How much would a green new deal actually cost?

Great Debates
101

First they have to make it clear that they have changed their mind.

The GND needs to explicitly endorse nuclear energy, and make it clear that solar and wind and geothermal will not scale up to meet the world’s energy needs in the 21st century. If it doesn’t do that, it isn’t worth anything. If Bernie and AOC think it can be scaled up, in ten years, to meet 100% of the energy needs of the US, then they haven’t changed their position.

OK, she and Bernie didn’t lie (then). They just changed their position. Let’s hear them say so.

This one is.

They put forth a resolution to see who will support it in principle. McConnell calls for a floor vote to see who will support it in principle.

“NO FAIR!!!”

:smiley:

Regards,
Shodan

102

That 82 million figure is accounting for much of it being in mountainous terrain. That was cited for a specific project, so extrapolating that cost to other areas may not be accurate, if those other areas do not include going through mountains.

I may point out that interstates cost 7 to 11 million a mile, assuming you are not talking about mountainous terrain.

103

That seems crazily optimistic for the cost. The Silver Line in the DC metro completed an extension several years ago at a cost of 300 million per mile. The second avenue subway project in NYC is projected to cost 2.5 billion per mile. The 82 million per mile in California comes from a time when they were projecting the total cost at only 33 billion instead of the 90 billion dollar total cost of the last estimate. That would mean a 240 million per mile cost.
Some might say that the California cost is inflated because of the mountains but the land cost in the east coast would likely be much higher because the population density in the east coast is much higher. High speed rail would need to purchase land in the most expensive part of the country or go underground in an area where tunnel diggers make over $100 per hour. I think a better estimate of the NYC to LA line would be at least a trillion dollars.

104

In the conservative circles I am familiar with it is less making people’s heads explode and more making people bust a gut. AOC is the perfect spokesperson because she is media savvy, popular, and ignorant as a post about politics and policy. The GND is a gift to our side during a time where good news has been few and far between. If every american could read it and understand how much it is going to cost and how much taxes would have to be raised to pay for it the Democrat party wouldn’t win an election for 20 years.

105

Better would be to first focus only on the heavily populated Northeast for high speed rail. A big problem there is that Amtrak doesn’t control the tracks it uses.

So in your circles, solutions are not a priority; it’s all about comedy. Got it.

Does your circle find Senator James Inhofe amusing? He’s been in Congress for over 30 years and knows less about climate change than a 5th-grader.

How about Congressman Mo Brooks? The list goes on and on. Far from laughter, I think your circles are breathing a sigh of relief that there may be one young D who’s almost as ignorant as a majority of R’s. Aren’t you afraid though, that in a few years she’ll be a bit smarter and the R’s will be even more ignorant than they already are?

106

You are comparing underground subways to overground rail lines. And you are comparing these through very, very dense urban areas to the comparatively wide open expanses between cities in California.

The most recent estimate for this project that I see claims 82 per mile, do you have a more recent cite?

Most of that span is across very open and flat areas, can even co-locate right next to existing rail lines for easier infrastructure for much of the way.

107

I’m not sure what it would cost. If France is any indication, rebuilding DC after being burnt to the ground due to doubling or tripling fuel costs would have to be figured in there somewhere though.

People will not tolerate those kind of fuel price increases over short periods. They just won’t.

The GND is not happening. Not in it’s current form.

108

QFT.

This “argument” keeps appearing on this message board. First about the minimum wage–paraphrasing, if people talk about making only the minimum wage, they really mean making more than the minimum wage. Now it’s some politicians’ positions regarding nuclear power. They didn’t really mean it. BS, indeed.

109

In the conservative circles I am familiar with it is less making people’s heads explode and more making people bust a gut. AOC is the perfect spokesperson because she is media savvy, popular, and ignorant as a post about politics and policy. The GND is a gift to our side during a time where good news has been few and far between. If every american could read it and understand how much it is going to cost and how much taxes would have to be raised to pay for it the Democrat party wouldn’t win an election for 20 years.

