The Green New Deal published back on February 7 supports the $2 trillion infrastructure investment called for by the American Society of Civil Engineers, plus a National High Speed Rail (HSR) Network that is required to provide the zero emission transportation alternative the Nation needs to reach the greenhouse gas emissions goal set by the IPCC. This is tremendously exciting. Yes, I have had criticisms of the fact sheet put out by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, but the focus of this diary is on the concrete, real, and achievable Green New Deal goal of building a National HSR Network.
A Lesson from The Power Industry
This is a diary about HSR. Why do we care about the power industry? Well, the generation of electrical power is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Source
And something amazing has happened in recent years. It’s not just that humanity knows what to do about solving the problem of greenhouse gasses resulting from power generation (i.e., wind plus solar). We are already doing it.
The United States has the third largest installed nameplate generating capacity of wind power in the World, behind China and the European Union. But this metric is largely meaningless, since the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the World, China, just isn’t as windy as the United States, and therefore doesn’t generate as much power despite having more wind turbines. It’s clever marketing by China, but reality is from 2008 to 2016(1), the United States generates the more electricity from wind than any other Country, and that’s what really counts(2).
The United States has the fourth largest installed photovoltaic capacity by country(3), and the second largest concentrated solar power capacity by country. The United States frequently had the largest photovoltaic power plant(4), although China has since built one larger, and the United States is now pursuing more numerous, smaller plants, as large concentrated plants can generate a heat island effect, so again, don’t be too impressed with fewer large facilities as marketing ploys. The United States also has the the 2nd through 6th largest concentrated solar power stations in the World.
Look at the timeline for wind and solar growth:
Seemed to turn a corner in 2007🤔
Also seemed to really start picking up in 2007🤔
What happened in 2007? Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the United States, dramatically changing spending priorities. And what happened in 2009, when even bigger changes started happening, especially in solar? The much reviled (even on the left) stimulus.
Omitted from the New Green Deal is mention of the $100 billion that went towards supporting renewable energy, including $50 billion directly for wind and solar. And while the United States only counts for 14.3% of world greenhouse gas emissions, Renewables now count for 17.12% of the electricity generation in the United States(5). That’s double the number from before 2007.
Imagine what twenty times the green investment in the stimulus could accomplish? Do you think twenty times is a lot? That’s roughly the cost of the Trump tax cut.
So why Focus on Rail?
Because Transportation is the second largest source of Greenhouse Emissions in the United States. And when we break that transportation slice out further:
Breakdown of Transportation Emissions
The need to focus on rail is obvious. Again, we see that we already know what to do about some of the transportation emissions (electric cars, semi trucks, and buses). The problem is the remainder.
Surging air travel demand helped fuel the rise in US emissions after years of decline. And aircraft are extremely difficult to decarbonize. While electrification is coming for cars, trucks, and buses, no battery or fuel cell is going to fly anyone across the Pacific anytime soon.
And that’s where high speed rail comes in. Here, the Green New Deal makes reference specifically to a National High Speed Rail (line 24, pp. 8 of H. Res.109). It was also listed as a bullet on the fact sheet.
As Umair Irfan in Vox notes:
[A 2017 review study in the Journal of Advanced Transportation] also notes that aircraft start beating bullet trains in costs and travel times over distances greater than 620 miles. That’s just a bit more than the distance between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. So even with a high-speed rail network across the US, there will still be a market for air travel, and no one is proposing to get rid of airlines. It’s just that high-speed trains can replace many short-haul flights, giving travelers more options if they don’t want to fly.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to think we can have air travel, high-speed rail, and highways,” said Yonah Freemark, a doctoral candidate studying the politics of transportation at MIT. And adding more options like high-speed trains makes it easier for travelers if they don’t want to fly.
More importantly, trains already compete with planes in many parts of the world, including right here in the United States.
Could Rail Compete with Air in the U.S.?
It Already does.
