Going back to the OP.....I have a (somewhat embarrassing) question for them.......what on G*d's green earth makes you folks think that windmills for power generation, and "high speed" rail are new technology?!?!
Windmills have been generating electricity for over a century, and for all that time, their practicality from a mass generation standpoint has been shown to be severely limited, and far from cost effective.......therefore just old, impractical technology warmed over to create political points.
Rail has been with us for nearly TWO centuries, and the only question remaining is "speed", and whether it actually meshes with today's transportation requirements......it doesn't, hence the decline of passenger rail in the US, with the advent of better roads, and the final nail being driven in the coffin by airlines. Rail, as a medium for mass cross-country transportation is simply far too expensive to ever be practical. One can purchase a new airliner for the same cost as every ten-mile stretch of high speed rail infrastructure expense.
In the US, with large distances frequently traveled, and many destinations possible, rail transport as a commercially viable entity was dead half a century ago......
doc