110

Amtrak is low speed rail so new railbeds would be needed. Low speed rail is too curvy to be safe for the speeds of high speed rail. This need to buy thousands of miles of railbed in the heaviest populated part of the country would be insanely expensive.

Inhofe and Brooks are either ignorant or pretending to be ignorant about global warming because it is in their political best interests to be. Neither would be so ignorant as to propose a solution to the problem they claim to be the most important in the world that not only has no chance of passing but makes the issue harder to solve because it poisons the well and makes convincing skeptics harder.

I don’t agree with Pelosi on just about anything but at least she is politically savvy enough to drop the GND like a hot rock.

111

Well maybe Gizmodo/Cnn/Slate/Salon/Huffpo/Young Turks should be giving Inhofe as much screen time as they give AOC? But that would run into…“How dare you give that ignoramus a platform!!!”

112

The silver line is not underground for the new tracks they laid and they put it either in the median of an existing highway or elevated it above crowded places.

The latest cost estimate for the Bakersfield to Merced high speed rail is 89 million per mile. That is the best case scenario for costs. That is a flat route that goes through mostly empty land. The problem with new rail is that it can either be useful or easy to build. NYC to LA would be useful but it would pass through three mountain ranges, and New Jersey the most densely populated state.
In 2012 Amtrakestimated that building high speed rail from DC to Boston would cost 345 million per mile. That plan was dropped because residents in the areas that the train would go through objected.

113

Your post would seem to indicate you don’t know the difference between a bill and a simple resolution.

114

Do those of you advocating for high speed rail have any idea how ‘green’ it atually is? Why do you want it? Given the crazy high expense of the things and their inflexibility, just what is so appealing?

Amtrak, for example, uses about 2700 BTU of energy per passenger mile. A Toyota Prius uses about 1700 BTU per passenger mile. Jet aircraft travel is about 3300, so not even that much more than Amtrak. And Amtrak is a pretty busy train. Put a train out in the midwest somewhere where it’s getting 50% passenger loads, and it will be a disaster for the environment. Make it go 200 MPH, and it will cost even more in energy.

Furthermore, cars are still gaining in energy efficiency every year, and it looks to me like electric vehicles are about ready for prime time and will start making big sales increases over the next decade.

It’s entirely possible that in the 20-30 years it would take to build a high speed rail link across the country, cars will completely surpass trains in efficiency. Add in self-driving, ‘car trains’ and other ways to make car transport even more efficient, and it could be that in 20 years passenger trains will be the bad guys that need to be destroyed to save the planet.

Then there’s the lesson of California, which is that new rail lines are a cornucopia of graft, as land has to be purchased or taken, cities rise and fall based on whether the train stops there or not, etc. California’s high speed rail project was a complete boondoggle, and the end result after 11 years and billions of dollars spent is that the train will now only run between Merced and Bakersfield. And the ticket prices will be so high that the train will need to be subsidized or risk not having anyone ride it, since you can fly from San Fransisco to LA for $149. No one is going to pay $150 for a train ticket from Merced to Bakersfield. Wow, what a huge gain for the state. And if it had continued, the project was recently estimated to not be finished until 2033, fully 25 years after it was approved, and about TWICE the time originally estimated. And most experts thought it would never be done in that time frame, either.

And just one little part of the Green New Deal was to crisscross the country with so many high speed rail lines that domestic air travel could be eliminated. And to do it in ten years, while also refurbishing every building in America and completely rebuilding the energy infrastructure with wind and solar. The high speed rail project alone would cost trillions of dollars, disrupt commerce everywhere, require 20 hour trips across the country, and in the end might save you 10% in energy over the current auto fleet (and likely be actually be less energy efficient than the auto fleet by the time it’s finished).

Is there anyone in the Democratic party who can do math? Because clearly AOC with her economics degree cannot.

