@gslack
[QUOTE
Dude you don't get it... You either read half what I said, or didn't understand it...
What part of global escapes you? You are thinking in one dimension and only seeing the one small aspect. Oil, Coal, Natural Gas, or anything else we can use to feed the energy requirements of the world, is no longer viewed as one countries property any longer. If the last batch of oil on the planet is under your house and we still need it, your house will be moved with or without your consent. When its a matter of survival personal property and rights are luxuries that the world will not have time for.
We have electric train lines here as well. New York, New Jersey, and other larger US cities have them and have had them for a long time. The problem is, England is the size of one or two US states, and we have 50 states. Outside large cities running electric rail lines gets more and more difficult. In Europe each country pays for their own rail lines and eventually they can connect to others and so on. Here each state will have to do that and given not every state is wealthy enough or warrants such a rail line you can hopefully see the problem. A state save a few of the very wealthy here, is no match for that of a sovereign nation, and that's just the beginning.
65 million people or there about live in France. Our most populated state here is California with about 37 million people. A little more than half that of France, and France is part of the Republic of France which includes outside Municipalities and provinces. All of these generate revenue for France. And that was our MOST populated State...
What you are asking for is the entire country to adopt electric railways like in Europe when Europe is full of Nations and we are full of States. Nations with far more people in each one than their are in our states. Who will pay for this mass electric railway revolution? The states which are going broke and suffering from the same economic woes our Federal government is? What about states like Wyoming with fewer than 200,000 people in them? Do they have to electric railway their state as well?
And lastly what will power this railway? Coal is the number electricity provider and its a fossil fuel and burning makes CO2 which is what you are wanting to avoid...
You people have all these fantasies that greenpeace and the liberal media feed you and no real grasp of the reality of it all. You are told "they got electric trains in france that goes all over the country" and since france is nowhere near as wealthy as we are we should have them too. And you dreamers just go with it. Sure if france can do it, maybe New York can. And if france, england, italy, and spain can all do it, maybe we can eletric train the east coast... Maybe... What about the rest of the country though?
Look, there is reality and then there is fantasy. Cutting back CO2 by cutting back on cars and replacing them with electric trains at massive costs in infrastructure and even more coal burning, is unrealistic and even worse for the environment..
Its impossible to say anything certain about the future, but the coal reserves and the natural gas reserves are larger than the oil reserves and they will last longer. US oil production peaked in 1970 and since then it has decreased every year, the worlds oil production will peak somewhere around 2020, from that year the oil production will start decreasing.
Oil will probobaly last for about 50 +years and the price will increase rapidly because of scarcity. Natural gas will last for about 200 years and coal will last for about 300 years so oil will have to be replaced by naturals gas and coal for a transition period while working on sustainable renewable sources. The oil price both in the US and the world will be so high that we will be forced to reduce the consumption. So their is no option we have to move awa from oil .
The largest potential for reduction in oil consumption is in the US where they consume about 1/4 of all oil.The NG price and coal will not rise as much as the oil price becuase we still have large reserves of coal and NG.
The use of train is most profittable in the freight industry, train is the absolute cheapest way to transport freights. The cheapest (MJ/per passenger/per kilometre) is also train. To save energy (reduce consumption) the us have to move away from the thouhgt tha every person should own his own car. However in places like Wyoming a train is not needed and for peolple living in very rural areas the car is the best and cheapest solution both for them and the society. But most of the US population lives in cities and urban areas and in thes areas their are a large potential for reduction in oil consumption. Take LA for instance, this place must have a large potential in reducing oil consumption by building metros,electric tramways more busses to substitute cars etc.
The solution is to build railroads that can compete with planes and substitute passenger transport and freight transport between large cities. And in cities like LA or Houston where car is the only option they should build metros,tramway,busses etc.
To make/force people to not drive in cities and instead use public transportation a good solution would be to demand green-taxes on inner city driving and use the taxes to build better public transportation in cities like LA.
Here is a suggested map
wikipedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Rail_07-09-2009.JPG