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Fast Track To Public Rail Electrification

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[quote user="wwhitby"] One important question in the electrification debate is where is the additional electricity required going to come from?  Our current administrator is hostile to the coal industry.  Coal and natural gas fired plants will release CO2, which would be impacted by cap & trade.  Nuclear, no one wants.  That leaves hydro, geothermal, wind and solar, the total of which won't meet all our current needs now, much less so in the future. IMHO, unless we either back away from cap & trade-type legislation, or start building more nuclear power plants, railroad electrification is a non-starter. BTW, I never thought about EMD's F3 killing electrification as well as steam, but you're right. [/quote] While this thread focuses on rail electrification, that is only one small component of the larger plan, which is for a national transportation system.  The two most critical elements of the purpose of this plan are to abandon the use of oil, and to avert a climate catastrophe.  The latter requires that rail electrification power be derived from renewable energy sources, which will most likely be windmills.  However, electrification may commence with energy derived from non-renewable sources such as coal.  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> Windmill generators will need to be located in areas currently remote from the necessary power distribution grid capacity needed to carry the power to the points of use.  So, new power grid capacity will be needed in addition to the wind generators.  Aside from the distribution of electricity for rail electrification, railroad right-of-ways may play a key role in providing corridors for new grid capacity for non-rail electrical use.    In a context even larger than the national transportation system, there is intent to derive electricity for all applications from renewable energy sources, and rebuild the entire distribution grid with what is called the smart grid.  The smart grid will micromanage electricity use and encourage conservation.  The amount of electricity that will be saved by the smart grid and conservation will likely be more than enough to power the near universal electrification of railroads.
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