National Rail And Power Program For The New Millennium

By Chris Koczka (April 2005, revised April 2009)

Part 1: American Needs

Transportation

As Americans live longer it is easy to foresee that many are outliving our ability to safely operate motor vehicles. Each holiday season millions travel to see friends and family sometimes narrowly evading obstacles like bad weather and drunk drivers. Every day business people rush from one end of the country to the other and back. Business and holiday travelers alike desire safe, comfortable and affordable transport.

We like to feel that we can get anywhere in our country in 1 day when we have to.

Here we are in 2009, does anyone think that the financial and ecological cost of finite, liquid energy is going to decline?

Fuel costs will escalate and along with it so will the cost of our current modes of transportation. Anyone looking at even the best-run airline companies knows the precarious effect the crude oil prices have on an airline's viability.

Over the last decade and a half those who made flippant SUV purchases are now smarting at the fuel pump. It still isn't anything like the hurt that would result from fuel is rationing or if it was just not available.

Energy Independence

America uses more crude oil than it has to burn. That means that our nation is quite dependent on other nations' resources to survive. This leads our leaders to commit wars of mass murder to continue the American way of life, as seen in the Middle East.

America has the brains and manpower grow with out dependence on other people's oil. America need not be hostage or aggressor, when it comes to our energy needs.

Didn't we learn? Anyone who has lived through the 1970's knows how fast chaos proliferates when gasoline stations ration fuel or plain run out of fuel. Remember when they ran out of gasoline just before you got to the pump? Remember the odd-even days, getting siphoned while you slept, filling stations not putting gas into your car unless you had less than a quarter tank, and don't forget about hostility on lines for gasoline? Yet we are not too far from that kind of painful bombshell today.

Even if we tear up every slice of national park and forest we still don't have enough oil under the USA to support our current growing habits. We could not afford any foreign embargoes threatening our electric supply or delaying transportation of our people or commodities.

I would be nice if America could stand tall and independent. We can do it!

Environmental

Global warming is real. Air, land and water pollution are all around us. Our American national psyche isn't yet properly programmed for conservation and efficiency. When I was growing up the idea a buying a bottle water for a buck was unheard of! Now with neglected water supplies, and ecologically blind addictions to portion packed plastic bottle, consumes more oil, and fill more space in the garbage. If you say recycle here, I will ask you if you want to drink water down-stream from a recycling plant! My point is that a good part of large environmental issues can be addressed with education and change in old habits.

As populations continued to grow and we bolt from the cities and exploit greater expanses of previously unpopulated land we need more solutions to ecologically and economically feasible transportation. At present, if you live in suburbia, you most likely need a car. We also accumulate lots of new world toys and they all need energy to run. We all want cheap electrical power, and none of us wants smoke stacks on our horizons.

Sadly solar and wind aren't ready to replace coal and oil yet.

To heat our homes we mostly burn oil and gas, both bellow deadly pollutants out of their chimney. Of course to heat homes by electricity, is to use high quality energy (a/k/a expensive) for a need that could be done by low quality energy. Electricity can be called a high quality energy and as such currently it's better to use it for motors, lighting, computers, telecommunications, and the like.

The cost of electrical heating is dreadfully high in most parts of the country; however, anyone who has electric heat does know it's cleaner at the point of use, and they don't have to even consider purchasing a carbon monoxide alarm to warn of a faulty central heating system.

What if electrical energy where bountiful and cheap? Well then we could heat with it, nice and clean. No more messy furnaces and chimneys, it could also translate to lower building and maintenance costs.

Good Jobs with Good Pay

How many Americans are struggling to make ends meet? How many Americans' paychecks fail to afford the cost of living in there own home. In how many households are both parents forced to work just to provide for their families, while their children lack the favored atmosphere of having at least one parent home to properly raise their children? How many American youths will have an opportunity to go the schools needed to become scientists and engineers, even if they all could, how many would treasure that opportunity, and make it work for them? Again American habits, need adjustment, we need to provide and value higher education for all.

As a society, what value do we place on higher education and the positions of those who have accomplished academia? Take a good look around. Too many people give accolades to pop stars, or ball players rather than to the scientists, engineers and workers that create the modern world we live in.

Americans are becoming very complacent, like the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare": we are so overconfident and busy telling everyone we are so great, the rest of the world is passing us by. It is time to get to work.

Today many youths start building their work experiences at super stores stocking shelves or fast food flipping burgers; these jobs have there own merit in the greater scheme of things; they can be stepping stones to the future. For some it is a choice, for some it will be the limit of their capabilities. Some Americans never advance beyond the level of unskilled labor.

