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The Controversy of AT&SF Locomotive #3463

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Plants give off CO2 when they are burned.  They give off the same amount if they just decompose.  But, although they give off CO2 during decomposition or burning, they consume the same amount of CO2 when they grow.  So it is a closed cycle of consuming CO2 and then giving it back to the atmosphere.  Because of that balanced, closed cycle, wood or plant fuel is considered to be carbon neutral.   <o:p></o:p> Fossil fuels such as coal, presumed to have originated as plants, also consumed CO2 when they originated, and fossil fuels too give off the same amount of CO2 when they are burned.  But coal is in the ground, and it won’t give off its CO2 unless it is dug up and burned.  So the CO2 in coal is considered to be “sequestered.”  The same is true of oil and gas.  So, these fossil fuels are not considered to be carbon neutral.  So the advocates of carbon neutral fuels wants to leave fossil fuels in the ground so their CO2 remains locked up or sequestered.   <o:p></o:p> So the point of the AT&SF locomotive project is to burn a solid fuel manufactured briquette made from wood or other biomass feedstock such as switch grass or giant king grass.  <o:p></o:p> The point is not to be less costly than burning coal or diesel.  The only point is to be carbon neutral, and this may indeed cost more than burning fossil fuels.  In the big picture, the objective of this Minneapolis group known as the Coalition For Sustainable Rail is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels for rail transportation worldwide.
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