Nuclear waste, a house without a toilet.

Bergslagstroll said:

You are right that countries have different opportunities and challenges. While countries still can learn from Sweden how you can reduce C02 pollution through carbon taxes, energy efficiency, recycling, recycled energy, biofuels, district heating and investments in alternatives to cars. Then it comes to district heating can also work as cooling when needed. So, there can be opportunities for USA to expand its use of district heating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

While if you want to look at countries that lack both hydropower and nuclear power and invested a lot in alternative energy you can look at Denmark. That they have also roughly halved their C02 pollution since 1980 and are now heavily investing in renewables energy.

Denmark runs entirely on wind energy for a day | The Independent

While of course you can argue that both Sweden and Denmark have benefits compared to USA. While USA have also benefits. Like for example you have deserts that can be good for solar power also USA is a less populated country than Denmark so you more areas suited for wind power compare to them.

Also, as I mentioned before USA have a lot of big cities, there big cities are much better suited for public transport than cars. While at the same time you have several densely populated corridors that would be good for high speed trains.

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Media_Truth said:

Light Rail and Trains have become so political in the US, because of subsidies. Clinton and Gore were the last ones to improve light rail structure in the US. Obama/Biden tried, but unfortunately picked the Orlando-Tampa route in Florida as it's show-and-tell, for High Speed Rail. A very strong Tea-Party like anti-government surge cancelled everything.

And yet, the US continues to subsidize trillions and trillions for roads, year-after-year. And those Tea Partyists are perfectly content.

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Bergslagstroll said:

Yes, politics and the influence of powerful industries like the car and oil companies have a big roll why many big Americans cities are adopted to cars instead of public transport. Even if the big cities are more suited for public transport.

Another factor is that there are so many different costs for cars their both many of the individual costs and the total cost are very hard to calculate and know. That you have cost of the car itself, maintenance and fuel. Then you have the cost of roads and parking spaces there are a large part is funded by taxes.

Also, car owners don’t have to directly pay the full cost of the private parking they use. For example, parking spaces at restaurants, stores and apartment building can partly or completely be added to the cost of product and services, so everyone included people who don’t have cars must pay for parking through higher prices. There parking cost can be especially high in big cities.

You have also the huge costs and negative effects of pollution there you have many different types from cars. Both greenhouses gases with global effect as well as several pollutions that have a negative effect on the local area. For example, toxic exhausts and also particle pollution into the air from wearing tires, brakes and road surfaces. While at the same time noise pollution that also can lead to negative health effects. There all those pollution with a local effect can be a lot more concentrated and problematic in a big city.

Also building big cities for cars can lead to less efficient commute and transport of goods and services. Both that you get gridlocks and also that the city will be a lot more spread apart because so much valuable land is used for roads and parking.

Also having big cities adopted to cars can affect the feasible of high speed train. Because in Europe high speed trains can go from one clearly defined city center to another clearly defined city center. There it also easy to get to other part of the city with public transport if needed. There as American cities can lack clear city center and be hard to get to other parts of the city with public transport. So, it can almost be as convenient arriving at the airport as the train station in some American cities. Because in both cases you may need to rent a car to get around.

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Bergslagstroll said:

You are right that countries have different opportunities and challenges. While countries still can learn from Sweden how you can reduce C02 pollution through carbon taxes, energy efficiency, recycling, recycled energy, biofuels, district heating and investments in alternatives to cars. Then it comes to district heating can also work as cooling when needed. So, there can be opportunities for USA to expand its use of district heating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

While if you want to look at countries that lack both hydropower and nuclear power and invested a lot in alternative energy you can look at Denmark. That they have also roughly halved their C02 pollution since 1980 and are now heavily investing in renewables energy.

Denmark runs entirely on wind energy for a day | The Independent

While of course you can argue that both Sweden and Denmark have benefits compared to USA. While USA have also benefits. Like for example you have deserts that can be good for solar power also USA is a less populated country than Denmark so you more areas suited for wind power compare to them.

Also, as I mentioned before USA have a lot of big cities, there big cities are much better suited for public transport than cars. While at the same time you have several densely populated corridors that would be good for high speed trains.

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Media_Truth said:

Every time I travel, I try to take the trains. Even with the inefficiency of Amtrak, I use it here. I enjoyed the TrenItalia, when we visited Italy, and I hear that it is one of the most inefficient in Europe. We did trains in Australia. Peru. Etc, etc...

One other issue with automobile infrastructure is the incredible amount of energy that goes into road building. Five/six lane highways are now commonplace in the US. The manufacture of concrete is extremely energy intensive. And that's just for starters...

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The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more. Though some traffic engineers made note of this phenomenon at least as early as the 1960s, it is only in recent years that social scientists have collected enough data to show how this happens pretty much every time we build new roads. These findings imply that the ways we traditionally go about trying to mitigate jams are essentially fruitless, and that we’d all be spending a lot less time in traffic if we could just be a little more rational.

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longview said:

You do know that the US CO2 level is down to below 1992 levels, I don't know where we are in relation to other countries, but our CO2 emissions are going down.

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