Plastic bags, climate change, renewable energy,

[rowdyflat]

High speed rail would deal with so many problems such as decentralization , urban house/landprices,urban infrastructure overload , unemployment, reduce fossil fuel transport use rail [10% fuel v air ], overcrowding of cities ,building more airports.
Over the medium term it could fund itself thru land sales of previously cheap residential + industrial land now valuable along the corridor.
You can't help but be impressed when you go to Europe or Japan.
Unfortunately we are a conservative country of short term thinkers , lacking vision and the lobby groups enriching themselves at present fossil fuelers, real estate, airlines ,would oppose any government assistance .It was bad enough with the NBN but this is bigger.

 

[Haakon]

this made me lol... Chris Kenny defending News Corp from James Murdoch's comments. The scary part is that they probably believe they're doing the right thing....

Mr Kenny, who is a columnist in The
Australian and presenter on Sky News,
defended News Corp’s coverage of climate
change.
‘‘The point about climate change is
that it presents an enormously complex
range of debates around various
scientific findings, meteorological
records, historical context, modelled
predictions, possible policy responses
and their likely costs and benefits,’’ he
told The Australian Financial Review.
‘‘If, like me, you accept the science of
global warming but are vitally interested
in scientific analysis and policy
options while being wary of alarmism
and ideological opportunism, there are
few media organisations outside of
NewsCorp that provide fact-based, varied
and realistic debate.’’
Mr Kenny said coverage of climate
change globally is dominated by
‘‘alarmist and hysterical views – fake
news, if you like.’’
‘‘That creates false impressions, for
instance suggesting that disasters like
the Australian bushfires are unprecedented
or that climate action could prevent
them; while climate change must
factor in bushfire discussions, clearly
catastrophic bushfire conditions have
always been a threat in Australia and
always will be,’’ he said.
‘‘This is just one example, and I shudder
at the extent of misinformation if
News Corp journalists weren’t presenting
their wide variety of coverage and
analysis.’’

 

[hifiandmtb]

Science is science,

Cherry picking scientific outcomes is for the foolhardy.

News Corp loves to cherry pick, thus extending the life of FF.

The end.

 

[Kerplunk]

High speed rail would deal with so many problems such as decentralization , urban house/landprices,urban infrastructure overload , unemployment, reduce fossil fuel transport use rail [10% fuel v air ], overcrowding of cities ,building more airports.
Over the medium term it could fund itself thru land sales of previously cheap residential + industrial land now valuable along the corridor.
You can't help but be impressed when you go to Europe or Japan.
Unfortunately we are a conservative country of short term thinkers , lacking vision and the lobby groups enriching themselves at present fossil fuelers, real estate, airlines ,would oppose any government assistance .It was bad enough with the NBN but this is bigger.

Warren Buffet has been buying up rail in the states.. Fair to say this guy knows where future demand/profit comes from..

I was impressed with how the swiss deal with freight trucks.. Load them onto a train. Driver gets a rest, and the public don’t have to deal with trucks on the roads..

 

[Haakon]

Warren Buffet has been buying up rail in the states.. Fair to say this guy knows where future demand/profit comes from..

I was impressed with how the swiss deal with freight trucks.. Load them onto a train. Driver gets a rest, and the public don’t have to deal with trucks on the roads..

Damn, wish they’d do that here... Thousands of bloody trucks on the Hume alongside an empty rail line. Madness...

 

[climberman]

How profitable will rail freight be (here, or anywhere) without coal?

 

[Scotty T]

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/compromised-genie-energy-and-the-murdoch-medias-climate-denial/

 

[rowdyflat]

Rail freight and coal will both continue but they aren't dependent on each other.
Rail is the best way to move large amounts of raw materials eg coal , at present I imagine most locomotives would use diesel ?

 

[pharmaboy]

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/compromised-genie-energy-and-the-murdoch-medias-climate-denial/

while newscorp sure seem to have that attitude, the idea that its related to financial links of Rupert is pretty much preposterous. the man is worth $14b - an investment of $11m in a gas company is like me buying an X01 deraileur,

everyone wants to find what the motivation is - the motivation is simple - the editors think they are right - thats all that is needed.

good luck to James though

 

[pharmaboy]

Rail freight and coal will both continue but they aren't dependent on each other.
Rail is the best way to move large amounts of raw materials eg coal , at present I imagine most locomotives would use diesel ?

all of them - electrification is just in the cities (and between regionals). diesel doesnt matter too much, its so much more efficient than trucks due to wind resistance and braking etc

 

[Kerplunk]

Damn, wish they’d do that here... Thousands of bloody trucks on the Hume alongside an empty rail line. Madness...

