I still feel that we can add to our Hydro power capabilities, although we do seem to need fission power, too.
A high-speed passenger rail system could take over some of the airlines’ traffic. (And a good thing, too, the airlines and airports can barely handle what they’ve got.) Also some of the long-distance vacation traffic now done via automobile. New regional commuter rail systems could take some of the daily commuter traffic off the interstates. A revitalized freight-rail system could take some of the shipping away from the trucking industry. (Trucks would still be used – but for regional distribution, not long-distance hauling.) As for the suburbs, that’s the big challenge; but they might possibly be retrofitted, via “infilling,” to make population density higher, the neighborhood more walkable, and mass transit more practical, along the lines of Peter Calthorpe’s “pedestrian pockets” concept. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n58/ai_6410783
Hydroelectric power is more ecologically, if not politically, contentious than nuclear power; it causes massive disruptions in local ecosystems and isn’t really scaleable in the sense of being readily able to add more capacity. There’s also the issue of watertable replunishment; by holding water in surface reservoirs, you’re preventing it from filtering down into the aquifers, and aquifer depletion is the next up-and-coming ecological crisis. (I’d have more confidence–or indeed any–if Bush was addressing this issue.)
The problem with renewables in general is that while they are renewable, they aren’t sustainable–that is, they can’t provide all, or even most of present and future energy demands. Fossil fuels aren’t renewable, but they are sustainable, at least as long as they hold out. Nuclear fission is sustainable and technologically viable, but politically unacceptible in the US, owing mostly to a distorted view of the dangers and hazards of nuclear waste. Ultimately, though, nuclear fission is the most scaleable and sustainable of all currently-viable technologies.
Efforts to force services on the market have all been manifest failures, if not utter disasters. You might note that a few nations have tried this approach en masse–most of those countries aren’t around anymore.
Public transit isn’t popular in (most of) the US for all the obvious reasons: the low cost of private transport, the accessibilty of interstate highways, the low population density, et cetera. A few places–New York, D.C. San Francisco–have taken to it because it is an economically and logistically viable alternative to driving a car. But most cities that have built light rail or subway transport have had a difficult time making an economic case for it; Los Angeles, for instance, has had to keep cutting hours and services because of the lack of use of the (pretty good) Metro Rail. St. Louis has come close to shutting down their light rail on three occasions; it remains heavily subsidized and isn’t even close to economically viable. Chicago runs the El at marginal profitability, but still has an enormous car-commuting population. Smaller or more distributed cities are going to have an even more difficult time making the case for public transit, beyond buses.
Public transit is a nice idea, as is a comprehensive network of bike paths, but save for a few exceptions (like Portland, OR) it just isn’t a realistic alternative to driving a car. Nor is it feasible for the typical American suburban lifestyle; you can’t haul home a trunkful of groceries or take the soccer team to practice on the Metro. And if your talking of the population outside of major city centers, public transport becomes laughable; I grew up twenty miles from the nearest bus depot. My public transit was illegally hitching onto a freight train.
Stranger
Just to back up Stanger, I tried to post this before:
Hydro is a tougher sell at this point than even Nuclear.
Hydro projects are believed to cause massive ecological damage.
Nuclear is more a fear of meltdown and waste disposal.
Many younger environmentalist would be prepare to accept Nuclear but the older groups and environmentalist still believe both Hydro and Nuke are very bad and will continue to fight both.
Accumulated from Greenpeace, Sierra Club and Clearwater I would say the main hope of mainstream environmental groups is to reduce energy consumption and go with Wind and Solar.
I am a little out of step with these groups I belong to because I do believe we need to start building Fission plants to push for Plug-in Hybrids and shutdown Coal Burners.
Jim
Hmm? What countries?
A sharp and permanent rise in the price of gasoline could change all of that drastically.
Er, the Soviet Union and its satellites. You’ll note how quickly planned economies collapsed when Honecker left the building. Unchecked laissez faire capitalism is far from perfect, but centrally planned economies have failed in essentially every instance where they have been imposed.
True, and a consideration. However, that doesn’t change the fact that for the majority of Americans, public transit is not a logistical possibility. Building light rail lines that can reach out to each suburban neighborhood in, say, Olathe, KS, isn’t even marginally feasible. Your ideas about using heavy rail for more cargo transport (as opposed to over-the-road) are good, but they would require a massive overhaul of both the semi-deregulated rail and trucking industries.
Stranger
OK, how about a massive overhaul of our existing Hyrdo dams?
Dredging, maintenance, & improved tech in the generators, control systems, turbines & power management systems.