For too many doing work they can truly feel good about is out of reach. So what can be done to offer education and then jobs to those that want to accomplish satisfaction in developing and using valued skills?

I would like to believe that many would work on building a new America if they were given the opportunity.

Would you like to experience real national pride? Certainly not the fraud displayed on 'Support Our Troops' bumper stickers. Would you like to be part of real pride, doing real work, which benefits America, while paying good wages?

What we need are more technocrats instead of bureaucrats. What I am getting at here is that our country needs technically expert civil servants and honest, knowledgeable policy makers.

National pride? How much longer can America be proud of its myopic sight? We lost our manufacturing base to the Communists while we were winning the Cold War; is that irony?

Many American wage earners can't afford American-made manufacturing. Now in recent years we are losing our service job base. It is cheaper to route your calls to and pay workers in India than America. You don't have to be an economist to extrapolate the bad times to come.

When will America rise to the occasion? When will we work together on making America the shining example of what can be best? What will we do as a nation; we need knowledge and motivation.

Part 2: Solutions for America

Transportation

I propose a modern national passenger railroad system. Not exactly the kind of rail sadly seen in Amtrak, not a passenger car pulled by diesel on tracks shared with freight trains. Did I say modern national passenger railroad?

I am not referring to passenger trains limited to 79 mph (126k/h) because it shares freight train tracks. I am not talking about a just few passenger trains that barely cover a fraction of the vast expanse of our great nation. It shouldn't be under-funded, over-weight, under-par, it shouldn't be a false panacea, running late more than 20% of the time. Enough of what we had; enough of what we don't have use for, let us look at what is achievable with pride.

Picture a modern high-speed rail system that smoothly and safely transports enthusiastic passengers from city to city at 200 mph (320 k/h). Can you see the wonderment in child and adult tourists alike at taking in the views just outside their windows. Imagine experiencing what this country has to offer at ground level? Many can forget about driving long distances while staring themselves into white-line fever, often during bad weather. You wouldn't need worry about checking into the airport 2 hours early, and then miss out on the American panorama while flying at 7 miles high. I say lets absorb our beautiful world at ground level while getting there safely and in comfort and at 300kph (180mph)!

I am not dreaming about any far-fetched, futuristic monorail, no; I am referring to the kind of rail service that France, Germany, Spain and Japan benefit from today, and have been enjoying for many years. It wouldn't be hard to claim that their rail systems are two decade ahead of our inadequate public transportation system.

I took pleasure in riding French and German rail where I was moving over 120 mph (200 k/h) and placed my pen on its flat end cap and it stood tall for more than 15 minutes. I have also taken Amtrak from New York to Los Angeles, where it averaged 40 mph (60 k/h), it wasn't smooth, it wasn't on time. Why must America be third-rate when it comes to public transport? Is it because we choose to be uncompromisingly addicted to the automobile?

President Eisenhower backed and promoted the Interstate Highway System after he observed the superior German Autobahn. To quote Eisenhower: "Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear – United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts."

In fifty years we have build a world-class Interstate Highways comprised of 42,800 miles of roadway, and 55,000 bridges; look at all the benefits to our nation because of it.

Times have changed and so must we. Why? Because we have to! Crude oil is limited and getting expensive, in more ways than one. We will all get too old to drive safely, that is unless we die in an automobile accident before our time. Whose luck will run out: 1 out of 6,800 persons will die in a car this year. 45,000 will die because of automobile accidents on American Highways this year; that's 20 time more than will die in all the terrorist killings on planet Earth this year.

I am not talking about the end of the personal automobile, rather a shift in its uses.

Now visualize comfortably traveling from coast to coast under both sun and moon, in rain and snow and still averaging 150 mph (240 k/h), New York to Los Angeles in just over a day, the vast diversity of scenery: wheat, corn, desert and majestic mountains all in one day, all inspiring pride through and through, isn't it?

During the holidays you, your family and your friends could travel great distances safely in comfort, shoes off, music on; you don't have to lose valuable time stalled at airports as flights are delayed or canceled; you could forget about traffic jams, road rage, drunk drivers and car accidents. Other nations enjoy comfort, safety and speed, why can't we?

Another aspect of quality rail travel is the great time you have with the people you meet, why be confined in your car? You have a chance to meet a world of people you would really miss out on if you were cordoned off in your isolated automobile. Why risk road rage of fellow motorist, when instead you can enjoy the company of your fellow passenger in the dining or bar car instead? I can say from experience that it is nicer to encounter people on a train than on the road. When you are driving in a car, the other guy is an adversary, on a train the other guy is your fellow man.