115

AOC has been a Representative for one month. Senator James Inhofe has served in Congress for over 30 years and served as Chairman (yes, Chairman with a C) of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — yet he doesn’t know as much about climate change as a 5th-grader. Some GOP Congressmen are even stupider than him. Can you point to the SDMB posts you’ve made complaining about Senator Inhofe?

116

Then, there is the president…

117

Why is it that every post I make somehow turns into an attack on me instead of my argument? If I had never said a bad word about Inhofe, would that make anything I said in my last post incorrect?

This is one of the reasons you don’t as many responses from me as you’d like - I know you aren’t arguing in good faith, but continually looking for ‘gotcha’ moments you can use to attack me personally. Stop with the ad-hominem bullshit and debate the actual issues.

For the record, James Inhofe is a moron. The stuff he says about climate change is ignorant prattle. And Trump is no better. But the Republicans have yet to put out something as jaw-droppingly stupid as the Green New Deal, and yet Democrats rushed to sign onto it, including most or all of the current crew running for President. Now, I’m guessing that a bunch of them just hopped on the bandwagon without bothering to read what’s in it, but that doesn’t absolve AOC or Sen Markey who co-sponsored it.

The other difference is that AOC and her crew are actually proposing legislation on issues they clearly have no freaking clue about. There are lots of stupid people in Congress, but most of them know when to lay low when they don’t have facts or talking points. When Inhofe comes forward with a serious proposal to build an Ark or to build a bridge to Hawaii or something else as stupid as the Green New Deal, I’ll be happily mocking him.

118

I actually do agree with you to some extent, Sam ! I’m no expert on transportation, but massive investment in rail lines through areas of low population seems likely to be a poor idea. I do hope there will be some mechanism for perfecting these progressive plans before serious legislation is proposed. (This is why McConnells’ move to force an immediate vote without amendments or hearings is just despicable politics.)

But give some credit to the young progressive people who have suddenly found their voice! Those who’ve been paying attention understand that the other Party is now completely dominated by criminals, liars and kleptocrats. The political battles in the U.S.A. are now often literally between Good and Evil. When people say “I also oppose Evil; let me help you improve your ideas for Good,” we listen and applaud. However when we sense that the goal is just to find something to deprecate, in a hope to improve the electoral chances of the criminals, liars, hypocrites and kleptocrats, we aren’t so happy.

The dollar figures bandied about for a progressive program may seem large. But let us not forget that Cheney and the Warmongers wasted Two Trillion dollars on their Iraqi adventure — an adventure so stupid that the money would have been better spent breaking two trillion dollars worth of windows and then repairing them!

Now, when debt was already soaring while the economy was booming, the kleptocrats execute a massive tax cut for the rich. Deficits of One Trillion dollars annually or more are projected for the foreseeable future. This massive debt severely impacts the future of today’s youth (and, not by coincidence, makes it all the more difficult for expensive progressive programs to work).

Trillion dollar deficits! With a T. I know you’re on record, Sam, as stating that a trillion dollars is “chump change”, a “rounding error’” but I daresay that’s a minority view.

***Trillions of dollars ***wasted or stolen by criminals like Trump and the despicable Party which supports him. But AOC is where you direct your attention? Where you assign blame? :confused:

Which side are you on?

119

You also seem not to understand that this is a simple resolution - not a bill.

Of course, it’s not despicable politics to put forth a dramatic resolution, the main purpose of which seems to be to garner media attention and allow for an orgy of virtue signaling.

120

Do you – all of you – understand that arguing the cost of specific elements of a utopian set of goals makes as much sense as arguing about the cost of implementing the Futurist Manifesto?

Yes, the GND in its entirety is unrealistic. So was the Civil Rights movement in 1954. It’s been 60 years and that’s still going on. I don’t know how much it cost, but I think the price was worth the benefits. BTW, the same people who are screaming about the GND are the people who screamed about civil rights. They were wrong then and you are wrong now.

I admit that conservatives won out against civil rights a lot of the time. You’re probably very proud of that. But my guess is that we’ve learned some lessons from that and we’ll make it much harder for you this time.