It should be noted that this abstract corridor is Dr. Mack speaks of is already served by the Nation’s only operative high speed rail corridor: Amtrak Acela. Even at speeds slower than other high speed rail systems in the world(6), Amtrak’s Acela has been wildly successful. From the Baltimore Sun:
Amtrak says that over the past five years, its share of the Washington-New York market has grown to 75 percent, up from 35 percent a little more than a decade ago. Its top producer — Acela — runs near capacity and annually produces $550 million in revenue while spending $360 million… Given the competition, low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines is eliminating service between Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and two New York metropolitan airports, LaGuardia and Newark.
That’s right. The government owned an operated Amtrak generates 52.7% profits of $190 million. The 2009 Stimulus Bill provided $8 billion in funds for high speed rail and a further $1.3billion for Amtrak. This is a paltry sum. But rail proponents have become a master of doing more with less, and part of those stimulus funds are being used to upgrade the top sped from 150mph to 165mph, which is still slower than the 200mph seen in Europe, but not by that much.
But there’s a problem(7): Amtrak’s Acela is too successful.
By 2040, the railroad expects Northeast Corridor ridership to climb from 12 million passengers annually to 43.5 million. Without a major investment in trains, tracks, tunnels and stations, the system will break, Amtrak officials warn.
Amtrak has called for $151 billion to upgrade the Northeast Corridor to more globally comparable high speed rail service, bringing 220 mph service from DC to NY with a travel time of 94 minutes (Phuiladelphia to NY in 37 minutes) by 2030, and NY to Boston in 94 minutes by 2040.
Amazing Success in California, Too
So what happened to the remainder of the very meager stimulus funds that went to high speed rail projects? They went west to California; the subject of a diary I wrote a little while ago.
California received about $4 billion of the stimulus funds dedicated for high speed rail, plus passed a $9 billion ballot initiative, for a $13 billion downpayment on a plan estimated to cost $77 billion; almost a bargain considering what the $151 billion required by the northeast corridor. And they’re using it to build world class high speed rail trackage, right now.
130 miles of 220mph high speed rail construction in the Central Valley of CA.
But these programs are highly vulnerable to critics, simply because there is no one paid to defend them. This is similar to why major networks have such a hard time booking scientists to challenge global warming denial — the scientist has a day job, while the climate science denier is paid to do nothing but appear on network television. As noted in my previous diary on California High Speed Rail, libertarian think tanks funded by the Koch Brothers and Big Oil have paid staff whose sole purpose is to provide soundbites for uncritical media, which then infiltrate mainstream sources.
Calling for a Green New Deal is easy. Pointing out that existing projects (which are progressing reasonably and reliably as far as large public projects go) are critical investments, and not boondoggles, requires a little more effort. A Green New Deal will never happen if supporters cannot defend green infrastructure work occurring right now.
There’s another important lesson in the success of California High Speed Rail. A mere $9 billion ballot measure and $4 billion in stimulus funds were able to build something real and tangible, and it’s a lot harder to kill a public works project once it is visible.
Viaduct in Fresno, CA. Image from The New York Times article on a “boondoggle”.
The Obama Administration was well-meaning but guilty of outdated political thinking in distributing limited stimulus funds primary to swing regions of swing states. The result was a rejection of most of those funds before anything could be built. It takes years between disbursement of funds and groundbreaking. But the funds that went to a stable deep blue state (in this case, California, with its Democratic supermajorities), were the ones that led to visible results. The lesson for the Green New Deal is to first send those first funds to where they will be safe.
The Stimulus? Never Heard of It.
But the Green New Deal makes no specific reference to these projects. This didn’t go unnoticed by armchair critics of California high speed rail. It also makes no mention of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (otherwise known as the “hated” stimulus bill), nor President Obama who brought these projects to life. It does, strangely, mention Tesla; an endeavor literally forced into reality through the vast personal fortune of a silicon valley tech lottery winner.
Republicans are going to criticize any spending no matter what you call it. Republicans will call any public works project a boondoggle no matter what you call it. Instead of changing the branding each time, why not stop and just defend the concept of spending?
