• Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 days ago

    They have entire cities with empty houses if I remember correctly, and the ultra high speed rail is immensely inefficient as air resistance is raising in square proportionally to speed

    I think building houses that will never be used as similar bad as to less housing…

    • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Do you have a source for the housing thing?

      In terms of the rail having air resistance that feels a bit of a Fox News point. It’s not perfect so why bother with anything but loads of big cars?

      The sheer amount of rail rolled out in the last 10 years dwarfs anything any other country is doing.

      • HubertManne@piefed.social
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        2 hours ago

        Yeah. @petter1@discuss.tchncs.de has a valid point but as we all know validity does not equal truth. regular rail is one of the most efficient modes of transit and high speed rail degrades due to the speed but high speed generally does not compete with regular rail as much as air travel due to the long distance which is not more efficient than the high speed rail. In addition high speed rail tends to be electrical while most regular rail is diesel or worse and the electricification alone brings its co2 per personmiles below the low speed. The other thing it competes with or replaces is car travel which it is more efficient than although Im not sure how that plays out with very efficient electric cars but my guess is it still would win by volume for even something like the aptera and of course the high speed rail is going much faster getting you there in timeframes more like air travel.