An Inconvenient Scientist

[Arathena]

Doesn't do much for the petroleum we need for cars, trucks, planes and plastics though.

That's where all the clever stuff with renewable energy storage (ie batteries) comes in. If you can do a quick charge cycle and have cheap and clean power distribution then oil/gas becomes a thing of the past.

The first step in the US would be complete electrification of the rail network - it's actually a pretty easy step too and results in less trucks on roads. If you can combine that with a decent upgrade to the system to make passenger travel fast enough to be a decent competition to airlines then you've got a double-win.

I don't think nukes will replace gas-fired plants. They're more a baseline system that doesn't have rapid response to demand, right?

Dd

If you could get 25% of the US trucks off the roads, the overall effect would be ENORMOUS. The US trucking fleet burns on the order of 40 billion gallons of diesel a year.

Also, you can throttle a nuke plant, for much the same reason you throttle a gas-fired plant. Only need so much power? Increase the neutron absorbers, cool the core down a little, conserve fuel. Got a demand rise? Pull the absorbers, watch that baby glow. We'll still need a diversified system, in case of nuclear fuel issues, but - it'll go a long way.

[Select]

The first step in the US would be complete electrification of the rail network - it's actually a pretty easy step too and results in less trucks on roads. If you can combine that with a decent upgrade to the system to make passenger travel fast enough to be a decent competition to airlines then you've got a double-win.

Yes. Been wanting improved trains forever... and I love to fly. Bullet trains wtfru? >.<

[Partha]

Well, a good first step - increased Amtrak funding for the next five years passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.

[Arathena]

Well, a good first step - increased Amtrak funding for the next five years passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.

Well... Their heart may be in the right place, but funding Amtrak's daily operation isn't even the first step in the directions needed to make passenger rail viable or to upgrade the rails for freight. Did they add anything useful, or are they just keeping Amtrak solvent?

Amtrak owns approximately 750 miles of track. That is the problem. Passenger trains are unable to run because of scheduling conflicts with the freight companies... who have right of way since they, you know, own the track. You can't drop a 100 mph bullet train on a track that's got a shitload of 15 mph haulers on it. Oh, and that one shot up and down the Northeast Corridor that Amtrak owns? Beautiful to travel on, barely even late. The rails need built from the ground up if you want to use them for passengers.

[Embar Angylwrath]

The rails need built from the ground up if you want to use them for passengers.

Absolutely. Current infrastructure just can't be adapted to high speed rail. And if you want mag-lev, well.... that kind of investment could only be funded by a national government.

I'm not against that idea though. A 500 mph mag-lev can move more people than an airliner. The US govt built the interstate system, and that was an incredible investment that paid off. Moving people out of airlines and into trains (for domestic travel), makes a lot of sense, if we also couple that with a move to non-petroluem based energy production (a good fit for the mag-lev, running on electricty). The east coast seems to be the most logical place to try this, a mag-lve from Florida to Maine. Then branch from there.

Hope it happens in my lifetime.

[Arathena]

The rails need built from the ground up if you want to use them for passengers.

Absolutely. Current infrastructure just can't be adapted to high speed rail. And if you want mag-lev, well.... that kind of investment could only be funded by a national government.

I'm not against that idea though. A 500 mph mag-lev can move more people than an airliner. The US govt built the interstate system, and that was an incredible investment that paid off. Moving people out of airlines and into trains (for domestic travel), makes a lot of sense, if we also couple that with a move to non-petroluem based energy production (a good fit for the mag-lev, running on electricty). The east coast seems to be the most logical place to try this, a mag-lve from Florida to Maine. Then branch from there.

Hope it happens in my lifetime.

That 750 miles I mentioned? That's the electrified, "high speed" Acela track. It runs from Washington to Boston, and is practically a day trip between the two. It was rebuilt in the mid 90s, ripping up track laid in the 1890s. Maine to Miami would be quick enough as is, at a 'mere' 110ish mph. But it is already falling apart - Much of the underlying infrastructure is literally a century old, and since Amtrak has to spend so much money running 3/4ths empty trains that show up at stations entire DAYS late due to freight traffic, there's nothing left to pay for the Acela maintence. It's sad.

[Embar Angylwrath]

The jump to useful and fast rail service has to be a complete split from current infrastructure. Maybe they could use some of the rail right-of-way, but thats it. If we want to get to Japanese standards (those babies go 550-600 mph), then it will require a completely new infrastructure, from the ground up. A mag-lev train system would probably need to be enclosed. Can you imagine hitting a car or semi at 500 mph? Hell, even a deer. Not too mention the idiots who would think it funny to drop a brick in front of the train's windsheild.

Best way to protect it would be to bury it. It would be damned expensive, but worth it. Think about it. With todays technology, you could even have small, individual cars the ran on one track, but got off at a programmed destination, almost like an assembly line. So you could run the entire system at 500 mph all the time (unless there was a breakdown), since the slowing would only occur on the destination side spurs or the terminal points of the rail.

You'd only need three tracks, a north bound, a south bound and an emergency reapair middle track, plust the destination side spurs. The only stop you'd make would be your destination.

