$98 per barrel oil

Morgans writes:

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.

Twenty-four hours multiplied by 65 mph is 1560 statute miles, or roughly 56%
of the cross-country total distance.

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

See above.

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

Yes, so? Add an hour.

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!

All you need is more than one driver in the car. People do this all the time.

Why don't you take that trip sometime?

Driving long distances is boring.

Oh, never mind - you don't drive.

Where I live, we have mass transportation that makes driving unnecessary.

Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in :

OK your're writing from a European perspective.

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

How does that make efficient rail services impossible?

Also, cities here are a bit different too.

In some ways yes, in others not so much. I don't dispute that a rail
network has to be adapted to the local conditions.

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

Europe has several "cities" of comparable sizes, for example Randstad,
the Ruhr conurbation, and some of the large metropolis like Paris,
London, Moscow come close.

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

So?

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.

Why not?

Regards

Because the US isn't a large number of people going to a small number
of places, it is small numbers of people going to a huge number of
places.

There are no major hub sites.

The highway system is a giant web with an enourmous number of branches
and more than just freeways.

As a matter of fact, both the wife and I could take public transportation
to work. The only problem is the trip would be about 4 hours each way.

To work, public transportation has to go everywhere the public wants
to go, which means it has to stop a lot.

And again, there are virtually zero hub points where you could go
quickly.

There is a reason the freeways have on/off ramps at about a mile apart.

Los Angeles does have light rail along the few high traffic corridors
where it makes some sort of sense.

For most of California, and most of the country, such a system makes
no sense.

Just because something works in one place does not mean it will work
in another.

This is the problem with all the one-size-fits-all thinking by
people that are going to solve all the worlds problems if only
their pet scheme were implemented.

Public transportation works in the New York area, many parts of
the east coast, and in small areas of the west coast.

It doesn't in the majority of the country other than local, urban
buses.

Heavy rail works to get bulk cargo between major hubs. It doesn't
work to get all the stuff that needs to be transported everywhere.

Solar power works pretty well in Arizona, not for crap in North
Dakota.

Tidal power generation doesn't work in Colorado, though it might
in Alaska.

The bottom line is if some system were economically practical, it
would already exist or someone would be working on building it.


--
Jim Pennino

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Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in :

Because the US isn't a large number of people going to a small number
of places, it is small numbers of people going to a huge number of
places.

I think this is true everywhere.

There are no major hub sites.

The highway system is a giant web with an enourmous number of branches
and more than just freeways.

As a matter of fact, both the wife and I could take public
transportation to work. The only problem is the trip would be about 4
hours each way.

Maybe the transport system in your area has room for improvement.

Yep, we need more lanes on the freeways.

To work, public transportation has to go everywhere the public wants
to go, which means it has to stop a lot.

You can have fast routes (rail, underground, accelerated tram) with few
inbetween stops for the long distances, and slow routes (bus, ordinary
tram) for short ones.

Point totally and absolutely missed.

There are NO long distance routes with a large number of people
going from point A to point B.

There are thousands upon thousands of points with small numbers of
people (or goods) going between any given two and it is two dimensional,
not a one dimensional line.

Los Angeles does have light rail along the few high traffic corridors
where it makes some sort of sense.

For most of California, and most of the country, such a system makes
no sense.

For distances like 60 miles as you said, you want heavy rail of course.
Light rail makes sense within a city.

60 miles isn't concidered a long distance here.

Just because something works in one place does not mean it will work
in another.

I'm not convinced that is the difference. There are lots of ways a
public transport system can be laid out and meet demands of different
settlement structures. But there is a cultural bias towards preferences
of automobiles over rail (which is true here as well, just not as
pronounced), and AFAICT an unawareness of what public transport can do
because many Americans haven't ever seen an efficient system.

This is the problem with all the one-size-fits-all thinking by
people that are going to solve all the worlds problems if only
their pet scheme were implemented.

I could give you the "one size fits all" back, but let's not sink to
that level. The original discussion was about the necessity to get away
from oil because one day it'll be too expensive to run transport, and
we were discussing alternatives. Don't you think the basic assumption
is true, i.e. one day in the (hopefully distant) future oil will become
so expensive that the majority of people won't be able to afford to run
cars? If we agree on that, then it's a good idea to look for
alternatives as soon as possible, because the end will come inevitably,
and if we're not prepared for it we'll have major problems, perhaps
even an economic breakdown. Alternative car propulsion technologies are
one way, but many people seem to think they're not viable economically
and/or technically. Public transport with a heavy focus on rail is a
more realistic option. And now everyone screams "It won't ever work
here". Hmm.

Public transport with a heavy focus on rail is totally unrealistic,
at least in an area like southern California.

Public transportation works in the New York area, many parts of
the east coast, and in small areas of the west coast.

It doesn't in the majority of the country other than local, urban
buses.

But that is not so out of necessity, but because of conscious (or maybe
not so conscious) decisions not to invest in it.

No, it is because it doesn't work in spread out areas.

New York made conscious decisions to invest in transport and to keep it
running. Other places haven't. My experience of the US is very limited,
but I've been to Honolulu out of all places. I was told by the locals
that their public transport system is considered good compared to other
American places. I used it and I thought it was abysmal. It could
easily be improved to a much better service level. They have only
buses, nothing else. For a city that size that's already shameful. And
the buses run only every 30 mins at best (IIRC). And there's no
information at the bus stops, neither about time tables nor about the
network. If you want to navigate it, you need to get your information
beforehand from other sources.

Public transport works in New York because you have lots of people
going to the same small number of places.

Heavy rail works to get bulk cargo between major hubs. It doesn't
work to get all the stuff that needs to be transported everywhere.

Same thing

Nonsense.

Have you the slightest clue how many "places" to get things to there
are in a place like southern California?

Solar power works pretty well in Arizona, not for crap in North
Dakota.

Tidal power generation doesn't work in Colorado, though it might
in Alaska.


We agree there are technological and economical factors against most
forms of "green" energy. I never argued for those. I'm looking for
replacements which allow us to run existing machines, but at the same
time look for more economical uses where they can be avoided.

Regards

--
Push Pull Solutions f?r die Client Server Umgebung


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

--
Jim Pennino

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Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
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?

That's easy:

They are not so studpid as the US as to expect that it will never be
feasible, or that there will not be security challenges involving oil.
They want to have the tecnology and a few plants in their hands "just in
case". Their coal reservce is similar to that of the US; plenty. The
price of coal produced gasoline (also done by Germany in WWII after we
bombed the Ploesti Oil fields and refineries) is in today's economy
about $5/gallon. It rivals pure biodiesel, and probably unsupported (no
guv grants) ethanol as well.

The sheer size of China's population and their acceleration into the
industrial age almost guarantees a serious dependence on hyrdrocabon
fuels, and that will only increase with time. Same goes for India.

Ang. C.