The US has a national transportation policy failure as well as a national energy policy failure with the consequences having built up over the last three or more decades (and I include in that communication policy since communication is also a form of transportation). Why should any rail company want to invest in more rail in a deregulated environment when the government is subsidizing highway construction in direct competition. Granted no one is going to try to run a large power plant on coal delivered by truck, but how about coal delivered for distribution to home heating? The same issue applies in electric generation and transmission, with excess capacity in some areas, insufficient generation in others, and a hodgepodge of transmission wires in between. Thus, the northeast power outage when a 345kV line failed in Ohio and the remaining 180kV lines could not handle the surge in current flow.

Maybe a completely deregulated rail system vs. the previous overly regulated rail system is not a good solution? It appears that completely deregulated airlines are not much better in many places, and in some much worse, than previously over-regulated airlines. And we are learning over time that completely deregulated utilities may not be an improvement or even have the potential for improvement over former geographically-regulated, fixed-return utilities. I can't even get rid of my overpriced incumbent cable programming provider for a better selection option from a competing source because the contract is set by the county for all residents. If only I had BPL, then there might be a comparable competitive option. And that is the problem with coal usage vs. all other energy forms, or any other transportation issue. It isn't that there is not enough rail, on that I agree you are correct. It is that the government has created regulated legacies of transportation systems for all sorts of purposes (finished goods, commodities, people, or voice/video/data exchange) each that developed in its own historical context that now have some favored by government subsidies or burdened by government regulation in an inconsistent and illogical fashion. This mess is and has been creating distorted economic incentives with excesses of short-sighted planning and under investment. Frankly, this might be one situation where a solution for one (coal producers) is also a solution for the rest of the nation. But it has to start with a single set of equitable rules and a "level playing field" for competing interests. Even the ardently pro-conservationists, who ask "why not just use energy more efficiently and use less instead?" would have a fair chance to make their case, minus government's attempts to pick winners and losers.

Joel P. Melito, PE
Brunswick Engineering Support Section
Progress Energy/Brunswick Nuclear Plant

For far more extensive news on the energy/power visit:  http://www.energycentral.com .

Copyright © 1996-2005 by CyberTech, Inc. All rights reserved.