Greens call for a high speed rail link (1 Viewer)

[Richard Gilmore]

with the following amendment

-HSR is a great form of high speed travel when powered by low carbon producing electricity
-In the current environment (no pun intended), it is not really viable economically or environmentally.
-With a move away from coal it would be great in the future.

All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-HSR bill?

 

[Richard Gilmore]

Also, we have no concrete data on the emissions given off by the coal from the electricity used. before this thread reaches a conclusion like that i'd like to see some data so a direct comparison can be made.

 

[Optimus Prime]

oh dude that one is easy, coal's energy density is ~6.5 kWh/kg, Regenerative Rankine cycle is around 40% efficient, good coal is about 80% carbon.

6.5*0.4=2.6kwh per kg
1/2.6 * 0.8 = 307.7 g of carbon per kwh.

Carbon is 12 molecular mass, CO2 is 44.
307.7/ (12/44) = 1128 g of CO2 per kwh.

edit: apparently that is a conservative estimate on the energy per kilo, at the upper end of the spectrum it's still 825 g per kwh.

 

[aussie-boy]

I think we are done with this thread tbh. Does everyone agree with these points:

-HSR is a great form of high speed travel when powered by low carbon producing electricity
-In the current environment (no pun intended), it is not really viable economically or environmentally.
-With increasing population in Sydney and Melbourne and a move away from coal it would be great in the future.

Absolutely not.

You haven't even engaged with:
-the economic benefits of regional development
-the savings from not having to build a new Sydney airport
-the fact that this transport corridor is the 4th busiest in the entire world

All that has been concluded in this thread is that:
-the environment argument is iffy at the moment, but will fall to the side of HSR proponents with every new renewable energy source added to the grid
-the time penalty is less than 1hr on the end to end route, and much less on intermediate journeys

When a private consortium managed to deem this proposal profitable 10yrs ago (with a few refused tax breaks), without even directly benefitting from the positive externalities, then it's pretty naive to not consider this a good idea

 

[Richard Gilmore]

1.1kg CO2/kWh (according to riet) and HSR (eurostar) uses 0.055kwh/passenger-km hence 38.5kwh-km with a full train. so the eurostar on coal would give off 38.5 x 1.1 = 42.35kg/km. compare to 75kg/passenger/trip on a 767. wait something isn't right there...



someone else do the calculation for me please ive made an error.

 

[Optimus Prime]

TGVs are 10-15 kwh/km, 767 is about ~13 tonnes of CO2, sydney to melbourne.

 

[Richard Gilmore]

So on a 1000km trip, HSR would emit about 16 tonnes of CO2 if it's powered by coal.

DAMN YOU COAL!

 

[aussie-boy]

So on a 1000km trip, HSR would emit about 16 tonnes of CO2 if it's powered by coal.

DAMN YOU COAL!

I.e. still much lower per HSR passenger than per plane passenger

 

[Optimus Prime]

Except that it's not built yet.

 

[Rothbard]

hahahahahahah this fucking high speed rail meme

AGAIN

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

-the economic benefits of regional development

What economic benefits? Explain how shifting businesses to regional areas provides a net benefit.

If anything it is less efficient environmentally to have large amounts of people living sparsely populated regional areas as they will have to travel more. Even with a HSR rail corridor, many more trips will still have to be made by cars and planes to places not on the corridor than if population was more centralized in the capital cities.

-the savings from not having to build a new Sydney airport

The savings are negligible in comparison to the cost of HSR corridor.

-the fact that this transport corridor is the 4th busiest in the entire world

It is not the 4th busiest "transport corridor" in the world, not even close. It is the 4th busiest passenger air traffic route. This is because over this distance air travel is very cheap and efficient so most trips are done by air.

When a private consortium managed to deem this proposal profitable 10yrs ago (with a few refused tax breaks), without even directly benefitting from the positive externalities, then it's pretty naive to not consider this a good idea

Orly? Where is the evidence of that. I'm very skeptical that huge government concessions of some sort weren't being required.

 

[Richard Gilmore]

The savings are negligible in comparison to the cost of HSR corridor.

Although the airport will be a useless white elephant in a few decades time due to the skyrocketing price of oil.

It is not the 4th busiest "transport corridor" in the world, not even close. It is the 4th busiest passenger air traffic route. This is because over this distance air travel is very cheap and efficient so most trips are done by air.

potayto potahto his point still stands.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

Although the airport will be a useless white elephant in a few decades time due to the skyrocketing price of oil.

If that's the case, its still cheaper to build it and get a few decades worth of usage than to build HSR now, especially considering in a few decades when it might actually be needed the price and quality of HSR will have fallen dramatically.

