Re: Terraforming the Moon
jimp_at_specsol-spam-sux.com
Date: 11/23/04
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Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 01:19:37 +0000 (UTC)
In sci.physics Steve Harris sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 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?
So it provides for something other than arm waving, pull stuff out of one's
ass things to talk about.
>
> > 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.
The Red Line died not because of some consiricy by whoever but because
people want to go where they want, when they want, without rubbing
elbows with a bunch of unwashed strangers.
The majority of people on mass transit systems are there because they
have no alternative.
The last time I used mass transit the Army made me do it. Given a choice,
I would rather crawl naked through broken glass than ride mass transit.
> > 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.
Shippers could care less about the theoretical efficiences of transportation
modes.
They only care that their shipment gets to the customer on time, undamaged,
and at a reasonable cost.
If the railroads provided such services, they would be used. Since the
railroads don't provide such services, the rail system isn't used.
> > 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.
Go complain to the railroad executives for not providing the service.
> > 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.
Only air is overnight; most everything else is about a week across the
country and by truck.
Trains would be faster than truck, but the railroads don't offer such
a service.
> 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.
Yeah, and I remember gas at 19 cents a gallon. The world changes; get
used to it.
> 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.
What's your alternative; nationalize the transportation system so we
can have the efficiency of government control?
Isn't going to happen.
> 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.
Blame soccer moms screaming "Think of the children" for the lack of
power (or just about any other kind) plants.
Truckers are having problems because of fuel costs. Change is in the
wind.
For what its worth to you, I had almost this same discussion with the
owner of a trucking company about 15 years ago.
After he explained the economic realities and how the railroads are
notorious among shippers for being late and losing cars for weeks at
a time (not so good when you are shipping perishables), he said that
if the stupid ***** railroad executive ever pulled their heads out of
their asses and started providing decent service, he and all the other
long haul truckers would be out of business.
Last I heard, he was still in business.
You want someone to vent on, go find a railroad executive.
-- Jim Pennino Remove -spam-sux to reply.
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