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[quote user="Railway Man"] [quote user="Bucyrus"] [quote user="Railway Man"]If nothing like cap-and-trade is implemented, ever, coal traffic is not going to increase radically from the level it would obtain anyway.  If something is implemented, soon, coal traffic is not going to decline radically from the level it would obtain anyway.[/quote]  I understand what you say about coal traffic being unaffected if no carbon policy is enacted; but I do not understand your belief that coal traffic could not be forced downward by the enactment of a carbon policy.   Minnesota has already enacted a renewable energy policy that will clearly force a reduction in coal consumption.  [/quote]  Please pardon me if I gave the impression that coal traffic will not be affected if no CO2 emissions policy is enacted.  It would not be affected of course by a policy that does not exist, but there are many other active affects on future coal traffic, and not a one of them I regard as having an upward influence.  Just the sheer economics of coal extraction, transportation, and combustion -- all current laws frozen in place -- are all pointing toward a long-term decline.  Coal is a non-renewable resource; the easy-to-extract coal is already extracted; the powerplants that burn it already built with cheaper dollars than it will cost to renew them, and so forth.  In the realm of possibilities, it is possible that a CO2 emissions policy was enacted that forced the phase-out of coal consumption (and export) in the U.S. in, say, a 20-year period.  To calculate the net effect of that policy on railroads one would have to subtract that change in coal transportation that would have occurred in the absence of a policy anyway, and I don't think that the term to the right of the minus sign is going to be even close to zero.  The remainder is what a CO2 emissions law could affect.  Could it be a lot?  Sure.  Could it be a little?  Also yes.  But I don't see the votes out there to radically drive the CO2 emissions rates from coal downward.  Even California with its 20% renewables by 2020 law is going to find it virtually impossible to actually realize even a smidgen of that mandate, because the act of realizing it steps on top of all the other mandates that California has also voted into law.  There's no way to sort out which law takes precedence and the voters seem to have no inclination to do so, so the result is paralysis of action.  I doubt Minnesota's voters will get to where they thinks its going either any time soon. If you want to see a wonderful example of how we in this nation think governance ought to happen, look at the nuclear waste disposal issue.  Nothing. Has. Happened.  It's as if it is still March 30, 1979.  Nearly thirty-one years of study and debate and planning and public involvement and votes and lawsuits and dramedy and not one ounce of nuclear waste is being disposed of according to any long-term plan.  We have no plan.  And that is why I just shrug when people worry about the horrors of CO2 laws or the horrors of not having CO2 laws because the history of the U.S. is that we don't actually do anything anymore that requires large-scale, multi-state, local-state-federal agreement over a problem with major technical, legal, emotional, and economic effects.  RWM [/quote] <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I understand your point that railroad coal traffic will not stay the same even if a carbon policy is not enacted.  And I agree with your assessment that earth-shaking changes are not in store if a carbon policy is enacted.  Some of this stuff is oversold at first, and then settled for less.  If a new regulation tripled everyone’s electric bill overnight, the law would get remodeled.  Only so much can happen so fast.   As for Minnesota voters getting to where they think they are going regarding the renewable energy mandate, I doubt that many realize where they are going in that regard. Most of the boosters of the Minnesota renewable energy law will tell you that it will create prosperity.  They might tell you there will be no costs in the long run.  They really believe it will spur investment, create lots of new jobs, and be an economical win-win all the way around.  They feel that they have crafted the perfect formula for energy efficiency, renew-ability, and economic prosperity, and the quicker we change to it; the more money will be put into our pockets.  And there are a few critics who have run the numbers on the new infrastructure needed, and come up with a completely opposite picture.  If the critics are even half right, the boosters are in la-la land.
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