A bullet train in Japan, where a high-speed rail network has existed since 1964.
Credit: iStockphoto
Imagine travelling in comfort from Melbourne to Sydney on a train in just three hours. Browsing the internet, watching the landscape whiz past, alighting upon arrival in the centre of the city.
High speed rail travel between major Australian cities, to bridge the "tyranny of distance" has been on the national radar ever since Japan launched its Shinkansen train in 1964.
However, no politician has ever followed their words with action, and fast rail has remained a dream on the edge of public consciousness, commonly viewed with cynicism.
Yet that dream is again taking shape into a sensible proposal, bolstered by the pressing need to de-carbonise our economy to address climate change. As the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil loom before us, the reasons for constructing such nation-building infrastructure are now stronger than ever.
The Melbourne-to-Sydney air route is the world's fourth busiest. A high-speed train carries eight times as many passengers as an aeroplane over a given distance using the same amount of energy, largely because of the energy required to get and keep a heavy payload airborne.
Leading scientists from around the world, and with the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have issued dire warnings about global warming.
Such climatic alarm bells call for a rapid restructure of the Australian economy towards a much higher percentage of electricity, heating and transport powered from renewable sources. This call is echoed by Al Gore, leader of the Repower America movement, and much of the Australian grassroots climate movement.
Transport is the fastest growing sector of Australian greenhouse gas emissions, currently standing at 16% and within the transport sector, aviation is the fastest growing contributor to those emissions.
Electrifying 95% of Australia's transport system could be key to addressing these emissions, as it is energy efficient and could be powered by 100% renewable energy. This includes freight and urban public transport, although that's another story.
In the evolution of transport, we here in Australia are stuck in the 'Age of Domestic Air Travel'. Meanwhile our contemporaries in Japan, Europe and China have already been enjoying high speed trains for up to 40 years. I believe that it's high time we made the change - we need to plan and build a high speed rail network connecting all the mainland capitals.
France has an extensive high-speed rail network, as does Spain. Spain's first high-speed train route, covering 360 km between Madrid and Seville, opened in 1992. Five million passengers took advantage of the highly efficient mode of transport in its first year, avoiding airline queues, frustrating check-ins and cramped conditions.
Up the freeway!
High speed trains make a lot of sense, more so if they were run off electricity from nuclear power stations. France has just announced a $2B investment in electric car recharge points across the country. That makes huge sense, because they use nuclear power, the safest, cleanest form of electricity generation known.
But here's an even more radical idea:
Every time Perth builds a freeway they build a train line up the middle. Basic, intelligent behaviour the other states would do well to emulate. Now, suppose we were to build up the middle of our interstate freeways, like the Hume, not high speed passenger trains (they need to go elsewhere) but a system of low speed, fully automated, containerised rail carriages. Each one would hold one container. It might take several days to get from Melbourne to Sydney.
The labour cost would be low. The environmental impact would be low. They would remove hundreds of hydrocarbon burning, fume belching trucks from the highways. And if the technology were developed here in Australia it could produce a huge, green export market.
hhhm, not quite
Almost, but not quite. what would be even better is if we ran our high speed trains off renewable energy, not nuclear power, such as solar thermal with storage.
And why build freeways at all? We shouldn't be building any more. Oil powered transport is a dead end anyway, as well as exacerbating the climate crisis. Just the trains thanks, we have enough freeways.
Spain has high speed rail powered by wind
I was just in Spain and as we were zipping along at 298km/h (I never saw the onboard speed LCD show 300) I could see dozens of wind turbines spinning. In all I would have seen a few hundred on the route from Madrid to Spain -- the entire time they were all spinning and generating. And they were so close to the railway that I'm confident the train was running on wind electrons.
Now that we know we can go 40% wind power in modern electricity grids with confidence, and that as the other poster pointed out Solar Thermal has latent heat storage (with molten salts) we can power our grid and our fast trains 100% renewable. Great article
High speed rail powered by renewables - yes please!
What could be better? Clean fast environmentally friendly transport!
