Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "Geography By Geoff" channel.

the only way i can see HSR working on a Transcontinental route in the US is if air travel becomes prohibitally expensive. Even then it may make some trips not work time wise. Better to work on regional first.
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Spent fuel rods being waste is wrong. It is a resource we aren't using. Carter banned reprocessing by Executive Order. That can be reversed. Also we need to put a lot more effort into fusion research. Starting with the reactor design being developed at MIT. And some of the non Tokamak designs being worked on. IMO the DOE is more interested in producing Phds than electricity. At one time the US Navy was funding alternative fusion reactor design research. For one simple reason. They wanted a design that would fit into a ship. Robert Bussard was leading that effort using Electrostatic and Inertial Confinement. Their efforts were achieving greater than expected results. Following Bussards death the research was moved to Scandia Labs. I haven't heard anything for a few years but there has been major breakthroughs in producing commercially available superconductive materials. These would allow much higher magnetic field strengths. These are also at the toot of the MIT design. The MIT design is also taking into account servicability and energy extraction.
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Horrorifyingly wealthy? Why does this horrify you. Would you rather the US was a destitute third world nation. If you say yes because of geopolitical reasons just remember the replacement could be worse. A lot worse.
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One major problem I can see with this. The Great Lakes may contain 21% if all the surface fresh water on Earth. But the Great Lakes themselves receive very little water in terms of their Drainage Basin. For the most part the southern shore line of the Great Lakes is a mere handful of miles or kilometers from the continental sub-divide with the Mississippi Drainage Basin. I'm currently sitting about 1 mile west of the Lake Michigan shoreline (SE Wisconsin). The sub-divide is around 4 miles west of me. The only US state that is entirely in the Great Lakes watershed is Michigan. Such a mega city would be relying heavily on what is in reality fossil water. If such a city where to be built perhaps a better location if water is the main concern is in Siberia surrounding Lake Baikal. Baikal contains more water than the Great Lakes combined. Granted winter weather might be a concern but in such a place I suspect the vast majority would never need to venture outside at all. Besides you could never have the entire population of Earth living there. You would need a certain percentage. Possibly less than 5% to provide all of the needed services. Food for one. The main attraction to such an idea would be the ability to return a lot of the Earth to a state of nature.
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Let's say in an alternate universe or timeline Cascadia is an independent country. One thing to keep in mind is that there is absolutely no guarantee that it would still be the economic powerhouse it is today. Besides including Eastern Washington and Oregon is foolish IMO given the differences between the area west of the Cascades vs east of them. In this alternate Cascadia it is likely that companies like Boeing, Microsoft etc would not exist. Cascadia could well be a resource extraction economy with little to no manufacturing or high tech st all. I'm not saying it would be. Just that it would most likely be different. Inside the lower 48 of the United States there are certain areas that were likely to be major areas of economic activity. Detroit. It rose to prominence due to it being close to water transportation and raw materials. And fell due to market forces. Chicago. Its location even if an analog Chicago became a major city simply because of its location. It would not have to be in the same location. It could be where Gary is. Pittsburg. River access, coal and iron ore. New York. Probably the best deepwater port on the East Coast.
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There are a number of mistakes that were made in the passenger rail business in the US over the last 60 years. Some of them were due to business practices. Others were due to policy decisions. The biggest policy decisions IMO were the cutting up of abandoned right-of-ways after local or regional rail lines shut down. As to routes it all comes down to traffic density and travel time. In my mind the travel time breaks down around three hours total trip time. Yes by air the fight might be less than an hour but the whole hassle of getting to the airport. Going through TSA. And then travel time to your destination. Besides it's not just HSR. Non motor vehicle or flying travel is also heavily dependent on just how you arrive at the departure point. And what is available at your destinstion. Another factor with HSR in urban areas is grade crossings. Lets say you want to operate HSR out of a major urban center. Is there an existing rail corridor? If so does it have a majority of surface grade crossings? In my opinion the best place to run a HSR route in urban areas is as elevated routes using existing expressway corridors where ever practicable.
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Aside from a minor amount of water that goes out through the Chicago River* very little if any of the water in the Great Lakes goes to the Mississippi Basin. Any communities along Lake Michigan that are partially on the Mississippi side of the Continental SubDivide are required to pump waste water back over the divide for treatment and release back into the Lake. The Continental SubDivide is only 4 to 5 miles if that from Lake Michigan in Southeast Wisconsin. Basically the same for Illinois and Indiana. Believe me. They'd have to guard every foot of such a pipeline 24 hours a day. The only state in the Great Lakes region I can see agreeing to this is Indiana. When stocks of certain commercial fish species had become depleted due to over fishing and environmental issues due to non native species. Indiana was the only state to refuse to put limits on commercial and recreational fishing. *the only reason that Chicago gets away with doing this it predates the Great Lakes Compact. This also allows Chicago to send its waste water down the Chicago and Illinois rivers.
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The single biggest mistake this country made as far as nuclear power plants was not using standardized plant designs.
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And here I thought Illinois was pronounced "Sha-kaa-go"
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At the time of the building of the fort near Astoria the US extended up into the Rocky Mountains to the headwaters of the Missouri River and its tributaries. Part of the reason Louis and Clark were sent West to give some credit to US claims in the Oregon country. Did you forget about the Corps of Discovery. In fact Merriweather Louis tried to get backing to explore th he West before 1800.
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One way the lack of ownership of the rail corridors could have been solved. When the Interstates were first approved there could have been right of way set aside along the interstate corridors for eventual use for HSR.
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@geralferald Move the agriculture to those regions better able to support it water wise. Water is about the last major advantage the Rust Belt has left and you expect them to just give it away?
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@geralferald It is a competition when states are actively trying to get businesses to move to their state via tax breaks, labor laws and other incentives.
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It might be cheaper in the long run to start doing resource extraction in space.
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