
China mulls high-speed train to US - adventured
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-05/08/content_17493399.htm
======
tokenadult
The _China Daily_ is an official newspaper, and this article surprises me
coming from such a source. That it is being submitted here and is being
upvoted here illustrates how much gee-whiz value China adds to any news story,
about ever so speculative a project. So one guy in his armchair has proposed
an expensive, long-term project that may never happen--not least for political
reasons ("cross Siberia to Bering Strait").

I guess the value of the article kindly submitted here is as a reminder that
many news stories about China seem credible to readers who have never been to
China, even if they are incredible to people who have been there. The Chinese
saying "百聞不如一見" (hearing of something a hundred times isn't worth seeing it
once) may apply here. For a long time, there were submissions here to HN about
a guy in China who was going to build a pre-fab high-rise hotel building in
just one day. That still hasn't happened. Predictions about the future are fun
to think about--that's why I used to read science fiction stories--but we can
best size up how a country is doing[1] by looking at current news and
sustainable trends. (In the case of China, it is important to look at
reporting from publications other than official publications of the one-party-
dictatorship government of the country as a reality check.)

Good luck with that high-speed train from China to America. I wonder if I will
be able to ride that or ride a space elevator[2] first.

[1] [http://www.todayonline.com/business/chinas-property-
bubble-h...](http://www.todayonline.com/business/chinas-property-bubble-has-
burst-economists)

[http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/05/chinas-
propert...](http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/05/chinas-property-
bubble-has-officially-popped-report-says/)

[2] [https://what-if.xkcd.com/7/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/7/)

~~~
mjklin
Everyone laughed when Beijing proposed the Qinghai-Tibet railway too. It would
have to be built 1,200 miles over seasonal permafrost and the workers would
have to wear special suits and breathing apparatus.

It has been running since 2006.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghai–Tibet_Railway](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghai–Tibet_Railway)

~~~
tokenadult
I wasn't laughing about that project, and I don't remember anyone else who
was. A lot of people were surprised it hadn't been done sooner, as an
assertion of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The desire to reinforce the
territorial claim to Tibet was why all the considerable engineering
difficulties were overcome with sufficient resources to push through the
project.

------
dredmorbius
This isn't practicable now, and quite possibly will never be, but it's an
interesting exercise to sketch this out.

Aviation will almost certainly become too expensive to be viable in the not
terribly distant future. The US saw peak avaiation fuel in 1999, from the
FAA's own 2000 projections and actual usage[1]. Steve Kopits has noted that
peak departures (US) occured in 2005[2]. Total passengers miles remain up, but
that's due to more efficient aircraft with higher load factors (a greater
percentage of seats filled).

Even if synthetic fuels (possible) or biofuels (exceptionally unlikely) are
possible for aviation, fuel costs (already a major component of airfare) will
almost certainly rise. The US Naval Research Lab thinks it might hit
$3-6/gallon for production costs. I suspect that's optimistic and note that
crude oil represents 72% of the final cost of refined gasoline, so this could
translate to $4.17 - $8.33/gallon retail (present JetA price is $5.74 in the
US NorthEast: [http://100ll.com/](http://100ll.com/)). Canola biodiesel has a
production cost of around $1000/bbl, or (with estimated refining costs) about
$33/gallon.

A 3000 mile flight in a Boeing 777 at full capacity gets about 60 passenger
miles/gallon, which equals 50 gallons of fuel per passenger. That's $287
presently, $415 at $8.33/gal, or $1650 at $33/gal, just for comparison, in
fuel costs alone.

So, yes, exploring ground transit alternatives might make sense.

________________________________

1\.
[http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecast...](http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2001-2012/media/Table%2022.pdf)

2\.
[http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/...](http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/Kopits%20-%20Oil%20and%20Economic%20Growth%20%28SIPA%2C%202014%29%20-%20Presentation%20Version%5B1%5D.pdf)
p. 37., citing US DoT.

~~~
ars
Planes get about 90 mpg, and trains about 450. The difference is there, but
it's not all that dramatic. It's enough to have a difference in cost, but not
a difference in availability.

Planes are more efficient than cars, so why do you think aviation of all
things will become too expensive to be viable?

You have an unrealistically pessimistic view on things. Fuel will only get
cheaper, not more expensive.

