The Interstate highway system is pretty much a duplication of existing rail lines, there are few stretches of the Interstate system that do not parallel a rail line.

What may end up killing long haul trucking would be a tightening of emission regulations, especially wrt NOx and particulates. Rail lines can be converted to electric operation where the technology for long distance electric frieght operation was first demonstrated in the 1907 to 1917 time frame (NYNH&HRR for the earlier date and CM&StP for the later date). As a matter of fact, the Southern California Regional Rail authority was holding hearings in 1991-2 on electrifying the freight RR's in order to reduce emissions.

The desert biosphere is much more fragile than most biospheres with abundant trees and grass, e.g. a ten to fifteen foot tall ocotillo bush can be well over 100 years old. There are also quite a few rare and endangered species in the deserts, e.g. the pupfish in pools near Death Valley.

The only "dual-use" nuclear power plant in the US was the Hanford 'N' reactor which was shut down shortly after the Chernobyl accident. Light water reactors are poor sources of materials for weapons due to the high 240Pu, and will be even poorer with the high burnup fuels.

Irrelavant. The blurbs came from an area that was already leaking CO2, where a natural gas reservoir would not be a source of natural gas if it was leaking. Many of these reservoirs also contained a significant amount of helium, which is much harder to contain than either methane or CO2.

Natural gas reservoirs have contained the gas for millions of years, so it is fair to say that the technology exists to sequester CO2 on a geologic time scale. The reservoirs are far enough below the surface that any leaks would be a slow process.

There's also some talk about needing the CO2 to combat a future Ice Age due to changes in the earth's orbit and where the earth's axis is pointing at perihelion and apohelion.

You probably meant Pyrex.

Depends, burnup specs for nuclear fuel are usually given as MWdays/tonne. For electric energy systems, kWh per given unit of weight is a more natural form than MJ.

Hate to burst your bubble, but there have been several court decisions stating the corporations do indeed have freedom of speech protections granted by the first amendment. This is because corporations are considered to be legal "persons". Don't think this will help Diskeeper.