A north american ratio of autos per capita would mean for the chinese that they would have to pave half the eastern third of the country for highways, the other half for parking .... Tibet and Uighuristan being quite an engineering challenge to level out, as well as a bit distant from the folks who want the vehicles .... so where would they live, where would they grow food, have factories for the walmartisation products? ... [no Yiwu, Formosa is not the correct answer, it's a bit smallish in any case, might make a used car lot, that's about all]
The only option approaching practicality is a strong emphasis on rail transport .... modern, efficient, probably mag-lev and high-speed, multiple tracks for key routes .... there will still be huge amounts of resources used in this and in household goods, also in cars and trucks, there will be an increase there as well, just nowhere near the iron per person we have, they simply do not have the space for it
A great-uncle of mine was a steam engineer, drove a locie famous in one BC coast region, then on retirement was involved with steam heritage organisations, helped to design and run Fort Steele, drove the Royal Hudson, things like that, they had quite a club and their energy was infectious - there is a lot of romance to steam ..... he had a basement absolutely full of model railroad stuff, several working steam locies down to a size that would fit in the palm of your hand .... thing that grabbed me most was a steam launch they built one time, a beautiful lapstrake double-ender [might have been an RCN-surplus twenty-seven foot whaler, not sure] with a triple-compound [or something, efficient anyway] engine that would run on driftwood among other things like coal and kerosene/diesel, it even had a sizable heated fuelbox so you could dry out chunks of fir bark from the beach .... lots of copper and brass on cast iron, very well laid out, truly a thing of beauty |