~~~
rayiner
Fuel has been getting more expensive for decades, which has had a massive
impact on the world economy. Also, writing off a factor of five, when talking
about an industry (transportation) where engineers would kill puppies for
another 5%.

~~~
ars
> Fuel has been getting more expensive for decades

No it hasn't. You are forgetting to adjust for inflation:

[http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasolin...](http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm)

And that graph is gasoline - if you graphed all energy it would look even
better.

[http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/realprices/](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/realprices/)
(too bad it's not logarithmic - it's hard to read without it).

It's basically only the last decade that prices went up - before that it was
all down.

> Also, writing off a factor of five, when talking about an industry
> (transportation) where engineers would kill puppies for another 5%.

I'm not writing off the difference I'm saying that the difference is not
enough to make it "non viable" \- just more expensive. If we were going to cut
back on things because of energy costs, aviation is not what we would cut.

~~~
mark-r
How much of the inflation rate is tied to the cost of fuel? It's built in to
just about everything we buy or produce.

~~~
dredmorbius
That, IMO, is a very interesting question. Arguably, prices should be
specified by energy input requirements, with energy's own cost being largely
defined by its own EROEI. This is modulated (but not eliminated) by
technological capabilities. Charles A.F. Hall has developed this idea among
others.

Look up thermoeconomics / biophysical economics / ecological economics for
more on this theme. Santa Fe Institute and the EconoPhysics Forum also have
some interesting work:
[http://www3.unifr.ch/econophysics/](http://www3.unifr.ch/econophysics/)

------
varelse
All kidding aside, they'd probably have this done before California gets High
Speed Rail between LA and SF...

------
aresant
The Chinese govt has been building ghost cities by the tens of billions to pad
GDP over the past decade.

This train seems like a similarly colossal waste of money that could serve the
same GDP purpose while building something of massive novelty value.

I vote yes.

~~~
anigbrowl
You mean they've been spending tends of billions on ghost cities. As written,
it suggests that they've built >20 billion ghost cities, although it fun to
imagine that they have access to some extra spatial dimension we don't know
about :-)

~~~
jfb
They might just be very tiny cities.

~~~
anigbrowl
For some reason this concept pleases me in inverse proportion to the size of
these hypothetical micro-metropolii.

------
wluu
They're also building a high speed rail network from China to Singapore -
[http://shanghaiist.com/2014/01/15/china_to_build_high-
speed_...](http://shanghaiist.com/2014/01/15/china_to_build_high-
speed_rail_to_s.php)

And also: [http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-
magazine/article/1318178/...](http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-
magazine/article/1318178/crossing-line)

------
ejain
The China Daily? Is that the same paper that quoted the Onion when they ran an
article about Kim Jong Eun being the "Sexiest Man Alive"?

~~~
briandh
That was The People's Daily.

------
Zigurd
There was an almost as blue-sky story about a Chinese high speed rail link all
the way to London.

I wonder how worried the Russians would be about Chinese migrating to Russia.
The population of all of Siberia is about 40 million.

------
Involute
Last line: "The details of this project are yet to be finalized." Indeed.

------
paul_f
Haha. Now we know what the Chinese equivalent to The Onion is.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Chinadaily? They are quite serious, but not very professional.

It would take only "2 days" to get to the US via this train, and the Russians
would have to cooperate of course. Heck, we don't even have a train from
Alaska to Seattle yet.

It might make sense for freight, in which case "high speed" is not really
necessary (well, it does help increase bandwidth). But for people? It will
still be cheaper and fast to fly...maybe even more efficient considering that
planes can fly in straight lines, mostly.

~~~
tomrod
Planes don't fly in straight lines, especially in that corridor.[0] Example
flight path[1]

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-
circle_distance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_distance)

[1]
[https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4030/4622898186_e71984d836.jp...](https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4030/4622898186_e71984d836.jpg)

~~~
rosser
The whole point of Great-circle routes is that they _are_ (effectively)
straight lines. They just appear not to be on 2d projections of an oblate
sphereoid — you know, a "map" of a "planet". From Wikipedia, "The minor arc of
a great circle between two points is the shortest surface-path between them.
In this sense the minor arc is analogous to “straight lines” in spherical
geometry." [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Circle)