Hundreds of train stations to be built not just as transport hubs, but as cathedrals of progress, centers of commerce, malls included. The projects could be done in phases, first connect all cities of 1 million or more; next phase connect cities of half million; and so on.

America could have the best public transportation in the world if it really worked at it. The first step is to really want it enough to be seriously motivated. Without serious motivation by the people and their representatives America will not achieve real greatness. Read about it, talk about it, vote about it!

Clean Energy

Imagine telling the rest of the world we don't need their oil.

Imagine clean, efficient, all electric, public transportation.

Imagine electric power plants without oil, gas or coal.

Imagine truly clean, safe and cheap electricity for all parts of the country.

The answer is controversial. Until more improvements in solar and wind become prevalent, the answer appears to be nuclear; not just nuclear as we know it, but utilization of Breeder Reactors to better utilize existing fuel supplies and diminish radioactive waste. If solar and wind energy could totally replace all coal and oil demands, then by all means we should focus on those clean, renewable sources of energy. I will continue this talk on Breeder Reactors because it is currently available technology which could replace all oil and coal plants within 8 years.

As it stands now only one fifth of our country's electricity comes from nuclear, and that at great costs. Compare that to France, which safely derives more than three quarters of it's electricity from clean nuclear energy.

Before I continue, I must declare that my understanding of nuclear science is but cursory.

The U.S. is thirty years behind in nuclear technology because of an unfounded fear of proliferation; President Carter thought that if the US and the rest of the world refused to use Breeder Reactors we would reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. That scenario was assuming that commercial Breeder Reactors could produce weapons-grade pure plutonium-239 that could be stolen by terrorists; however in reality the facts don't bear out the feared assumptions: the plutonium-239 wasn't pure enough for weapons-grade use. Commercial Breeder Reactors are for recycling nuclear fuel. In France, Britain and Japan nuclear recycling has proven very successful.

The fissionable part of the uranium, needed to produce sustained chain reaction in a nuclear reactor is an isotope called U-235. Of the uranium mined from the ground, only seven tenths of one percent (.007) is U-235. What America does is use less than 1% of the uranium in our reactors, we remove the other 99% of the uranium in the form of spent fuel pellets which is highly radioactive to be stored as hazardous nuclear waste; it must be safely stored for more than its half-life of 25,000 years! Talk about: Not in my back yard!

But don't we really want bountiful, clean and cheap energy? Can we call nuclear clean? No and Yes.

Utilizing Breeder Reactors makes use of a process that converts non-fissioning uranium-238 to plutonium-239. Plutonium-239 is even more fissionable than U-235. Note that commercial Breeder Reactor systems do not produce plutonium-239 pure enough to be used in atomic bombs! But what they do is to enable mankind to harvest 100% of the energy available and reduce the waste to a negligible quantity with half-life of less than 50 years, hence an almost endless supply of clean energy!

Having less hazardous nuclear waste means far less handling costs and I should mention that it is the cost of handling and storing hazardous waste that drive up the overall cost of electricity. Having less hazardous nuclear waste also means less risk of terrible tragedy from exposure by accident or terrorist. If we follow the French example of sticking to one design we can greatly increase our chances for success ecologically and economically. By employing a common design, special work groups building identical reactors we could build in quickly with safety and still utilize sound business principles. We can't afford five billion dollar waste like Shoreham on Long Island NY.

Our serious immediate goal needs to be clean, safe, affordable energy, and what's more: national energy independence. There can be plenty of electricity to keep us moving forward. We can have it all, if we really want it. America can feed itself if we wanted to.

Good Paying Jobs

I started by discussing a national rail project and a new breed of electrical plants to be utilized throughout the entire country. What else would we need? We need engineers, and scientists to design it, and skilled workers to build it.

Many of the new jobs, which will be created, can utilize displaced auto and steel workers. There will be lots of high tech jobs, and that means that we need to make available the means to train America. Right here in America we have yield the engineers and scientists of tomorrow, we must begin training today. Education has to be prioritized. One look at the millions of unskilled youth in America is an indication our failure as a modern society. A hand up today is better than two or three generations of handouts tomorrow.

We can start by making available apprenticeship programs. Starting in senior year of high school and extending to older workers who desire retraining for the new century ahead.

New schools first, and then new facilities to make the locomotives, trains, pre-fabricated tracks and all the other components that will be required to build the world's consummate electric grid and most advanced public transportation system ever envisioned. Yes we have to rebuild our electric grid; the current state of our electrical delivery system couldn't handle the demand of clean electric transportation.

By offering the training, and requiring dedication to excellence, we can give Americans work that is rewarding to themselves and their fellow friends and neighbors.

