Re: Terraforming the Moon

From: Steve Harris sbharris_at_ROMAN9.netcom.com (sbharris_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 11/22/04 

Date: 22 Nov 2004 15:26:45 -0800

jimp@specsol-spam-sux.com wrote in message news:<cnrb9n$an9$1@mail.specsol.com>...
> If you go to http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/50-501-XIE/sect5.pdf
> you can find stats for the US, Canada, and Mexico.
>
> If you go by weight (in millions of metric tons) the numbers for the
> US in 1996 are:
>
> Road 3245.9
> Pipeline 1611.8
> Rail 1461.4
> Water 991.9
> Air 9.8
>
> When using weight as the comparison, the numbers are biased against
> trucks and highly biased against air.
>
> If you go by value as of 2002, found at
> http://www.bts.gov/programs/freight_transportation/html/table_06a.html
> the dollar leader commodity is Electronic, electrical, and office equipment,
> which mostly goes by air and truck.
>
> Coal and other ores, which mostly go by rail and water because of their
> weight, don't even rate a mention.
>
> By looking around a little you find these statistics:
>
> Mode Value Weight Ton-miles
>
> Truck 63.7% 58.2% 32.1%
> Water 8.3% 14.8% 16.3%
> Air 7.4% 0.1% 0.3%
> Rail 3.7% 12% 27.8%
> Pipeline 2.7% 10.5% 16.7%

Okay, good numbers. So?

 
> As for rail infrastructure, it was in place before the roads were built
> and is being abandoned.

True but irrelevent. For example, rail infrastructure for public mass
transit to cities was ALSO in place in the US before highways and in
some cases even paved roads. It ALSO was abandoned. But not for
practical reasons-- rather (as in L.A.) because the auto-backing
people hijacked the political machine. Unfortunately, later after the
highways choked off it was discovered that mass transit isn't a luxury
but necessity in some places, and the old rail lines had to be
rebuilt, mostly at massive public expense. This piece of stupidity is
being repeated right now on a larger scale, for other kinds of
shipping.

> All this arm waving over transportation theoretical efficiencies ignores
> real world practicalities.

No, it doesn't. Unless you're going to claim that the real world
practicalities and maybe the laws of physics are not the same in the
US as in Europe? Train systems can be made to work, and work well, and
you can see in Europe. They'll never replace cars and airplanes for
everything, but they are not being used at maximal efficiency now. Not
even close. The US, where the populous West Coast is separated from
the populous Eastern half of the country by a 1000 mile wide waterless
mountain-ringed basin in which comparitively few people live, but over
which all that East-West and West-East traffic must be transported,
the need for a fuel-efficient more modern rail system is particularly
pressing. A system exists there now, of course, but it's overloaded
and growing more and more in need of refurbishment. The convoy of
heavy trucks hauling shoes and toasters and TVs up I-15 from LA to Las
Vegas to SLC and on to points East, is one of the silliest things
you'll see in this country.

> In the real world, big heavy stuff gets shipped by rail and water to a
> few (by comparison) places where it is used in bulk.
>
> Most things shipped are small and light when compared to a load of coal
> or ore and go to a whole lot of places.

Yes, they do, but first they have to cross long distances before
distribution, and it's really dumb to do that with trucks. But it is
done, because politicians cannot get their act together, and we're
using a distribution system mostly invented 50 years ago when oil was
abundant.

 
> Multimodal shipping clouds the numbers, but is an important part of the
> system as a whole.

Yes.

> Take a look at the UPS, FedEx, and DHL operations and tell me how many
> trains you see being used.

Irrelevent. In those services you pay for speed for low-weight items.
When it has to be there overnight, it makes no sense to use a train.
Nor did I claim that trains would replace trucks and airplanes. Merely
that some large fraction of stuff carried by trucks could more
efficiency be taken by rail, and would be, if the entire system hadn't
been put in place in a completely different world.

Before 1970, energy in the US was basically cheap (I remember gas at
31 cents a gallon). After 1970, we basically began to need to import
any extra energy we used, so growth from there-on-out hurt us badly.
And it's just about from that time that the energy-intensive
manufacturing industries that made the US the country it used to be,
started to strangle or go elsewhere. I've watched the US decline from
1970 at a steady rate, and it hasn't been fun. We now live in a very
different world from the one in which I grew up and learned to drive--
a world of $2 a gallon gas and going higher by the day, giant ghettos
in cities that used to run on heavy industry and now are rotting, two
US wars in the Gulf caused in part by our need for oil imports, the
greenhouse effect showing up as snowpack melting all over the world,
and so on, and so on. I'm starting to see the world of Bladerunner
spring up before my eyes, and it's not pretty.

Again, in this world, to continue to use in the US the transportation
mix we put in place before all that happened, would be madness. I hope
we're not that nutso. But I get on the net and talk to people like
you, and I begin to wonder.

We haven't built any new nuclear power-plants in the US since 3-Mile
Island in 1979, and it's been just about since that time that we've
needed them most. Meanwhile France continues to build nuclear plants
and run electric trains from them. Here in the U.S., we remain
mesmerized by reality TV (ie, amateur actors doing different
playacting stuff than they usually do), and we rarely do much but
complain about the mounting energy bills. We re-surface our highways
and make more 18-wheelers, but somehow the guys that drive them are
having a very tough time making a living, so I hear. Too bad.
Sometimes we use our great post-cold war military to kick some dog
somewhere. The rest of the time, as regards the energy crisis, we sit
with one thumb in our mouths and the other thumb up our butts, and do
mostly nothing. Occasionally we trade thumbs. But our main problems
are not getting solved.

SBH

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Terraforming the Moon
    ... which mostly go by rail and water because of their ... > heavy trucks hauling shoes and toasters and TVs up I-15 from LA to Las ... If the railroads provided such services, ... > Nor did I claim that trains would replace trucks and airplanes. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: VDOT Says Needs Vary Along I-81
    ... to provide the most efficient and effective shipments. ... Then cargo is loaded onto the trains and transported to the destination city. ... The local trucks are loaded with the cargo and then drive to the destination loading dock. ... though rail wants to use containers (the types ...
    (misc.transport.road)
  • Re: Terraforming the Moon
    ... >> Rail lines exist between the growing areas of California and the Midwest, ... >> yet no one ships produce by rail. ... Because trucks are ... > refrigerated containerized systems are tough to transfer to trains. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Terraforming the Moon
    ... > Rail lines exist between the growing areas of California and the Midwest, ... > yet no one ships produce by rail. ... Because trucks are ... And some trains are slow. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: USA spies in Germany and Holocaust
    ... I am answering Louis' post about the rail bombing points, ... given steam trains had to make frequent and extended stops ... number of prisoners on the way. ...
    (soc.history.war.world-war-ii)