Less than a month ago, the California High-Speed Rail Authority released its latest business plan admitting that its previous cost estimates were too low. Now the agency has released an even newer document admitting that the cost of building the line from California’s Central Valley to the Bay Area will be 40 percent more than estimated in the business plan.
Click image to go to download page for this environmental impact report.
This latest document is an environmental impact statement that is literally thousands of pages long. It reveals, among many other things, that constructing this segment of the line will release close to 400 million kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent gases into the atmosphere. It claims that this cost will be quickly repaid by the savings from reduced CO2 emissions once the trains are operating, but that’s based on unrealistically high ridership projections along with the assumption that neither automobiles nor airplanes will ever be more energy efficient or climate friendly than they were a few years ago. No doubt the state spent millions of dollars on this poorly reasoned document.
Other than the gee-whiz factor of “wow! we have a fast train too,” the only real argument for the project left is that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the main way the state is paying for it is by selling carbon credits, a program that only makes sense if the revenues from such sales are used to cost-effectively reduce emissions.
Even if California’s ridership projections are correct, which they aren’t, and even if the assumption that future autos and planes will be no more climate friendly than those of a few years ago is correct, which it isn’t, then high-speed rail still isn’t a cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As shown in a 2007 McKinsey report that was ignored by policy makers, California would be much better off putting that money into making all new homes and other buildings into zero-energy structures; retrofitting existing structures, including their heating and lighting systems; and encouraging people to buy more fuel-efficient (not necessarily electric) vehicles.
Supporters say the state has no choice but to build high-speed rail. “We can’t keep expanding our airports, we can’t keep expanding our highways,” says San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener. But that’s a false choice: as demand for in-state air travel rises, the alternative is not to expand airport but to use bigger planes. Meanwhile, the highways that are congested are the ones in urban areas, not between them, and high-speed rail won’t relieve intra-urban congestion.
This project is a turkey. The state should never have funded it. It should stop throwing good money after bad and immediately stop planning and construction on the project.
Emergence of air travel in the US came from hundreds of newly abandoned airbases owned once by our Army Air Corps, quickly and cheaply converted into airports. And off shelf availability of thousands of transports easily converted into civilian airliners. It wasn’t innovative markets, it was surplus of former industry. If the US had scrapped those planes, Civilian plane makers would have had to start from scratch; and trains in US would have stayed partially competitive decades longer….
The 1930’s saw the end of the airship era. Blimps and Airships however may make a comeback. An Ohio company Ohio Airships, combines the advantages of air cargo while significantly reducing ecological problems. They achieve this by designing slow cargo airships, called “Dynalifters”. These air vessels mix the travel concepts of planes and Zeppelins. The company completed 4 conceptual designs for four different sizes. All designs are equipped with detachable cargo pods for rapid loading and off-loading, and a prototype with a length of 37 metres has already been built and tested.
They’re not blimps, they do not float away without a tether. The Dynalift is a airship/plane hybrid, it uses the helium/air bag to mitigate the 48% aircraft weight penalty. The airship has wings and engines and wheels and takes off and lands as passenger aircraft do. The aircraft do not fly at stratospheric altitudes often same as turboprops, thou they can and can navigate safely in as little as 2,000 feet or less. It’s prototype top speed is 200 km/h or 124 miles an hour, while four times slower than a jet it uses a fraction of the fuel to travel the same distances and can carry greater mass. The passenger gondola offers wider floor plans than jet’s, a 747 is 240 inches wide (20+ feet) a passenger gondola can be over 25 feet wide and windows the size of house windows because cabins don’t require extensive pressurization and open floor plans means no coach style seating so seating is more like a ferry.
Speed’s approaching 150-200 mph are doable, but the biggest advantage is efficiency. A dynalifter for comparisons say can use the a C130’s engines and wings and for the same fuel volume move 12x the cargo volume the same distance. In otherwords, per passenger mile, 6x more fuel efficient. Where 1/3 to half the price of a flight ticket is fuel consumed.