Yes, the stimulus was too small. And no one is saying we need to worship (or even like) the stimulus or even call the Green New Deal something inane like Stimulus 2.0🤮.
But the stimulus was a huge downpayment (to the tune of $100 billion) on all sorts of green projects and it changed the energy and transportation landscape in the United States using only minor adjustments in existing spending levels. And that success proved that with additional(8) spending, the United States absolutely can meet the lofty and worthy goals of the Green New Deal.
In other words, don’t forget the stimulus. Use it as an example that green spending works to save the planet.
The Past Won’t Build HSR, Either
I have criticized the branding of the Green New Deal too because Democrats can’t live in the past when talking about saving the future. From the fact sheet:
The Green New Deal resolution a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all
The problem is the intervening eight decades have seen tremendous changes in the workforce, labor laws, public works contracting, skills required for public works, laws, and private property rights, just to name a few. The Green New Deal claims:
There is no time to waste… [The] IPCC Report said global emissions must be cut by by 40-60% by 2030. US is 20% [sic.] of total emissions. We must get to 0 by 2030 and lead the world in a global Green New Deal
Forget Republicans. There is no scientific or engineering way to construct what the Green New Deal calls for by 2030 in our present Constitutional Democracy. The first chance to implement the Green New Deal is in 2021. California High Speed Rail is pretty typical of a high-profile public works project, requiring significant amounts of property acquisition and public comments, not to mention being a lightning rod for NIMBY legal opposition.
- 2009: Stimulus Passes
- 2014: Last legal obstacle overcome
- 2015: Construction Officially Begins
- 2016: Delays in Private Property Acquisition
- 2020: Target Completion Date of Phase I.
That’s 11 years, just for this first small stretch.
The 9 years the New Green Deal has to work with is even more daunting when you consider the Green New Deal calls for achieving 0 net carbon emissions by 2030 without nuclear power (which constitutes 54% of the United State’s non-fossil fuel power generation). The Green New Deal will work best when a scientific and engineering path forward can be set.
Wow, I Must Really Hate The Green New Deal🙄
No, that would be conflating wanting more from the Green New Deal with climate science denial
One must laud Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s magical ability to take critical topics ignored by the mainstream media and bring them into the mainstream of discussion. I cannot consider a Democratic politician in living memory who could command media attention and direct a media narrative the way she does. And for that she deserves a tremendous thanks for bringing climate change back into the public discourse, especially considering the travesty in 2016 of no Presidential debate moderator even asking the candidates a climate question. So in this sense, the Green New Deal is already a huge success. Public attitude is changing, which means all the Green New Deal calls for will be coming.
________________________
(1) The last year for which there is data. It is possible, that with China’s accelerated rate of installation, even though China is less efficient, they may have finally overtaken the United States.
(2) And as much as the United states generates in wind, it does in hydroelectric, although there is zero growth of hydroelectric power in the United Sates. Hydroelectric, while considered a renewable resource, also has an adverse environmental impact.
(3) In contrast to wind, the ranking of countries for solar separates EU Countries. If the EU countries were added together, the United States would be further down.
(4) And will again soon.
(5) Nuclear counts for another 20.0% in the United States. And while not thought of as green by many on the left, and even causing a bit of controversy over the green new deal roll out by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, there is considerable support that it is necessary, for now, to get to carbon free electricity generation.
(6) Not through any technical fault of the system itself, but due to congestion into and out of New York City’s Penn Station, where the Acela must share tracks with commuter trains.
(7) Funny how being too successful is never something Republicans have to worry about.
(8) Like the magnitude implied by the Green New Deal.
(9) My opinion is that there aren’t enough of her.
UPDATE: 2019-02-13 12:16 AM
Gov. Newsom, in his State of California Address this afternoon, has made the very regrettable decision to jeopardize California’s project already under construction. I will provide a follow-up as soon as it can be determined what his decision means.
