Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in :

Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in
:

There are no alternatives to oil.

The electric grid uses a vanishingly small amount of oil.

The transportation system uses a vanishingly small amount of
electricity.

Concerning ground transport, there's rail which nowadays is mostly
electric. The combustion engine is really only indispensable in air
and ship transport, as you say, and a fraction of ground transport
which for various reasons can't be transferred to rail.

Most rail is diesel electric; there is a diesel engine driving a
generator.

There are no electrified rails or overhead wires between LA and
Chicago.

OK you're writing from an American perspective. In Europe most long-
and mid distance connections are electrified. You'll only see diesel
traction on short sections. And all city transport is electric by
definition. If the USA doesn't have the infrastructure in place, I say
it's time to build it up. The next problem is to convince people to
actually use it, i.e. to actually use it for private travel as well as
commercial transports. The latter is a problem that Europe has too (if
to a lesser extent).

OK your're writing from a European perspective.

You do realize most of our states are bigger than most of your countries?

Also, cities here are a bit different too.

It is all "city" from Santa Monica to San Bernardino, for example,
but they are about 60 miles apart.

Unless you run tracks from every distribution center to every local
retail outlet, rail can never be more than a small fraction of the
transportation system.

Make that a large fraction, otherwhise I agree. But there's a lot of
things you can do. You don't need trucks going 1000s of kilometers
across the continent. Ship the stuff to the nearest railway station and
let the trains bring it to the destination city, then ship it by truck
the small distance to wherever it's needed. Build factories close to
railway lines and vice versa, so the last mile gets shorter or
disappears altogether. Commuting in big cities can be done entirely by
public transport, no need at all to have lots of freeways cut through
the suburbs. etc. etc.

Both my wife and I commute over 50 miles one way. My next door neighbor
commutes 60.

Most US areas are spread out horizontally, not vertically as in Europe.

The vertical places, like New York, are few and far between.

Of course we'll need the supermarket delivered by truck, we need
ambulance cars, police cars, people in rural areas will need cars for
their daily needs, and city dwellers will want to drive to their
weekend destinations. But we can shift the weight a lot if we want to.
Private cars can become mostly leisure toys.

Not with 30 to 60 mile commutes being common for most places.

Rail is good for hauling bulk items, such as coal, over long distances
between major hubs.

That is the American perspective again.

Of course, we have thousands of land miles to worry about.

I can drive all day in one direction without leaving my state.

There are methods for making oil from coal. Somewhere I read that the
process has been revived in China. If it's so uneconomical, why are
they doing it?

As I said before, such processes have been doable for about a half
century now.

No one is doing it commercially because it is too expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol

OK, there's on start up.

With the current price of oil I wouldn't expect it to be too far in
the future for it to be generally viable.

Regards

--
Excessive verbing weirds the language.


http://www.wschwanke.de/ usenet_20031215 (AT) wschwanke (DOT) de

--
Jim Pennino

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