Also, the airport can be build privately so it doesn't cost the taxpayer anything.

potayto potahto his point still stands.

Not only does his point not stand, it never made any sense in the first place.

How does one define a "transport corridor." Would Dallas to Fort Worth count? How far apart would two cities (however that is defined) have to be for it to be a "transport corridor?"

The only reason Melbourne-Sydney is high on the list of air traffic routes is because they are so far apart that road and rail transport is cumbersome.

For the point to be made he would need to show that total passengers for all modes of transport between the cities is particularly high. Given all the large, close together cities is Europe, Asian and North America I'd suspect it would even make top 20. These cities don't use air travel, because over the applicable distances rail is actually efficient!

 

[Richard Gilmore]

zimmerman my friend we've been through this before - rail is more efficient when making less stops! it's this funny little entity called momentum (that little bastard).

anyway i dont get what youre saying. the volume of passengers taking plane travel between the two cities is immense and given that planes are questionable on a number of points (efficiency, environmentally), it makes sense to engage with the issue - or at least to see if there's a way to decrease the sheer number of people using air travel on the route.

i mean, the point of HSR would be to provide an alternative between syd-mel, right?

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

zimmerman my friend we've been through this before - rail is more efficient when making less stops! it's this funny little entity called momentum (that little bastard).

Where did I mention number of stops?

I mentioned distance. HSR might make rail competitive between London and Paris, but at over double the distance, its probably not between Sydney and Melbourne. As distance increases, HSR looses its speed edge over air travel. Sydney to Melbourne is marginally longer by current HSR, which leads me to believe it may be worthwhile in the future.

anyway i dont get what youre saying. the volume of passengers taking plane travel between the two cities is immense and given that planes are questionable on a number of points (efficiency, environmentally), it makes sense to engage with the issue - or at least to see if there's a way to decrease the sheer number of people using air travel on the route.

i mean, the point of HSR would be to provide an alternative between syd-mel, right?

What do you mean by efficiency? Air travel is cheap, safe and convenient. The only concern is environmental issues and as has already been addressed in the thread, there are much more cost effective ways or reducing carbon emissions.

Also, note the enormous environmental cost of building the corridor in the first place.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Somehow I doubt it is a busier corridor than Paris-London, Boston->New York->Washington, Tokyo->Kyoto->Osaka or Seoul->Busan.

Like JFDB said, what counts as a corridor? Does Shenzhen to HK count?

 

[Optimus Prime]

Also, note the enormous environmental cost of building the corridor in the first place.

That was going to be my next point. railway tracks are 50 kg per m each, so 100 kg per m. That's 100,000 tonnes of steel, just for the tracks.

 

[loquasagacious]

If the concern is environmental then any savings which a HSR corridor might deliver need to be compared to other ways we could reduce environmental impact. Even if we could conclude that HSR had half the carbon footprint of air travel that alone does not make the case of HSR.

To illustrate this point let's do a quick hypothetical:
- HSR turns out to be the greenest thing ever and saves 1,000,000 tonnes of CO2 p.a.
- HSR runs for 50 years
- HSR costs $50bn to build
- HSR running cost (losses, subsidies, tax breaks, etc) $1bn p.a.

So a total of 50m tonnes of CO2 saved at a cost of $100bn.... that means that it costs $2,000 per tonne of carbon emissions saved.... we then compare that cost to what it would cost for other forms of abatement...

If we could spend less money planting trees and have the same impact then why shouldn't we? Or what about spending the same amount planting trees and have a bigger impact?

I'm not saying that trees are the answer or that my figures are right. What I'm saying is that after working out how much emissions (if any) it will save and if it will be financially viable (or not) we still need to consider whether there are better ways.

 

[loquasagacious]

You would obviously have to tunnel under the great dividing range

Things which might cause a lot of pollution: tunneling through mountain ranges

 

[Optimus Prime]

"This is a tough requirement, as the integrated steel production route generates about two tons of CO2 per ton of steel."
Times Higher Education - Call for proposals for 'very low CO2 steel processes' in the NMP priority thematic area (5)

"Global CO2 emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels over the past century are presented. Taking into consideration
the total world production of more than 1,3 billion tons of steel, the steel industry produces over
two billion tons of CO2."
http://www.sssbjt.hr/metalurg/Metalurgija/2009_vol_48/No_3/MET_48_3_193_197_Kundak.pdf


1.5 tonne CO2 per tonne steel. The difference is obviously because there are many different methods of steel production and processes depending on the end product. Hot rolling of things like I-beam and railway tracks perhaps uses more energy than cold forging, things like that. Either way, that is 150,000-200,000 tonne of CO2 just for the track.

edit: then there is the sleepers, the gantries, the power lines, the actual construction, etc.