Family Values

Imagine a society where only one bread winner is needed to pay the bills, leaving one parent to dedicate needed time to building a family at the home level and both parents can rest in knowing that their children can earn college degrees and have a good paying career, regardless of their previous economic status. Of course single-payer health care is a must!

I can hear some of you now saying that this sounds 'too Social'; why shouldn't it? Are Americans so stuck on semantics that they would turndown a great new world, one where they had to work together to truly realize the American dream.

We may have to nationalize new electric suppliers, and the rail operators and manufactures. That is a very important topic, and for brevity I will not focus on nationalisation here.

Costs Versus Gains

What would this cost? How could we pay for all this neat stuff? Relax, breathe deep, and smile.

It wouldn't cost as much as you think; but it would require a change of perception, and sacrifice at levels Americans of the last half century are unfamiliar.

At this point I will ask for a gag orders for the Oil and Auto Industry lobbyists. Hey a gag order is better than an indictment for treason. (big grin).

In the first year we would apply a separate Federal $1/gallon gasoline tax for the sole purpose of the above-mentioned purposes. In the second year raise it from $1 to $2/gallon for the sole purpose of the above-mentioned purposes. Let's have misappropriation insurance put right into the bills: squander or misappropriations to yield 50 year prison sentencing. We have to be serious about fighting K Street corruption!

Currently we burn 350,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day! I suspect that after the tax adds to the cost in the first year we might a modicum of conservation. Besides from cutting the pollutants at the tailpipe, many would adapt to driving more miles per gallon burned. Subsequently we will reduce the overall demand for gasoline and the resulting toxic air from individual vehicles as well as oil refineries. We will begin reduce dependence on foreign oil right in the first year.

Revenue in the first year could be approximately $ 127,750,000,000.

Even if in the second year we cut gasoline use by 20%; taxing $2 on each of the 280,000,000 gallons a day used our yearly revenue would be $201,600,000,000. Just think how much we could accomplish with 327 Billion dollars collected in the first two years of this plan. America can do it! We really can, as seen recently when oil companies squeezed us at the pump to the tune of $4 /gallon.

Now I know that the cry of paying $4.25 for a gallon of gas has many saying it can't be done. Well yes it can, and was. In light of the long-term benefits, we must start today. Many of our poorer neighbors are paying $5 today and still maintain a good life.

Do we have to look at the particulars? Consider this: If you are driving 15000 miles a year in a SUV getting 14 mpg and paying $2.25 a gallon for gasoline you would pay $2,410 this year. Then at 3.25 per gallon you would pay $3,482 dollars per year; unless you made a few changes: like driving a car that gets 26 miles per gallon only 13000 miles hence only paying $1,625.00. The driving we do and the vehicle we choose make all the difference on the road to efficiency and conservation.

Lessons learned in the seventies when America went from driving 12 mpg cars to 20 mpg cars, can be relearned like how to drive for economy, and safety, like not making jack-rabbit starts, and easing off the gas pedal substantially before the stop light. Try using cruise control at 65 instead of 80. The number of miles driven can be reduced as we saw in the seventies, instead of driving zigzag across town all day, better planning where you need to go translates into less time in traffic and less gasoline used. Tires properly inflated and well-tuned engines also offset the cost of gasoline you spend each year. The reason I know these measures will work is that they did before. Before we became complacent again and careless to a point where we are guzzling gasoline needlessly again!

Pride, Stability And Safety

I truly feel that if we bite the bullet and tax gasoline at $1 per gallon initially and the second and subsequent years at $2 per gallon we will be on the fast track for cutting emissions, and ending dependence on foreign oil. We can adapt; our global neighbors with smaller GDP per capita, are doing it. $4 to $5 per gallon is the norm in many industrialized nations and they have much, much more to show for it.

When OPEC experiences less demand they will not further elevate the price for their crude; they can have bargain days. We still will need crude oil for many unmentioned uses, like plastic, building supplies, clothing fibers, etc. Overall if we institute breeder reactors now while research and development continues on solar and wind, and we immediately start building an extensive high-speed rail infrastructure we can go forward independently with real pride.

We can moan about a new fuel tax, we have to focus on what the revenue can provide. We are talking about more than a million workers with honorable work building America's infrastructure. We can educate America and thus provide the means of making an American workforce ready to create the best transportation and power systems the world has ever seen.

Built by Americans and enjoyed by Americans. Each worker in this National Rail and Power Authority shall make a living wage, thus turn around a forty-year down turn in income. They will work for America and America will work for them. Success with stability and security.

We must get started, now; for today we create tomorrow.