The freight/trucking lobby is incredibly strong in oz.. Abbott had a toy Linfox truck in his pm’s office..

One of the first steps to addressing climate change is to get these massive long haul trucks off the road. Such an inefficient way to move freight.. As you say there are empty rail lines with trucks driving next to them. What a clever country we are..

 

[pink poodle]

Disused rail lines make me sad. I was recently in a tourist area a few hours drive from a state capital. A train line seemed to run the whole way or most of it and was totally disused. The road was very busy with cars and trucks.

Damn, wish they’d do that here... Thousands of bloody trucks on the Hume alongside an empty rail line. Madness...

 

[Calvin27]

One of the first steps to addressing climate change is to get these massive long haul trucks off the road. Such an inefficient way to move freight.. As you say there a rail empty rail lines with trucks driving next to them.

We tend to follow the stupid USA rail model (non existent). At the very least we should have freight rail between major exchange interchanges like ports and stuff. I rekon the HSR business case would do well to integrate freight.

 

[Kerplunk]

Science is science,

Cherry picking scientific outcomes is for the foolhardy.

News Corp loves to cherry pick, thus extending the life of FF.

The end.

News corp and the Bolt’s of this world all tread the same path on any subject they don’t agree.
They find one or two points of an arguement that have a level of subjectivity. Argue their point of view, then agree with themselves, the the say the other 99.99% of the original argument is invalid because they found fault in 0.01% of it..

 

[Haakon]

Disused rail lines make me sad. I was recently in a tourist area a few hours drive from a state capital. A train line seemed to run the whole way or most of it and was totally disused. The road was very busy with cars and trucks.

Current network in colour...

 

[Scotty T]

while newscorp sure seem to have that attitude, the idea that its related to financial links of Rupert is pretty much preposterous. the man is worth $14b - an investment of $11m in a gas company is like me buying an X01 deraileur,

everyone wants to find what the motivation is - the motivation is simple - the editors think they are right - thats all that is needed.

good luck to James though

Yeah I think it was just surprising to read about the level of nepotism and deep links to politics around the fossil fuel industry.

Edit: and a chunk of ad dollars into Rupert's 14b came from the industry.

 

[Scotty T]

 

[climberman]

High speed rail would deal with so many problems such as decentralization , urban house/landprices,urban infrastructure overload , unemployment, reduce fossil fuel transport use rail [10% fuel v air ], overcrowding of cities ,building more airports.
Over the medium term it could fund itself thru land sales of previously cheap residential + industrial land now valuable along the corridor.

How does going non-stop between Paris and Geneva help any of these issues any more than non-stop between Sydney and Melbourne would?

 

[climberman]

We tend to follow the stupid USA rail model (non existent). At the very least we should have freight rail between major exchange interchanges like ports and stuff. I rekon the HSR business case would do well to integrate freight.

We do, don't we? At least in NSW there are freight rail links to the Botany/Kembla/Newcastle. 80% of the national freight load comes through NSW as we have the bulk of Syd-Mel, Syd-Bris and Bris-Mel.

HSR will have nothing to do with freight they are different markets, use cases, economics, technologies, everything.
Freight and passengers get in each others' way. Increasing freight movement through Sydney is almost always challenged by the importance of passenger services' priority over freight. Nothing would collapse the business case for passenger HSR more quickly than adding a freight component to it.

Rail freight task for Mel-Syd and Bris-Syd (two busiest freight routes in the country) is growing, as is the road freight task. The market uses the one which best suits it's end needs and times. Total travel time is important but arrival time to the end market address is key. A few shifts in the mode share split for freight makes not much difference as the overall task continues to grow.

 

[climberman]

Disused rail lines make me sad. I was recently in a tourist area a few hours drive from a state capital. A train line seemed to run the whole way or most of it and was totally disused. The road was very busy with cars and trucks.

Thy should all be bike paths!!

NSW recently reopened one somewhere, with a grain focus from memory.