California high speed rail project going pretty much as expected
posted at 6:31 pm on May 20, 2012 by Jazz Shaw
It’s been a while since we checked in on one of Ed’s favorite subjects, that being California’s high speed rail project. The proposed service hopes to whisk commuters from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a matter of hours without all that bother of using the existing regional air service to do the same thing faster. Earlier this year, Ed noted that some observers felt that the financing for this effort was looking “increasingly risky.” This weekend the Wall Street Journal reports that our earlier estimation was in error. The financing isn’t “risky” at all… it’s an unmitigated disaster.
The good news in this debacle is that the state’s fiscal woes will make it nearly impossible to complete Governor Jerry Brown’s runaway high-speed rail train. The bad news is that the Governor is going to try anyway.
Transportation experts warn that the 500-mile bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles could cost more than $100 billion, though the Governor pegs the price at a mere $68 billion. The state has $12.3 billion in pocket, $9 billion from the state and $3.3 billion from the feds, but Mr. Brown hasn’t a clue where he’ll get the rest. Maybe he’s hoping Facebook will buy the train, though he’ll have a hard time convincing Mark Zuckerberg that it’s worth 100 Instagrams.
As the WSJ article goes on to point out, voters were originally sold on putting up $9B in bonds to fund the project on the promise that it would “only” cost $33B in total and that a combination of federal dollars and private investments would make up the rest. But Washington is facing something of a cash crunch itself, in case you hadn’t heard, and no investment firms want to pony up any money without some assurance of revenue down the road. It’s simply not happening.
I remain a fan of rail travel, partly because I hate flying and partly from a sense of nostalgia I suppose. And I’m still hopeful that projects like this may yet come to fruition in places where they make sense. The Northeast corridor from Boston to Washington, DC still looks like it could support a high speed rail project if it were implemented intelligently. But California has neither the money nor the culture to support it.
The state currently has a budget deficit which has grown by $7B just this year. And the residents there still very much live in a “car culture.” (One of the running jokes on the left coast is that LA has a subway system which rivals that of New York City, but nobody rides it.) This boondoggle looks like it will go down in history as an idea that makes the Big Dig look fiscally prudent by comparison.
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it won’t happen here.
too many idiots and, again, a D majority.
since the 2 yrs of R majority (2010 was historic for maine) could not fix decades of D issues the idiots here went back to D.
most people here deserve to starve to death.
dmacleo on May 11, 2013 at 7:07 PM
Needed the Atomic bomb picture..
Electrongod on May 11, 2013 at 7:07 PM
…its Maine!…where the girls think they are Republicans…that Maine?
KOOLAID2 on May 11, 2013 at 7:12 PM
I shudder when I think about what will happen in Maine when our common sense Governor is no longer in office. Maine is the best state I’ve ever lived in, but sadly it’s only one breath away from becoming another liberal Hellhole due to an overabundance of misguided or willfully ignorant voters.
Birchbark on May 11, 2013 at 7:19 PM
The Borg. Always we will fight the Borg.
M240H on May 11, 2013 at 7:31 PM
Well, that’ll have our Progs clutching their pearls and saying cutting, cutting things about our governor! AKA ‘business as usual’.
PersonFromPorlock on May 11, 2013 at 7:32 PM
Plus, the turbines make a huge sound when they whip down and cast weird shadows with their huge blades. Drives people crazy. Oh, they kill endangered birds, too.
PattyJ on May 11, 2013 at 7:40 PM
Yes….what he really is saying is that he’d like to be able say the wind initiative was a resounding success even if not 1 watt was ever produced. You see, success comes from feeling good about wasting someone else’s money.
BobMbx on May 11, 2013 at 7:40 PM
Out here in the sunny People’s Republik of Kalifornia, we’re still inhaling.
Gonna grow wind, cut all that evil carbon-heavy reliance on fossil fuels. AND solar!
Right now they’re paying a professor in San Diego to come up with a computer-run program to forecast when cloud cover will cause solar input to the grid to drop.
Gotta get power to replace what will be lost. Of course they haven’t gotten around to forecasting when the wind will drop, and cut output.
The grid will “magically” correct itself, and rainbow colored unicorns will make up the short fall so that the grid doesn’t crash.
Just ask Moonbeam. IF you can tear him away from his choo-choo.
GarandFan on May 11, 2013 at 7:43 PM
Wind power is all about democrats enriching donors and cronies based on exploiting the ignorant and imbecilic.
tom daschle concerned on May 11, 2013 at 7:45 PM
born here,live in Etna
its a hole now since early 90′s.
dmacleo on May 11, 2013 at 7:48 PM
Start spreading the rumor that windmills could hurt Moochelle’s taxpayer lobster supply and that could impede the implementation of this latest green fiasco.
That, and make PETA aware that if you really want to smack birds out of the sky a ginormous windmill is a fantastic ornithoblenderizer.
viking01 on May 11, 2013 at 7:49 PM
What will we do with all of those unicorns?
BDavis on May 11, 2013 at 7:58 PM
What will we do with all of those unicorns?BDavis on May 11, 2013 at 7:58 PM
As nonpartisan said..
Fluck them..
Electrongod on May 11, 2013 at 8:02 PM
Wind power: the energy of the future …. since the 16th century.