Because it uses the same infrastructure as planes for take off it has no need; Storage on other hand is another task as some of the vessels in mention are exceptionally large with one medium cargo variant being a full 700+ feet. However offers the benefit of infrastructure-less transportation, As it can land in areas where traditional aircraft can not,
providing greater versatility.
California uses 40 million gallons of gas and motor fuels a day….. producing 406,000 tons of CO2 emissions daily…148 million a year, even a 1% per year modest increase in fuel economy efficiency….
Improvements in fuel efficiency did nothing to change emissions, namely Antiplanner ignores aspect of Jevons Paradox…. technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises due to increasing demand; especially if perceived as being more available
Lazy Reader wrote, “Emergence of air travel in the US came from hundreds of newly abandoned airbases owned once by our Army Air Corps, quickly and cheaply converted into airports. And off shelf availability of thousands of transports easily converted into civilian airliners. It wasn’t innovative markets, it was surplus of former industry.”
It was actually the other way. The Smithsonian tell us … “The airlines were well prepared to play their part in the war effort. Plans for their wartime mobilization had been drafted in 1937 by Edgar Gorrell of the industry’s Air Transport Association.
“When the United States entered World War II four years later, the plan was smoothly put into action, and the airlines immediately began working closely with the military. The Air Transport Command (ATC) was formed in 1942 to coordinate the transport of aircraft, cargo, and personnel throughout the country and around the world.
“Casual air travel virtually ceased in the United States. A tight priority list ensured that only those serving the war effort flew. As a result, aircraft flew more than 80 percent full, 20 percent higher than before the war. The military requisitioned 200 of the nation’s 360 airliners, along with airline personnel.
More at the link …
https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/america-by-air/online/heyday/heyday01.cfm
Ohio Airships, Inc has moved to a lot in New Smyrna Beach, Florida and hasn’t updated their Facebook page since 2017.
http://www.ohioairships.com
850 St Road 415
New Smyrna Beach, Florida 44255
That’s a problem. Lots more weather in the troposphere. Lots more turbulence and lots more flight cancellations. I guess airships would be fine for freight that’s not time sensitive, although at that point why not ship it by railroad and/or truck?
Well “Stratosphere” is defined as atmospheric boundary above 15,000 meters (15km) or 49000 feet. Dynalifters CAN fly that, however it must replace propellers with turbofan to breathe atmosphere or turbocharger to run unique low air density propeller sets. Automobile industry adopted electric driven turbochargers, they run regardless of exhaust inputs or engine is idle….to eliminate turbo lag time.
The reason Dynalifters present unique advantages, is namely concept of largely infrastructure-less transportation.
As Antiplanner notes, The Infrastructure Principle holds that any transportation technology that requires its own dedicated infrastructure to be built is usually destined to fail; because the cost of building enough infrastructure to make the technology useful. Dynalifter is an “Airplane” hybrid hence applicable to be used in existing airports with minimal to no modification. It’s detriment is Size of it’s largest vehicle for storage… But that’s easily doable by constructing ETFE hangers in “Median” strips….between runways.
Infrastructure-less transportation is a huge economic boom for 3rd world development. Africa….IS HUGE…And has a lot of what we in America call “Fly over country”, Aussies call it; the Bush……. to have equitable infrastructure for it’s growing economies, Africa would need to build
– A highway network 3-4x the size of the US Interstate highway.
– 150,000 miles of freight railroads built to a single gauge standard
– 20 Million lane miles of road and highway, requiring 41,000 square miles of land, impacting swaths of wildlife habitat and corridors.
Transportation systems that mitigates those infrastructure needs cuts 2 trillion in infrastructure spending
I see your point about 3rd world countries and infrastructure. Freight transport via airships may well make sense in those undeveloped areas.
I’m not a scientist but remember being amazed how far north airplane trips went when flying from the US to Asia and Europe. I always assumed that it was because of Great Circle navigation but your comment on the height of the stratosphere got me looking. Wikipedia:
Now it makes sense why turbofan aircraft generally fly at ~34,000 feet to and from Asia and Europe.
The craziest thing about this project —> Californians will have to wait 43 years to save 2 hours and 7 minutes of driving.