[Select]

Wouldn't underground result in more maintenance and delay than above ground? I'm going by the NY subway system and things like the Lincoln tunnel which yes, are old, but even something new could be susceptible to the same problems. Tunnel flooding is also a big problem for the subway system.

[Partha]

Well... Their heart may be in the right place, but funding Amtrak's daily operation isn't even the first step in the directions needed to make passenger rail viable or to upgrade the rails for freight. Did they add anything useful, or are they just keeping Amtrak solvent?

Given that Republicans have been trying for 20 years to kill it, I'll take 'keeping it solvent' as a positive.

[Embar Angylwrath]

BTW.. where's Lurker? He always accuses me of running away from this topic, yet he isn't here, after several posts, and several challenges to his/her/its statements. He/she/it has yet to address the conflict between his/her/its comments that CO2 is THE, and I repeat THE...., driving factor in climate change, and the observed data that shows an increasing level of CO2 in the atmosphere, but a decreasing global temp.

What up Lurker? Where art Thou? How do you reconcile that even the IPCC predicts global cooling over the nest 10 years(pointing to <cough> solar activity <cough>? How can that be if CO2 is THE DRIVER OF CLIMATE CHANGE. Other scientisits have been saying that for YEARS! The solar cycle has a much more profound affect on planetary climatology that a few ppm increase of CO2.

Someone please explain to me how CO2 percentages continue to climb, but temps continue to fall. Over a sustained period (20 years). And did anyone notice the activity of sunspots in correlation to the observed cooling? You'll see as observed sunpost activity deceares, so does atmo temp. And alos, how about correlating atmo temp with salinty measurements of the oceans? Which affect CO2 uptake and release. Anyone notice that?

The oceans and solar activity are the true drivers of atmo temp. And we are far, far away from understanding what drives, controls and affects ocean waters. Same with solar activity.

[Harlowe]

Lurker isn't really a regular poster anymore, he wanders in and out occasionally so I doubt he's keeping up with this.

[Ddrak]

While I dispute the idea that we should be running around doing everything we can to reduce CO2 emissions, I do think it's pretty much settled that the global temperature is rising atypically.

Not sure where the idea came about that global temperatures have been decreasing over the last 20 years. Any smoothed measure you care to take on global surface or lower tropospheric temperatures show an increase, including the ones posted recently on this thread.

CO2 has risen more than a "few ppm". It's *doubled*. Its role in global temperature changes isn't easily predictable, but it's certainly a warming agent. Add a warming agent to any system and while it may not be a major contributor to the short-term cycles it certainly has an effect on the long-term situation.

You can't claim that climatology has no clue about what drives temperatures and then make blanket statements like "The solar cycle has a much more profound effect" or "The oceans and solar activity are the true drivers of atmo temp."

Just because the solar cycle may be on a decline (it's an extremely predictable 11 year cycle) doesn't make a difference to the climate change science. I'm really not sure why you're grasping at that one. Cherry picking point data is certainly not going to make any coherent argument to show the bulk of climate science is wrong.

Dd

[Lurker]

BTW.. where's Lurker? He always accuses me of running away from this topic, yet he isn't here, after several posts, and several challenges to his/her/its statements.

Since you keep recycling the same talking points I'll recycle my answer from May.

I thinkk this is a great illustration of why som many of you bought into hype. You think the atmospheric dynamics are driven by a low number of variables.

The answer to the questions you keep endlessly cycling through is very simple and I gave it in August of last year in the other thread.

For the final time:

CO2 is not always the main driver behind warming and cooling of the planet, but human caused CO2 is almost certainly the main driver now.

You can now get the last word and win the debate! Congratulations.

And now I feel dirty.

*channeling Jadelin* This is my last post on this topic.

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/ ... 1556.shtml

And yet another indicator of global warming.. earthquakes. Yup.. some scientist thinks an increase in earthquake activity is directly related to the increase in atmo temp.

Earthquakes... because if the earth can't release the energy fast enough, it's going to be absorbed and expressed as greater tectonic activity.... riiiiight. All that atmo energy gets transferred through dirt and rock into the molten mantle. Because the laws of thermodynamics imply energy flows from areas of lesser concentration to areas of greater concentration. This is why putting your hand on the stove actually cools your hand, and makes the stove more hot.

How some of these guys get PhDs, I'll never know. Does he not know energy flows in all directions? And it flows from an area of higher concentration to an area of lesser concentration? Does he not know that earthquakes produce a helluva lot more energy than the average annual global temp increase? And did he not notice that he selected a time frame (post 1990), where half of the time frame show a decrease in global atmo temp?

But it is illustrative of the point how the term "global warming" has become so distorted and misued as to be meaningless. It's been twisted, molded and shaped to fit someone's or something's agenda of the day.

[Ddrak]

He's a nut. This is just a case of bad journalism. Hell, look at the guy's web site. The earth's core is apparently a nuclear reactor, blah blah blah.

He got his Ph.D. in Laser Holography.

Dd

[Kulaf]

http://selfhealing.net/

[Embar Angylwrath]

Yeah. He's a nut. And CBS news reports it as if it were fact. Thus driving the hysteria about climate change.