And perhaps a re-design/modification of water sluces, perhaps to increase speed?
“Dredging, maintenance, & improved tech,” are all part of the process of operating a hydroelectric dam. You are only going to get as much energy out of a dam as the “head” allows (that is to say, the amount of energy developed from the drop of the water from source to the dam). Also, note that many dams in the US are at or beyond their expected lifetime, and others are demonstrating erosion of footings or support on the banks.
Dams are in theory eco-friendly resources insofar as they don’t produce any significant waste or exhaust, but their ecological impact is massive, both upstream and down. They’re not a good solution for replacing existing power sources.
Stranger
:rolleyes: I was hoping you were talking about something other than the Soviet Union and its satellites, because that don’t really apply to this discussion. Of course they were “planned economies” in general, but that does not necessarily have anything to do with their growth-management, town planning, nor transportation policies. Nor is a complete Soviet-style command economy necessary for a state to engage in effective planning and management in those areas.
You spoke of, and I quote: “As for the suburbs, that’s the big challenge; but they might possibly be retrofitted, via ‘infilling,’ to make population density higher,”. How, exactly, do you intended to perform this “infilling”, given that one of the reasons people move into the suburbs to begin with is to get more space?
Public transit works in Europe because European cities are historically dense; this backs out of the need to enclose cities and protect them from siege, as well as preserving the limited amount of land available for agriculture. This has never been an issue in the US, and density has only occured to the extent required by commerce and industry. In our post-industrial society, there is little reason to jam people up next to each other, nor are we constrained for space.
Personally, I agree that, if possible, increased public transit would be preferable to congestion-making traffic. I also abhor the square miles of nearly indistinguishable tract housing that makes up most of suburbia. I wouldn’t want to live in it myself, and it is a (minor) dream of mine to live in a city like San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle where you can get around on foot, bike, or train most of the time. But the bulk of the population, particularly for those in “fly-over country”, it’s neither viable or desireable, and the only way you are going to enforce such a plan is by coercion.
Stranger
You seem to be assuming that the American suburban landscape we’ve got now was shaped entirely by buyers’ choices and the operation of free-market economic forces. It wasn’t. It was shaped just as much by government policy – federally insured home loans, and local zoning codes mandating low density and segregation of residential from commercial/industrial/recreational uses. And public policies can be changed. The problem is, the kind of community we need now is illegal to build, in most localities.
Just curiosity, did you by chance ever read Ecotopia?
So many ideas you are bringing up, were brought up by Ernest Callenbach.
If you have not read it, I highly recommend it.
Jim
Yeah, Ive read it.
No rail transit in Ecotopia, IIRC.
In any case, I’m not thinking of a complete reconstruction of society along Green lines – only our transportation systems and housing/settlement patterns.
Which I hope can be achieved without seizing a cache of nuclear weapons and holding the government hostage. (But just in case, I’ve already got the weapons. 
)
For a better idea of what I’m talking about (it really has little in common with Callenbach’s vision), see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Growth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Calthorpe
How Cities Work by Alex Marshall – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0292752407/qid=1141794824/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8311832-7072955?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Suburban Nation by Andres Duany – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865476063/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-8311832-7072955?_encoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155
The New Urbanism by Peter Katz – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0070338892/sr=8-1/qid=1141794706/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8311832-7072955?_encoding=UTF8
The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671888250/qid=1141794877/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8311832-7072955?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Home from Nowhere by JHK – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684837374/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/102-8311832-7072955?_encoding=UTF8
You forget to mention the interstate highway system, that was in fact designed to disperse the population for better survivability in case of a nuclear attack. But nonetheless, you aren’t going convince suburbanites to live in condensed apartment block projects any more than you are going to persuade Paris Hilton to stop blabbing on her cell phone throughout a movie.
The notion that people can be controlled by public policy is a tenuous one at best. Often these plans end up being oversimplified and result in unintended and often counterproductive consequences. Planned communities have a history of going awry. Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti arcology is an unfortunate example of such. In the end, “the system” knows better what it needs than any individual or (especially) a committee. A substantial cost-of-living change might effect such a result, but attempting to impose such by regulatory means is both ill-advised and politically unlikely. In the end, people will live the way that their income and lifestyle permit them to afford, and asking or demanding that they accept less autonomy is likely to backfire. Any plan involving future energy production needs to account for the fact that the developed world will continue to increase its demands for energy in accordance with maintaining and improving its standard of living. We can (and should) increase energy efficiency wherever possible, and indeed, that is the best near-term way of reducing demand on the limited resources of fossil fuels, but demanding this at a cost of a reduced standard of living is impractical.
Stranger