Hacker News Reader

Comment by dontlaugh | Hacker News Reader

Or just building trains instead. Far lower energy consumption per distance travelled per person.

Trains are only viable regionally in the US, unless you want to spend 72 hours traveling for greater cost than a plane ticket that would have taken you 4ish hours to go from NY to LA. Even if we did build high speed rail the whole way, the number of stops along the way would only cut that to 24ish hours. Most people would choose the plane.

I haven’t been to the US, but it can’t be all that special. Plenty of countries have high speed trains instead of most domestic air travel, even similarly sized ones like China.

Especially if you count the time to get to the airport and through security, high speed trains are highly competitive or even better than planes in total travel time.

The problem, as always, isn't size but density. Outside the east coast there is very little density. It's almost unfathomable having grown up in Europe how big and empty even large areas at the west coast are. This gets especially obvious when you get away from the central freeway that goes up the coast. Where I've visited our lived in Europe or Asia these areas would still be largely inhabited and have smaller towns sprinkled all over with small, frequently even walkable or bookkeeper distances between them. At the west coast, away from the freeway there is often nothing for miles and miles and then when you hit a small town is often partially abandoned. In other parts of the world these surrounding areas would provide passengers to the central transportation arteries via slow train and you'd have viable, slow trains transporting passengers to the major stops along the high speed track. None of that would be viable here. When the LA-SF highspeed train was planned they added stops in podunk towns to make it viable, IMO they were also removing any speed that would be comparable to airplane for any interesting connection.

And that's the west coast, once you go inland you'd maybe have one viable stop in most states of you want to keep it high-speed.

There are very sparse areas of China too, yet there are high speed trains between major cities across regions. Then there are additional slower lines with more stops from major cities to other nearby localities.

US coast-to-coast trains wouldn't need stops to be viable. They'd just need to initially be subsidised significantly, much like the current fossil-dominated industries are.

FYI: The Nozomi Shinkansen would take 13+ hours from NYC to LA at max speed if it was going on a straight line the entire time and completely ignore any constraints like mountains, etc. Even in this ideal scenario and it being subsidized to cost the same as an airplane ticket why would anyone choose the train?

The US is far less dense than China. China’s population is heavily concentrated on the eastern half of the country. The US has pockets of high density, spread all over the country, hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Major hubs include the Northeast, the Atlanta area, the Chicago area, the Texas triangle, Denver metro, Phoenix metro, SoCal, Bay Area, coastal Northwest, Miami.. building a HSR train network spanning the whole system would be massively expensive, and the density of the US makes it really hard to justify.

Look how many flights are from east coast city to east coast city. Just eliminating these would be massive.

But our rail system is outdated, our government won't allow realistic trains to be built. We don't need a million stops. We need metro to metro.

The east coast is large too. New York to Miami is over 1000 miles. People do take trains — it tends to be routes like NYC to DC or Boston, Philly to DC, etc.

The problem with any train system isn't the distance - it's the stops and slowdowns.

The fastest bullet train could make that (NYC - MIA) trip in less than 4 hours. (286 mph). That's great time. But once everyone adds a stop, and you have to slow down to a crawl through certain areas, and freight gets first pass, you can see why rail sucks in this country.

On land, it’d more like 1200 miles, so closer to 5 hours. Almost double the flight time.

Bikes are even better! Yet bikes (with all the environmental cost of the metal mining, forging, production, shipping, plus replacement tires, brakes, and all the cost of air pressurized for the tires), are far worse than walking.

So we should all walk, yes?

But, I mean, the cost of shoes on the environment. They wear out quite fast, I walk 10 to 15km a day, and my shoes wear out every 3 to 4 months, so it makes more sense to go barefoot.

Yet again, the cost of all that food... food production is bad for the environment! Probably, I should not walk, or really go anywhere, and just sit still.

Right? Right?!

Here is the answer.

Don't suggest fewer plane trips. It will never happen, unless you purposefully hurt, and cause tyranny against others to enable your dream.

Instead, make a better plane. Make a better blimp.

Make people want your dream, instead of fighting your dream.

Make them love your solution, not your restrictions.

This is the way.

Trains are better than planes already. High speed trains are even exciting.

Ultimately, restrictions are necessary too. The frivolous per capita energy consumption in North America and Western Europe needs to be reduced.

Let me guess, you're the one that decides "frivolous"? I couldn't disagree more. Everyone needs way more energy. Most poverty is energy poverty and trying to reduce demand seems like a fool's errand. Electricity rules, stop pretending like it doesn't. We can figure out how to make more of it without destroying everything

That sort of thing needs to be democratically decided. Currently it isn’t, most countries have a few rich people dominating media and politics.

Most poverty isn’t energy poverty at all, it’s a lack of control over the means of production in general. Energy is merely one aspect.

Some energy usage is clearly frivolous, like several ton cars with single occupants or vastly oversized armies. Alternatives that achieve the same goals with vastly lower energy usage already exist and in some places are even widespread. Life can be different without being worse.

What you're describing is a dramatic reduction in human freedom. Right now I have the freedom to use as much energy as I can afford and people like you don't get any say in how I use it. Why not focus on generating more energy efficiently than imposing controls on other people? This seems like more about having control over other people than an actual concern for the environment or energy usage.

Would you vote to ban video games?

When lower energy alternatives are better and widespread, people use them. Why should we not strive for efficiency as a society?

I at no point argued for banning something, just offering better alternatives.

What do you think "democratic decisions" will do? You already hinted at banning certain types of vehicles you don't like. I'm wondering what other things other people enjoy you would like to ban?

You’re the one that keeps talking about banning things. I’d much prefer efficient and better alternatives were developed, which would convince people to use them.

Ultimately what you think is fun is irrelevant to whether it’s sustainable for us as a species. Just because a small minority of humans insist on having fun destructively doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t be allowed to convince them otherwise.

You do realize putting democracy in front of something doesn't make it OK or even a good idea right?

Nice argument. Except it's incredibly wrong.

Once recommended exercise thresholds are met, a durable bicycle is better than walking. Faired LEVs and light ebikes are better than bicycles. And full capacity mid speed (<200km/h) trains are better still. High speed rail is somewhere between walking and bicycles.

Maximise flourishing within a resource and energy budget. And if you invent a better plane or a lower impact energy source, add it to the menu. Do not blow the budget by an order of magnitude (or three) and then demand that technology fix the problem after the fact.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com