Even if rail transport only took urban and suburban areas off gasoline, it would still mean that there would be more gasoline to go around in the rural areas for a longer time. Simple point, really, but sort of important when those urban areas account for maybe a fifth of the total global consumption...
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Intercity networks, though, intrinsically serve rural counties, because the optimal spacing of stations and normal population distribution in the majority of the US (that is, outside the Northeast Corridor) dictates that, eg, a small city like Coshocton should get a station on a Regional HSR corridor between Pittsburgh and Columbus, which means far superior accessibility to rural areas in that and the neighboring counties than airports can ever provide. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Mind, the Village of Granville, that was the closest town when I was growing up, and the City of Ravenna, where now live, are roughly the same size, but Granville is probably bigger and certainly more prosperous ... the ambitions of a place when it was established and how things turned out are not always lined up. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
But the point translates directly: while biofuels will not be available sustainably at volumes that will allow a plug and play replacement for current oil consumption in transport, shifting those urban and suburban transport tasks that can be entirely electrified on a mix of electric mass transit, regional trains, light rail, trolleybuses, and neighborhood electric vehicles implies that the actual intrinsic need in many rural areas for ranges best provided by high concentration combustion fuels can indeed by provided by things like liquid biofuels, biogas, or sustainable generated ammonia. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
