying their heads in the sand, that doesn't suck any money, not at all..
Oh yeah.. that logic thing, so inconvenient..

I hope speaking your language helped, because I care so much about people who hide their inadequacies behind sarcasm.. :irked:

Hey Mushy, if I was you and believed how you believe, I would take that tractor and give it to some poor person and buy a mule, that way you would be GREEN, wait..... no that mule probably would putter a lot of CO2 out if its tail pipe, just cannot win can ya?

 

[toppop52]

Hey Mushy, if I was you and believed you believe, I would take that tractor and give it to some poor person and buy a mule, that way you would be GREEN, wait..... no that mule probably would putter a lot of CO2 out if its tail pipe, just cannot win can ya?

Sometimes not....:laughing:

 

[bcp]

From:
The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894 | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

A horse will on average produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day. Consequently, the streets of nineteenth-century cities were covered by horse manure. This in turn attracted huge numbers of flies, and the dried and ground-up manure was blown everywhere. In New York in 1900, the population of 100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and disposed of.

 

[aczlan]

Those figures are not for high speed rail, but commuter rail (AKA subway), so it doesn't apply for a comparison.

Wikipedia would like to disagree with you: Commuter rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the same article you cite it lists a high speed passenger train which actually runs on diesel (so no conversion is needed) from Colorado Rail (USA), which has an efficiency of 468 passenger-miles/US gallon, which is 3 times a full capacity e-350 van, crushes a Prius by almost 6 times efficiency (keeping with your assumed 2 people, although the US average is even lower at 1.2 people per vehicle) and 4 times a 747 airliner (the most efficient airplane listed) at 91 p-MPG.

In 2007 Amtrack had an average of 71.6 P-MPG and a theoretical P-MPG (if they ran at 100% capacity) of 189.7. That train (as specced on Wikipedia) gets 1.125 US MPG, has 472 seats and room for 552 people standing. To get that P-MPG they would have to run at 40.6% of their max capacity or with 88% of their seats filled. Not going to see a train that efficient or that large (1024 seats) running outside of large cities (which is where it is used, SLC, Frisco, San Diego, NYC, etc as it is too big, so you would see smaller, cheaper, less efficient cars running the rails at 60-150 P-MPG (which ranges are beatable by a plane, high MPG vehicles, vans, etc)
Another issue to work around is that around here, Amtrack and other passenger lines run on someone else's rails, so to go from Rochester to NYC means that you get sidelined several times while the CSX freight trains go through. Makes a 6 hour drive into a 8+ hour ride and at those times, I will drive.

Also, a standard twin track railway has a typical capacity 13% greater than a 6-lane highway (3 lanes each way), while requiring only 40% of the land.

Where are you going to get a trillion dollars to build more rail lines? Laying track, acquiring land, etc are not cheap and your ROI will not be too good.

Aaron Z

 

[RoyJackson]

Where are you going to get a trillion dollars to build more rail lines? Laying track, acquiring land, etc are not cheap and your ROI will not be too good.

Aaron Z

High speed rail requires welded track...expensive to lay.
And the costs...that's the rub...the US just cannot afford it...not at this time. And, we'd have to realize it would be highly subsidized continuously.

I have read that California is rethinking the high speed rail system they were going to build. The cost was 68 billion (not counting overruns). Looks like the voters are a bit upset that local education (among other services) was taking cuts, so I reckon they've decided to get their priorities straight. I read this recently on CNN or Fox and haven't been following California's high speed rail project, so that statement may not be up to date. Maybe some CA TBNers can comment.

 

[Renze]

Since a couple posts mentioned pollution in China and the Philipines...I also told my elected reps...suggested, actually, the imported goods must meet the same environmental regs (as American manufacturers) to be allowed in the US market.

I've been thinking in that direction for a while... IF they want a free world market economy, they must apply the same environmental, health and safety, and human rights interferences with the free market (yes even a prohibition of slavery is an interference with the free market economy which increases cost price, even though i do NOT advocate any of this !) to those banana republics too. And if not, add extra import tax.
I am not such a capitalist that i say all environment, health, human rights, is BS, i just say its BS that people think its "morally wrong" to protect the domestic market...

Just saying, in developed countries the health, environment and human rights standards are so much higher that because of the unevenness, THERE IS NO FREE WORLD MARKET....

And added to that: only 3% of the carbon emission is caused by human activity: The biggest emittor of carbon in China is a natural coal fire that is going on for years, and efforts of the authorities to extinguish it and save the coal for energy production, have all failed...

People think they must save the world and do crazy stuff to prevent armageddon, yet it proves over and over again that we cannot control nature at all....

 

[Hollow]

It doesn't matter if your pro-EPA or anti-EPA, the fact is the federal government has no authority under the constitution to regulate anything with the EPA. Constitutionally it is up to the states to regulate themselves.

As for high speed rail. When I worked for the railroad it took over $3,000,000 to run one coal train from Wyoming to Georgia Power. If you think you can raise that kind of money to run a modern day train through ticket sales your silly.

 

[Hollow]

Double post.