ArthurLemay’s Recent Comments

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  Why rail?

  All over the U.S., rail projects are a disaster.  Ridership is bad, operating costs are much higher than buses, and, in places like San Jose, the rail project's fixed costs are so high, that bus service ic curtailed. So a service people do not use is killing a service people do use.

  And, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation on operating costs, the trending of auto costs per passenger mile is now less than buses, and soon will be less than rail.

  Now, considering the fixed costs, rail is absolutely infeasible, and is a total waste of money. The only reason rail works in major metropolitan areas is because traffic and parking costs prevent the use of cars.  

  I have lived without a car in New York, and Chicago, and it is misery. Public transportation is useless for errands, grocery shopping, bringing children to schools, for older people, pregnant women, and salesmen.

  Cars largely pay for the roads and car infrastructure while public transportation needs subsidies since revenues are never even close to the operating costs.  In San Jose it would be cheaper to give each rail passenger a voucher for a taxi, and stop the rail system from running. On Let's rebuild our national rail network instead of repealing the gas tax posted 1 year, 7 months ago 31 Responses

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  Why are we doing this Environmental stuff?

  Recently, three climate scientists (one a Nobel Laureate) wrote a letter to the Chairman of the IPCC suggesting he produce any scientific evidence, not even proof, that the Greenhouse Gas effect, and especially CO2, controlled the world's climate, or lacking that, perhaps he should admit that the IPCC was wrong.

  Most climate scientists believe it is the variations in the sun's radiation which is the prime driver of climate and the Greenhouse Gas effect of CO2 is very small.  

  I have wondered about the CO2 theory myself because all the predictions made by the computer models were wrong in the short term, and when 20th century actual data was run on all the climate models they all incorrectly predicted world temperatures much higher than we can measure with satellites.

  Now it seems unbelievable that the IPCC could possibly think that models which cannot predict short term trends should be trusted to be used for justifying trillions of dollars in fighting global warming, based on long term forecasts.  It seems they are being arrogant and unrealistic to trust the models, or they are lying about it to keep grant money coming in.

  The crux of the IPCC recommendations is that we reduce our CO2 emissions by at least 25% to 80%.  But, at  current energy prices poor people all over the world are rioting in the streets because they are hungry.  Now, energy demand is not very elastic, and in the UK where energy is twice as expensive as in the US, there has not, seemingly, been much reduction in auto use. So, perhaps gasoline and diesel need to go to three times the price even to hit the 25% goal.  At $12 a gallon we will see rioting in the streets in the developed world, and perhaps some Environmentalists might even be lynched.  

  Renewable power is not very useful: bio fuels produce more CO2 than petroleum, solar does not work at night, and wind does not produce power when it is not blowing. And, because the power grid cannot store energy, traditional power plants are still needed to assure a reliable supply.

  This, and the absolutely outrageous real estate demands, i.e. hundreds of square miles of solar antennas, thousands of miles for wind farms, make me ask: "where  can we put it all without making the Environmentalists furious."  The only answer is nuclear power, but that is a non-starter too because of the Environmentalists' phobia.  Like fusion power, renewable power feasibility has been 10 years away for 50 years and it is no closer now. Renewables need an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency, and it will take years to do this.

  So, if the IPCC cannot even make a feeble defense of their theory, since their predictions are all wrong, since the solution they recommend to reduce CO2 is useless, and since it is a draconian solution which will cause a major economic depression, and since renewables cannot replace very much of hydrocarbons we use, and we have hundreds of years supply of oil, coal, oil-sands, and nuclear power, can anyone tell me why in hell are we doing this?

  The only sensible answer is that the Environmentalists are anti-capitalists, anarchists, anti-human, and want to lower our standard of living so that a utopian civilization run by benevolent despots (the Environmentalists, the new Bolsheviks)can arise from the evil of free-enterprise, or they are doing it for the carbon tax and trading money. On Why a carbon price beats technology breakthroughs posted 1 year, 7 months ago 11 Responses