A study co-authored by a UC Berkeley professor suggests the recently approved California High-Speed Rail project will ultimately benefit the state, although the project will have high initial costs.
UC Berkeley professor Arpad Horvath and Arizona State University assistant professor Mikhail Chester authored the study, published Thursday in the journal “Environmental Research Letters,” which evaluates the environmental and human-health impacts for the future of long-distance transportation. Horvath and Chester focused on the California High-Speed Rail, to begin construction in 2013, and they assessed the impacts of the development of the rail, from beginning to end.
Chester said the goal of the study was to try to get a better understanding of how the rail system will impact California.
“Even when you account for the life cycle effects, it’s very likely that the development of the rail will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Chester said.
According to the California High-Speed Rail Authority website, the high-speed rail will reduce dependence on foreign oil by 12.7 million barrels per year and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12 billion pounds per year. However, the study advocates for a more holistic view of the project that accounts for not only the environmental benefits, but also the potential for environmental damage.
Brian Weatherford, fiscal and policy analyst at the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, said the study provides a great deal of information that will be integral as the project moves forward.
“It’s really important that we see what emissions will be released in the construction of the project,” Weatherford said.
Chester said the project will be very beneficial to both the environment and to human health, but this progress will require a large investment. He said the project will include high costs because it is a major public works project, and its construction will have some negative environmental impacts on the state.
Some organizations oppose the construction of the rail out of concern that it will have a negative impact on the environment. Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, said her organization supports the project but has concerns about what the full environmental impact of the project will be.
According to Phillips, a public works project as large as this must comply with environmental laws.
“High-speed rail can be a part of a fully developed transportation system in California, but it has to comply with environmental laws,” Phillips said.
Chester said the high-speed rail will ultimately decrease California’s long-distance travel footprint. He added that the rail will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the same way that BART does — the rail will reduce the amount of energy used per person, compared to automobile or airplane travel.
Chester explained that once the system is fully built, all of California’s investment in the project will likely be returned within 20 to 30 years.
“In order to have an improvement, you have to make an investment,” Chester said.
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Another one of the dangerous assumptions that California is making regarding funding for this debacle:
Facebook Stock Crash Hoses California’s Tax Revenue http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-stock-crash-hoses-californias-tax-revenue-2012-8?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clusterstock+%28ClusterStock%29
Excuse me? Didn’t we just dump billions in the pit for this project that has yet to begin? DailyCal is irritating me with this blatant liberal bs…and now all students must pay for DailyCal…..
I was initially confused as to Sierra Club position. The article begins by stating some enviro groups oppose the rail project, and then goes into some detail with the Sierra Club – which supports the project – it’s just the CEQA streamlining they oppose. I think that could have been written more clearly.
High speed rail is a financial blackhole. As long as this boondoggle is around, I will vote NO on any and all tax increases.
Anybody have a link to the study? I am skeptical that these two really looked at everything from an unbiased perspective. I bet they used the wildly optimistic rider usage and cost of production estimates from the builders of the HSR. Besides their study was just about the long term environmental impact. It didn’t look at any of the other economic impacts of the train. I wonder if they even thought about how 20 to 30 years from now, most cars won’t have the same greenhouse impact that they do now.
Sorry, but if you want to get the largest environmental impact for your $100 billion, I would just overhaul the entire public transportation system in the SF bay area and the LA county area. For that kind of money, you could replace those large buses we have with a huge fleet of small electric vans that could cover so much more area than the buses currently cover. Everyone would be able to use public transportation, and get where they need to get much faster.
big improvement in peoples lives
Really? How is driving this state further into the financial toilet a “big improvement” in anyone’s lives, other than the well-connected who will feed at the public trough on account of this debacle?
Sounds like Obama’s vacuous rhetoric.
FAIL
Is Professor Chester being paid by construction unions? He thinks all investments will be returned in “20 to 30 years.” Yet we all know no public high speed rail system in the world has ever made a profit. Not in Europe, not in Japan, and not in China. How much will California’s system have to charge in order to make a profit to make any return on investment? And can the HSR beat the Southwest Airlines $69 one-way price between Oakland and LAX?
Also, California’s HSR intends to use massive amounts of electricity. Professors Horvath and Chester obviously are not electrical engineers or accountants because the HSR system will likely use 3 BILLION Kilowatt hours a year, enough electricity to power almost half a million homes. In California most of that electricity will be generated by natural gas, which produces global warming emissions. How is that better for the environment than the same trip made by Greyhound bus, which requires $0 of public investment?
UC and CSU needs just $2 billion total to eliminate all tuition and be 100% free. The projected cost for the HSR was $98 billion before they cooked the books, made wildly optimistic assumptions, and claimed it to be $68 billion. Aren’t we better off spending that money on education rather than politically powerful construction unions?
Let’s see the assumptions underpinning the cost benefit study ( if there is one).. Until then, the Profs rantings are meaningless.