PackerBronco on May 11, 2013 at 8:09 PM
The problem here in MidCoast maine, (I live in Bath) is that the local newspapers are really democrat propaganda organs. Maine’s largest daily, the Portland Press herald, is owned by the husband of Democrat
CongressmanCongresswoman Chellie Pingree. Any guess as to how the news is shaded up here?But to add even more interest to this fire, that Wind Energy law passed while Baldacci was governor was written to help out former governor, and current Maine US Senator Angus King and his pet energy projects. Where, or where, do you think King got all his money to run for office from? His wife Mary is a social bar fly too, and fits right in with the self-appointed aristocracy in Washington.
There is a huge stench of corruption all over that Wind Energy bill, and a lot of it is coming from Baldacci and King, and it’s way past time that those two were the subject of state and federal investigations.
TKindred on May 11, 2013 at 8:09 PM
The state can simply relocate those at-risk birds to avian work collectives where they can contribute productively to History. Of course, their wings must be clipped, for their own good, to keep them from flying back into the people’s wind turbine power production zone, and also for equality, because it’s not fair that they should fly, when so many other revolutionary working plants and animals cannot.
Kenosha Kid on May 11, 2013 at 8:10 PM
Wind power: the environmentally-correct way of committing avicide.
PackerBronco on May 11, 2013 at 8:12 PM
Maine would be a great place to expand the “natural gas infrastructure”. There’s a huge LNG (liquefied natural gas) import terminal about 90 miles over the border in New Brunswick (Canada), and Maine would be the first in line to receive the gas not used by the Canadians. It’s closer than shipping fracked gas from Pennsylvania.
Steve Z on May 11, 2013 at 8:13 PM
Green energy: producing energy through the process of burning money.
PackerBronco on May 11, 2013 at 8:13 PM
We expect to freeze to death in Montana if the epa gets its way and closes down all the coal fired power plants. I think someone warned them and they are starting to rethink the new lower mandated emission levels. One cold day a few years from now, we won’t be able to drive the cars we currently own, use our lawn mowers or heat our homes(if we still own one)after the greenies and govt gets through with us.
Kissmygrits on May 11, 2013 at 9:35 PM
The UK study showing wind turbines only last 12-15 years instead of 25-30 showed that the promises were near scandalous.
theperfecteconomist on May 11, 2013 at 10:20 PM
All of that was predicted in a SciFi novel by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and others entitled “Fallen Angels”.
It’s frighteningly prescient.
TKindred on May 11, 2013 at 11:36 PM
Wow, it is almost as if just wishing will NOT make it so!
Adjoran on May 12, 2013 at 1:53 AM
If T Boone Pickens couldn’t make it work in Texas, it ain’t gonna work.
txhsmom on May 12, 2013 at 3:39 AM
Government subsidized Wind Companies won’t face charges in condor deaths.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-killing-condors-20130511,0,1790222.story
Obama has tossed California Condors under the bus in favor of windmill power – and kick backs from chronies.
papertiger on May 12, 2013 at 4:57 AM
Ayuh! Left Maine some time ago for the bright sunny climes of Connecticut. It’s even worse down here but there was work at the time! What we need is a concerted effort to change the main stream media into telling the truth instead of propagandizing 24/7.
Boats48 on May 12, 2013 at 5:52 AM
Like Ethanol that reduces gas mileage, increase engine wear, drives up the price of food and every other product dependent on corn, and doesn’t do anything for the environment; wind, solar, electric car, and other green disasters are here to stay.
Why?
Because they are politically drive agendas that allow politicians to control huge sums of money for votes and significantly increases government control over every aspect of our lives. Oh yeah, and they get to do all of this with other people’s money without being held accountable for their miserable failures. The latter due mostly to low and no-information voters.
But the most amazing aspect to all of this is that it was 100% predictable as clearly and publicly highlighted by those who have opposed government mandated Ethanol, wind, solar, electric cars, and the other green nonsense.
Facts have never been of much concern when a politician can seize the opportunity to flush other peoples’ hard earned money down the political toilets.
No, politics have and will continue trump reason, logic, efficiency, and good government.
BMF on May 12, 2013 at 6:19 AM
Wind energy could have become a reliable peak demand electrical producer but the utilities were forced to buy the lousy electricity they produce whenever they produce it.
Slowburn on May 12, 2013 at 6:44 AM
When has a Progressive initiative EVER been rolled back, curtailed, repealed, reduced, or otherwise rethought?
Cleombrotus on May 12, 2013 at 6:58 AM
Without a war or other major civil upheaval, that is.
Cleombrotus on May 12, 2013 at 6:59 AM
Ya but it’s not cool
david kumbera on May 12, 2013 at 9:55 AM
So like PV solar it never will payback unless energy costs soar.
1+1=POTATO
jukin3 on May 12, 2013 at 10:56 AM
Capacity. That is the amount of electricity produced under ideal conditions. What is the actual output? Typically it is less than 10% of advertised capacity. And at times, actual output is zero.
iurockhead on May 12, 2013 at 11:33 AM
I’m from a little town on the Maine coast, Eastport. They talked about putting an LNG terminal in the area. Would have created a crapload of jobs, and helped energy costs. But no, out of state libtards, looking to turn the area into Cape Cod North…… So glad I left. Nearly 20 years now.
DStreete on May 12, 2013 at 7:04 PM