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Fast Track To Public Rail Electrification

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A complete system of HSR is just one small component of the national transportation system and its affiliated agenda of switching to 100% renewable energy for all purposes, and the new distribution smart grid that will link to new energy production sites and manage power usage.  And then there is the new catenary, track, substations, locomotives, rolling stock, and terminal facilities.  All of these facets of the big plan are somewhat interdependent, so they must advance more or less simultaneously.   <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> The $8 billion that has been committed to HSR is just a tiny symbolic token of what must ultimately be committed to the big plan.  The whole price tag would likely be in the several trillion-dollar price range, if an accurate price could even be calculated.  It is hard to believe that a project this large could be undertaken without spreading out over a long time.  But we are told that this is to address a national emergency, so quick action is implied.  And the people who have the authority to spend money have unbounded zeal to do so.  They will tell us that it is an investment that will yield a handsome return, so don’t worry about the price.  <o:p></o:p> However, I have a hunch that ramping up spending on this scale will be impossible.  It would be almost like defying the laws of physics.  The institutions that spend money are suited to the flow of spending that they normally handle.  If you suddenly give them one-thousand times the amount they spend in one year, and give them one year to spend it, they won’t be able to do it.   <o:p></o:p> It is true that they must have the money to spend in order to spend it, but that is not enough when you ask them to spend way out of scale.  The problem is that, even though they are given the money to spend, they will need more resources just to spend it.  If you give them a trillion dollars to spend fast, they will need another trillion to ramp up their resources and assets needed to spend the first trillion.  And due to the tendency to milk this kind of windfall, they will need a third trillion to spend the first two.  It will spiral into spending lockup by its own inertia.   <o:p></o:p> I suspect we will see that just with the $8 billion for HSR.  The bigger the chunk of money we lay on the table, the less efficiently it will be spent.  I would not be surprised if $8 billion only buys some track improvements.   Certainly the government can spend money in any amount if they simply transfer it in one big chunk.  But the kind of spending that will be required with these infrastructure projects needs bids, contracts, and management-- all performed by government bureaucracies.  Think what that will cost for letting a trillion dollars worth of work.    So, in my opinion, spending on this scale, in a short time frame, will simply not be possible.  There is not enough money or resources anywhere on earth to meet the ballooning cost of managing spending on this scale.  It will consume money like a black hole.
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