Have you noticed the last ditch effort by the dirty fuels lobby to push nuclear, just as it becomes more widely known that concentrating solar-thermal, with molten salt storage, plus wind power, can provide 100% of our energy?
David Mills (solar entrepeneur lost from Autralia due to Howard's short sighted policies) is helping Al Gore with the details of America's ten year transition to zero emissions power. When will we get started on making it happen here?
Dont' forget that peak oil is coming so even if we didn't have a climate emergency, we would need to electrify our transport anyway.
clean nukes?
I'm all in favour of putting container freight on rail (and electrifying it for that matter) but when it comes to nukes... what have you been smoking? "safest, cleanest" - wtf!? Heard of nuclear weapons proliferation? Waste storage dilemmas? Do you even know the quantity of emissions used in mining, processing and transporting uranium ore (most mines burn millions of litres of diesel). Not to mention all the other environmental issues in uranium mining like water contamination...
re: clean nukes?
OK, I admit I was a little over the top using the superlative. Nevertheless, nuke is waaaay cleaner and safer that fossil fuel. Fossil technology kills thousands of people every day, and is triggering catastrophic climate change. It's just diffuse damage is diffuse, so we are inured to the carnage. A few dramatic, high profile accidents, OTOH, attract world attention to nukes.
The popular opposition to nuke is based on emotive, irrational illogic, which cannot be supported by any objective data.
As to weapons, there are now several nuclear technologies that eliminate the potential for weapons production. One is the Thorium cycle. A thorium reactor would never be able to melt down, it cannot produce weapons grade materials, the waste is of lower radioactivity and has a much shorter half life than for uranium. Australia has half the world's know thorium reserves. Our dim wit government should not be wasting $2B on the carbon capture and storage myth but on developing thorium technology.
High speed Trains are the main issue here
HOw can we could get the high speed train system high on the political priorities of politicians in Australia. It is completely astounding that the train service to Canberra is worse than it was 20 years ago. Maybe this is because the Treasurer can travel by Air Force jet (Meow, but to be fair - only for special occasions).
What about Freight on rail; the high speed would help with freight that is carried by airlines? How do we get train track building and maintenance on the national infrastructure agenda. This should be a project that appeals to all; including truck drivers who would still be needed but for short trips, not for dangerous long haul trips. (Truck drivers have high fatality rate compared to other workers - see TWU website).
The typical argument is that our population is too disperse but there must be logical people out there who can counter this. Surely the fact that we are able to spend such a huge amount on road e.g. the underpass at Leura in the Blue MOuntains cost between $80 and 90 million dollars (depending upon the sources of information)would indicate that it is lack of political will not resources that allows such poor future proofing decisions.
re nukes an trains
From what I have read thorium reactors sound like the way to go.
these reactors could be built on the coast nearer the load in the cities using salt water for cooling maybe the wast heat could be used in a desalination plant. Coal fired power stations pollute the bush and pinch valuable stored water for cooling that’s water we could use for agriculture (food).
mean while back at the railway
If rail is so good why has the currant rail system been in decline for years . Rail transport organisations in Australia seem to be bogged in bureaucracy and red tape. they are inefficient and are propped up by government subsidies . rail has no chance of competing with single owner operator truckies working 100 hrs a week to make payments.If a fast rail proposal was to get up can you imagine the bun fight with all of the special interest groups not wanting it through there patch . There would be no straight sections of rail for a very fast train to make top speed . building a monorail to new Zealand would be cheaper.
Clean Nukes?
Unfortunately, thorium nuclear technology is at present at the same level of development as "clean" coal - pie in the sky.
Spain has high speed rail powered by wind
"From Madrid to Spain" I was under the impression that Madrid was in Spain. France has high speed trains certainly, and very good they are, but Spain has hardly any routes and will not have for several years. To get around Spain you need a car and most of the non-motorway roads vary from unusable to impassable.
I would agree that high speed trains would be good for Australia, but don't try and buttress your case by giving nonsensical examples, it doesn't help your cause.