Let me guess that one of the assumptions is that the alternative mode of transport is a Chevy Suburban that gets eight miles per gallon.
Do you have a Ph.D.?
Yes, from Haas 1974.
Then you’ll understand the study:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/1/014003?fromSearchPage=true
The real truth behind this report is that if the HSR has low occupancy, the return on investment for energy and GHG is never. When you consider that California’s population will probably not grow like the report initially assumes, the cost of riding the train is at best comparable to other alternatives, and cars will become more environmentally friendly, I would say that never is the most likely scenario. There just won’t be enough demand to get from the Bay Area or the LA area to other places. We have seen that over the last 50 years. There just hasn’t been the increased desire to travel to make us think there will be over the next 50 years.
Why would that be relevant? Does one some how make you all-knowing or impart you with special wisdom?
1) You are incorrect. The TGV in France turned a $1.75 billion USD profit in 2007 alone. RyanAir and similar carriers in Europe also offer “Southwest”-style rates and similar short-hop routings, but they are obviously not a direct competitor to the trains in all cases.
2) The study did include energy consumption (duh), as well as a lot more. Maybe at least look at the abstract first: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/1/014003?fromSearchPage=true
BTW, it turns out that rail transportation is considerably more efficient than automobile transportation (per person): http://cta.ornl.gov/data/chapter2.shtml (TABLE 2.12)
Also, I would also like to say that the Greyhound buses happen to be running on PUBLIC roads built with PUBLIC investment.
3) I won’t argue with the fact that it would sure be nice to have free higher ed…and it definitely seems like if they can afford $98 billion for the HSRA, they could afford this supposed $2 billion (is this per year?) to fund pub. ed. But I doubt that “powerful construction unions” are orchestrating any of this–what about the owners of the construction firms? They have all the money (and thus political power) in this game. There are also faculty and staff unions in UC, but I think that the not-for-profit nature of a public university keeps any money-making interests away, and since the American taxpayer seems not to value higher education…here we are.
Rail transportation may be more energy efficient than cars, but that isn’t the efficiency that people are looking for. The biggest issue for the HSR compared to a system like the TGV is that France and the rest of Europe were built around rail and the TGV just builds on the current system. California was built around cars. That means the train will never get people close enough to their final destination to make it as popular in California as the TGV is in France.
“it definitely seems like if they can afford $98 billion for the HSRA”
They CAN’T AFFORD it – a little point that you seem to miss.
“and since the American taxpayer seems not to value higher education”
Another silly statement made with no proof to back it up.
You should have read your own link. If you did, you would see that the authors of the study deliberately left out high capacity buses such as Greyhound because they’d rather focus on the most common means of transportation between SF and LA: cars and planes. Since we know buses are much more efficient than private cars, shouldn’t they be one of the alternatives to expensive HSR? They do run on public roads but these roads have already been built and are cheaper to extend, unlike the electrified HSR tracks.
You are correct that the TGV in France is profitable. However, it is owned by the French government which also owns 59 nuclear powerplants which produce so much excess electricity that it often idles plants and resorts to electrolysis to produce hydrogen. California has an energy SHORTAGE with no hope of building new nuclear powerplants so how can our electric HSR possibly buy energy as cheaply as France’s TGV?
I would like to hear from supporters of the HSR what they think about the electricity needs of the train. Are they now supporting firing up more coal plants or building nuclear plants?
“BTW, it turns out that rail transportation is considerably more efficient than automobile transportation”
Based on the assumptions always made by these people, which usually compare one person per car vs. a train with every seat occupied, an unreal assumption that is close to worthless.
You just took out a $350,000 loan for a new
Ferrari (because your friends in China and France had a Ferrari already – aka
Train) but you can only make the first couple payments, then you have no
funding source to pay for the Ferrari. And, you are pulling up to your
Grandma’s house in your Ferrari, asking her for a huge loan so you can buy
pencils, clothes, and food for your “starving” children (aka K-12 CA
kids, UC, CSU, teacher’s aides, PE, Art, Science classes). Well, Grandma
sees your brand new Ferrari, sees that she is still driving a 10 yr old beat up
Honda because she’s living within her means and balancing the checkbook, and
spending only money she has, and your Grandma says to you:
“Honey, go F_ck yourself! You spoiled brat, you’ve never learned to
live within your means and you’re always floating gimmicks and tricks to
balance your budget, you don’t know how to set priorities, and Honey, I’m doing
you a favor by saying “NO” to you! You don’t get any more money
from me, you hear, until you give back that Ferrari, take the financial hit,
and start acting like a grown up adult!!”
Well, you know:
1. Stupid, Financially-Inept, Ferrari Owner (borrower) = Sacramento
Democrats;
2. Frugal, living within her means, Grandma (with old Honda) = CA
taxpayers;
3. November 2012 Vote to Raise Taxes because of CA’s “bad
budget” = Dead on arrival.
Nuff said.
everything you just said….no.