China soon to dominate world in High Speed Rail...

[Iosef Cross]

China's energy consumption per unit of GDP will decrease in the future. Today is high due to the structure of their economy, based on production of huge volumes of low quality goods and processing industries (i.e. steel, aluminium, etc). If energy prices increase, China's economy will change (with the added factor that they will stop to increase physical production and start increasing production in quality due to the maturing of their economy).

To Valdemar: Shut up. The world isn't going to end because oil prices increased.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Looks like I struck a nerve there, old bean. Should I report you for a trolling ad hominem, or are you going to address my point? Hmm, looks like you went and agreed with me anyway.

Hint: Find where I mentioned the "world ending" because of oil prices in this thread. You'll find I didn't. In any case, it's not price that concerns us, it's volume. Anyone expecting $200 oil or coal is deluded. Why so serious, buddy?

[K. A. Pital]

To Valdemar: Shut up. The world isn't going to end because oil prices increased.

Backseat modding is not allowed. You can flame him, debate with him, but you can't order him to shut up. Is that clear?

[Xon]

I never get tired of Valdemar's apocalpyticism.

The amusing thing is that Valdemar's "apocalpyticism" in 2003-2005 or so was practically on the dot with what happened with the current financial mess.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The amusing thing is that Valdemar's "apocalpyticism" in 2003-2005 or so was practically on the dot with what happened with the current financial mess.

Minor nitpick: I only really got into reading about this stuff when looking for work around 2007 and being generally miserable and finding a page J mentioned on here regarding PO (around 2003-05 I was still at uni, so my essay posts here would be on microbes if anything). To be honest, I didn't expect any of this crap to happen so soon, and I was wrong about oil prices being the big problem that others like Goldman Sachs saw (there was no way we'd hit $500 for a barrel of the stuff when our economy was built on sand). I have some savings I'd like to grow, yet there's no way in hell I'm touching the stock market now. I warned my dad about this a couple months ago when he got my brother to tie his savings with stock with his tracker ISA. With China still growing so strong, and now Euro worries that cause Dow drops of a thousand points in minutes, I'm wondering what the hell I can use now to secure a future.

It'd be nice to have to not worry about this stuff, but it's always at the back of my mind now, and especially if I keep up on current affairs. Contrary to my image on this forum, I'm normally quite bubbly and cheery. Work stress and a nasty break up last year made me more cynical, that and a likely low level bi-polar disorder. But I digress...

[Xon]

I'm positive I saw some posts in the 2003-2005 period by you which where a precursor to you making any serious posts about it. It does sounds about right for when you started putting some serious thought into the matter.

It was known that where was something seriously wrong with the US financial structure with the US housing bubble(but people tried to ignore it, and the flames came out if you didn't), and the history of previous housing bubbles was not reassuring. By 2006-2007 that bubble had peaked, and the entire thing exploded in ~2008.

[Thanas]

All and all, 40 years (more if you count the early R&D for TGV) to build what you see below is not awful, but not anything to be blown away by either when you remember that the US is about 4000km wide in comparison.

Skimmer, I think France is a bad idea here because they consciously made the decision that they would only link some areas with High Speed Rail. A better contrast would be the German High Speed Rail, especially when applied to the North East IMO.

So all and all, TGV style trains are just not going to happen in the US on any large scale, and outside a few routes the money is far better spent doing incremental upgrades to track and signals, as well as short bypass routes, to improve existing lines. Most Amtrack locomotives and rolling stock are already rated for 130-150mph, which is enough to classify as high speed by the current 200kph standard. Its just the track doesn't allow it.

The problem is the pretty slow median speed even most Amtrack trains have, which is just laughable compared to any decent European high speed track. Heck, even the Acela Express would be rated as a standard German train.

If they could get the Acela up to German long-distance median speeds, that would be a worthwhile project IMO that could eliminate the need for flying from North England to DC. I know the railroad in Germany is competitive and even beats out train flights from one end of Germany to the other.

[Lusankya]

With China still growing so strong, and now Euro worries that cause Dow drops of a thousand points in minutes, I'm wondering what the hell I can use now to secure a future.

If you really think that China's got a future while Europe doesn't, then get a job in China now, learn the Chinese language and the Chinese culture now and invest in a future in China. Unless you have strong commitments keeping you in England, it's not that hard.


Anyway, on whether or not making all this infrastructure investment is wise: even if the spending is unsustainable long-term, China's not necessarily facing a problem of sustainability at the moment. If I were the Chinese government, I'd probably be thinking that being a developed country in the middle of a depression was much better than being an undeveloped country with a balanced budget.