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Originally Posted by Elphaba
Rebuilding of the rail structure was considered a must in one of my readings on the topic. The present administration's budget recommendation actually reduces the amount spent on Amtrac. The current energy policy would appear blind to the notion of peak oil and it's consequences.
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Because Amtrack is wasteful as it is currently.
I don't see all the gloom and doom here. I've been reading doom and gloom since I was a young lad and so far all of it has been just that, reading material not reality. We had global cooling, overpopulation, world epidemics, and now global warming which were/are all going to kill us in some way.
Are we going to run out of oil? Yes, there is a limited supply, at some point we will be out.
Do we have a system in place if we run out tomorrow? No, if we ran out of oil tomorrow we will be fucked.
Does this bother Ustwo in the least? Nope.
First off we have alternative fuels, they are not used because they are more expensive. By supply and demand they will get less cost prohibitive as the cost of oil goes up and their price due to mass production goes down.
Secondly, the rail system is inadequate, that is very true. Again so what? Railroads are a proven and understood technology. Nothing special needs to be done to lay track that hasn't been done already. Do you think that the United States can't build railroads quickly if needed for mass transit?
Doom is gloom may be fun as reading material but they always take the worse case senecio and couple it with a lack innovation or apparently even sweat on the part of those effected.
We don't need a major break through in technology, the technology is there. What we don't have is a profit motive to set up the infrastructure needed to support that technology. Asking the government to 'take the lead' is asking the government 'to waste a crapload of money'.
The road warrior was a great movie, and I really liked beyond thunderdome, but it was just a movie.