we actually care what happens to Bangladesh.

Both of those diametrically opposed options suck. It all sucks it always does.

...that BNSF will be able to upgrade its rickety nineteenth-century track? Could we get slab track, the laid-directly-on-concrete technology that enables European trains to run 200 mph without spilling your coffee?

... because under the radar, EPA is working up new rules that indirectly regulate GHGs, which folks in the energy industry believe may place an effective moratorium on development of any new coal-fired power plants. The coal barons may weep, but the natural gas industry will be all fired up as demand for their product increases.

Warren Buffet's intelligent enough to understand that we're really running out of oil, and it won't be too long before the gas prices sky rocket permanently. Rail transport will be the number 1 way to move stuff, including people.What will the airlines do when gas hits $5 a gallon?

I don't understand why the government isn't investing in railways and it's infrastructure.Warren is doing what he was quoted as doing, investing in the USA, and it's going to pay off big time.

BNSF hauls a lot of coal from Wyoming coal fields. Wyoming's coal happens to be low-sulphur, and "cleaner" than much of the coal found in the Appalachians. This might have played a role in Buffet's decision as well.

The writer of the "Buffet likes trains" aritcle, does not mention that the great amount of tonnage of coal coming from from Wyoming, via Burlington Nortehrn Santa Fe is of the very low "low sulpher" variety, nor that Warren may have a leg up on new technologies sprouting to reduce emissions from coal burning. Allan Glenn, Skillman, N. J.

The supposition that this is a bet that carbon will be properly priced in the future ASSUMES that it won't be coal in those trains once climate legislation passes, but stuff that is currently shipped by truck. If carbon is expensive but you don't take advantage of that fact by shipping things on trains that used to be on trucks, you can't cash out on your bet!

If this is a bet that "clean" (i.e. low sulfur) coal is the future, then that sort of assumes that carbon will not be correctly priced (or that "clean" coal will be exempted), because otherwise it would be more profitable to ship stuff currently sent by truck. In that sense, this could be a hedge: Buffett wins either way (or maybe even twice!).

Buffett rarely goes anything but all-in on his bets (if it's not worth going all in, it's not worth investing in). The exceptions are giant companies like Coke where going all-in would be foolish or prohibitively expensive. This is certainly a bet on trains and a bet on America -- but Buffett isn't the sort to bet on legislation. I suspect that he sees only upside regardless of what happens in Washington.

That would mean that a massive fraud has been perpetrated on the public by the Department of Energy in cahoots with the coal, rail and utility industries. The technology is non-existent and there are no prototypes for analysis. Basic calculations suggest that CCS would suck up almost all of the energy produced by coal combustion, as well - which is likely why there are no prototypes.

It's technological romanticism, a technological fantasy unsupported by the nitty-gritty scientific details. Anti-gravity devices would also be great, wouldn't they?

If Buffet really wanted to reduce carbon emissions, he'd invest in city subways and city rail projects - except that those deals are nowhere near as profitable as coal hauling contracts. The other problem for Buffet and Co. with bringing rail back to cities and suburbs in a big way - while it is far more energy-efficient to use electric trains instead of diesel-based city buses for transportation, that would undercut Berkshire's large investments in fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel demand is at record per capita lows in the United States right now, and the only thing keeping gas prices high is a coordinated monopolistic effort by the producers, refiners and marketers of petroleum products, backed up by Wall Street trading positions.

What would large-scale renewable energy projects and electric vehicles do to fossil fuel demand, again?

What Buffet doesn't seem to get is that this just creates another deck of cards waiting to collapse - because the job losses are increasing (200,000 in October were laid off). The bank bailout went into the pockets of greedy banksters, not into productive efforts that would increase jobs. No job, no money, no gasoline sales.

In contrast to the fossil fuel barons, take some of Obama's recent clean energy speeches (largely ignored by the media, one might add). He has lots of good points:

http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse#p/search/12/j21hWUxdRIU

So, here he is saying, back solar and wind - but where's the investment from the banksters and their investors/overlords? They dumped it into supertankers to buy up crude in order to drive up the price of oil - and we're calling that an economic recovery? That's a true story, check Bloomberg. If there ever was a free market in commodities, we can be sure that those days are long gone. It's pretty much all done by plutocratic maneuvering these days, with all proceeds to the wealthiest, nothing to the poor - not even jobs.

It's bizarre - rather than give up their unjust positions of wealth and power, they're behaving like amoral animals - Obama and like-minded people are trying to save them from themselves, and they just won't have it. If the billionaires win on energy and climate and health care, it will be a short-lived and pyrrhic victory - when people have nothing to do but protest the government, than what you have is a revolution - hopefully a non-violent one, but who can say?

Neither. He's betting a on a sharp increase in rail traffic in the next 6 to 18 months.

. . . the kind of rail bed used in Europe and Japan is unnecessary for relatively slow moving freight lines.

The only way we could make use of existing railroad right of ways for high speed trains would be to get rid of freight service. They can't share tracks.

Will this acquisition mean... ...that BNSF will be able to upgrade its rickety nineteenth-century track? Could we get slab track, the laid-directly-on-concrete technology that enables European trains to run 200 mph without spilling your coffee?-- agore