$98 per barrel oil

Morgans writes:

Is that you, MX?

No. Wolfgang Schwanke has been posting under that name for some twenty years,
and he disagrees with me more often than not.

As hard as it may be to accept, it's possible for more than one person on
USENET to disagree with you.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Morgans writes:

Is that you, MX?

No. Wolfgang Schwanke has been posting under that name for some
twenty years, and he disagrees with me more often than not.

As hard as it may be to accept, it's possible for more than one person
on USENET to disagree with you.


But for impossible to find one who agrees with you.


Bertie

In article , Wolfgang Schwanke
wrote:

But trying to install an electric rail system now
would be next to impossible.

It would take a huge effort comparable to the buildup of the highway
system, but why impossible?

Perhaps not impossible, but just the environmental impact analyses required
would result in decades of delays.

plus think about the carbon footprint from the actual process of
building an electricl rail system.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

Bob Noel writes:

Perhaps not impossible, but just the environmental impact analyses required
would result in decades of delays.

plus think about the carbon footprint from the actual process of
building an electricl rail system.

It's almost trivial compared to the impact and footprint of a highway system,
so that argument doesn't work, either.

Americans don't have such a system because, for various reasons, they simply
don't want one. But it's entirely feasible, efficient, and practical.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Bob Noel writes:

Perhaps not impossible, but just the environmental impact analyses
required would result in decades of delays.

plus think about the carbon footprint from the actual process of
building an electricl rail system.

It's almost trivial compared to the impact and footprint of a highway
system, so that argument doesn't work, either.


Wrong diillhole

Bertie

Perhaps not impossible, but just the environmental impact analyses required
would result in decades of delays.

Can you imagine? The environmentalists would absolutely have a
bird! There wouldn't be ten miles of track laid before some snail
darter or frog or "wetland" was "endangered", and the whole project
would grind to a halt.

Our new (paving in progress) 800-foot runway extension in Iowa City
alone has been 40 years in the making and required three separate
(ever more stringent) EPA studies. We're talking millions of dollars
-- for 800 feet of concrete.

I'm afraid the time to build giant transportation networks in the US
is long past. We have surrendered our government to the special
interests, and the bureaucrats are in command.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in
:

The distances here are just plain longer than what you are dealing
with in Europe.

Not really. Europe as a continent is a bit larger than the USA.

The straight line distance between Paris and Berlin
~450 miles. In the US that would get you from New York to Detroit.

How about Madrid - Moscow or Athens - Tromsø?

Well if you are going to play that game then you have to take Mexico and
Canada into the mix here. But I was giving you the benefit of counting EU
nations. If you'd like we could reduce the conversation to individual
countries on both sides.



To
get to Los Angles you'd have to go another 1900 miles. Which is
further than the distance from either the Northern tip of Denmark to
the Southern end of Italy or from Gibralter to the Polish border.

Quite. But Europe is a bit larger than the examples you chose.

One factor is that people tend to live their lives within one country,
they don't really dash across the entire continent that much, and that
contributes to overall shorter journey times. But that is changing as
national borders become less relevant.


Exactly. And I gave you the benefit of considering the EU as a country.


Would it be nice to have electric rail serving the majority of the
US, hell yes, but after WWII we decided a huge highway system would
be the way to go

Nothing wrong with that as such, but smashing the railway system at
the same time (which AFAIK was better then than today, correct me if
I'm wrong) wasn't really a good idea.

and it served us well and help make the US the worlds
largest economy.

I don't know about that, but neglecting the rail system certainly
wasn't economically sound.


It certainly was at the time.



But trying to install an electric rail system now
would be next to impossible.

It would take a huge effort comparable to the buildup of the highway
system, but why impossible?


We could probably have scheduled flight to Mars for the cost.


And there is one big plus to highways over rail. We don't grind to a
halt every time a single union goes out on strike.

He Well they've stopped for the moment.


For the moment. They probably already have the next strike date on their
calenders.

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

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

writes:

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

You do realize that Europeans have trains that can roll at 350 mph?

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

Europe has more civilization per square kilometer than the U.S.

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

Paris covers that with its mass transit system.

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

Most European areas ore more horizontal than vertical; the skyscrapers are in
the U.S.

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

People do that on mass transit here in Europe all the time (at least in
Paris).

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

Actually, you'll cross half the continental United States in a full day of
continuous driving.

"Mxsmanic" wrote

Actually, you'll cross half the continental United States in a full day of
continuous driving.

It is good to know you are as geographically challenged, along with your
other challenges.

New York to Los Angels is 2,778 miles, and expedia lists it as 39 hours 55
minutes.

So in round numbers, driving that distance means you will be averaging 70
miles per hour.

Somewhere in there, you have to eat, take restroom breaks, fuel the vehicle,
and deal with traffic.

Most people on a long trip can average no more than 60 mph, for stops, not
including sleep.

That takes the drive time up to over 46 hours.

So you only need to sleep for 2 hours out of the 48 hours to drive across
the country. What a man!

Why don't you take that trip sometime? I'll not lose any sleep about them
finding you run off the road, asleep at the wheel.

Oh, never mind - you don't drive.
--
Jim in NC