Originally posted by kurtconi The Decker MT. to Superior WI. line is is 1,033 miles long, and that is just a five train per day pipeline. IIRC the PRB sends out about 55 trains per day. It would seem like BNSF could ship coal north out of the PRB,then east. Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28, 2005 6:04 PM Making electricity on site would need even more water then coal-slurry-pipe. Anyhoo - why the railroads just don't add a few extra cars to the trains? Or "double" trains at the mines, and sperate when they go to their destinations? Reply Edit jchnhtfd Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: US 1,537 posts Posted by jchnhtfd on Monday, August 29, 2005 9:18 AM Two comments First, I am somewhat surprised the Mark H's comments upset someone; he's just calling it like it is. Second, on water and eastern Wyoming. While it is true that you can drill deeper, and get water (which is pretty horrible quality), there is still NO WATER (sorry to shout). You can either view water supplies in terms of 'how much can I pump today' or in terms of 'how much can I pump indefinetly'. Only the latter question is relevant. Sure, one can drill more deeper wells and pump them madly -- and get lots of water, for a very short time. However, friends, the only long term water one can count on is what falls from the sky: rain. If you withdraw more water from a basin than falls on the basin in terms of rain, sooner or later you are going to run out of water. And there simply isn't enough water in that part of the world to run a significant size PBR or coal slurry pipeline; there isn't enough water to run what is there now, for that matter -- groundwater levels are dropping throughout the area, due to what is called over pumping (simply you take more out than comes in). This simple equation seems to have escaped the notice of a great many people all through the American west, and is coming to bite us. Hard. Jamie Reply arbfbe Member sinceFebruary 2002 910 posts Posted by arbfbe on Monday, August 29, 2005 9:27 AM Meanwhile, over in Montana, the Governor is talking about a couple of the solutions mentioned in this thread. http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=14378 Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 29, 2005 9:34 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates I'm surprised that the folks at Gunderson haven't explored the economics of pressing prisoners into logs, and shooting them through pipelines Why when they have all those Auto-Max cars? Reply Edit CSSHEGEWISCH Member sinceMarch 2016 From: Burbank IL (near Clearing) 13,492 posts Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, August 29, 2005 2:33 PM Slurry pipelines in much of the West are not feasible due to the lack of water. As mentioned above, sustainable output from wells and other sources is what matters when it comes to water and a closed loop to return the water to the original source for re-use raises the initial cost and operating cost (both pipes need to be maintained) appreciably. Building excess capacity in advance of possible demand requires a much better crystal ball than most people have. "If you build it they will come" rarely occurs in real life. Also, the bee in futuremodal's bonnet does not create excess track capacity, either. The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 29, 2005 3:11 PM Some comments from an electric utility guy....... 1. Unless a project is going to make a substantial difference in the amount of avialable coal from the PRB, it will not realistically make a difference. According to the forcasts the PRB production will have to increase something on the order of 50% to keep up with the anticipated demand over the next few years. We need to be talking about how to serve that increased demand. 2. Slurry pipelines sound great on paper, but have problems. One that has been mentioned is water. You have to buy the water in order to have it, not matter what you think is or is not in the ground. Reality is that there is NO excess water, and what is there is scarce and poor quality. Wars have started and people killed over water in the west. Water is life. You take my water, you die. It's that simple. Unless you can convince a LOT of farmers to dry up and blow away you're not going to find the water. 3. If you're going to build a slurry line, AND if you have the water and financing lined up, it takes at least 5 years to get all of the approvals and start construction. All the while some rabid environmentalist is filing suit on your for disturbing a prarie dog town.... 4. Local generation is a great idea to by pass the RR's, as you could build a transmission line(s) and simply burn the coal. This has problems as well. First, have you tried to get approval lately for routing a big transmission line? Power plants also prefer to have water, as it greatly reduces their construction costs and increases the efficiency of the plant. You'd probably have to ship the coal to at least as far as the Missouri before you can have enough water, but THEN you'd have to buy the water rights, and negotiate with 87 Federal agencies, and fight the environmentalists over some little snail that nobody likes anyway.... 5. The RR's won't build more rails until somebody starts to build their OWN RR service into the PRB. You can bet that if the PRB mines banded together and built their own double-track line into a major shipping point that the RR's would stand up and take notice REAL fast. I honestly don't expect either UP of BNSF to do squat until this happens. Mark in Utah Reply Edit arbfbe Member sinceFebruary 2002 910 posts Posted by arbfbe on Monday, August 29, 2005 4:08 PM Mark_I_U, All you have to do is to look at the DM&E PRB saga to see the challenges for a nearby railroad trying to build tracks into the coal fields. For a new company to try the double track you have suggested would easily be a 20 yr or longer project fraught with difficulties all along the way. The easiest would be for the UP and BNSF to add one or two tracks to the lines they already have in place. Probably the best solution would be for the UP and BNSF to build parallel lines along different routings to sites of future mining activities. The original Orin Line engineered by the BN in the 1970s was built as the shortest distance between the mine loadouts. It is fraught with steep grades in many locations and operational difficulties marked by racks of spare knuckles at more than one location. One or two new lines engineered to higher standards to reflect coming trains of over 20,000 tons planned in conjunction with the larger mines creating new mine loadouts in addition to the ones they have in order to increase capacity would increase the capacity of the rail lines and provide alternatives when derailments and maintenance disrupts the lines in place now. It will make Orin Jct a very busy place. Another coal log pipeline disadvantage is the inflexibility of the system. Junctions in slurry and log lines are difficult. Even petroleum lines don't just throw in a switch to split the line but have to resort in tank farms in order to collect the product from one line and then split it into two or more new routes. The coal logs would require a similar kind of facility to serve more than one generating plant on the delivery end. Since a higher volume line would have the greatest effeciency the destination power plant would have to be built to consume truely massive amounts of coal. One massive plant would need more power lines to be constructed to serve customers than four smaller plants would. Rail service simply allows more flexibility than any coal pipeline ever will. Reply Murphy Siding Member sinceMay 2005 From: S.E. South Dakota 13,567 posts Posted by Murphy Siding on Monday, August 29, 2005 6:16 PM mark_in_utah: a utility guy question-Is there such a thing as a "closed link"? type of power plant that condenses and re-uses the water? Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 29, 2005 7:45 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH Building excess capacity in advance of possible demand requires a much better crystal ball than most people have. "If you build it they will come" rarely occurs in real life. Also, the bee in futuremodal's bonnet does not create excess track capacity, either. Building excess capacity ahead of demand is a concept best borne by the government aka the Interstate Highway System. Much of that system in the West was constructed under the tenet of "better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it". If this country is going to avoid a future crisis in electric energy generation, the government is going to have to deal with the obvious and odious drawbacks of the current rail system with regards to coal fired generation, because that's where the bottlenecks are occuring. BTW, "bee in bonnet"? What kind of patsy pastel literature do you read?[:I][:O][*^_^*][D)][zzz] Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 29, 2005 7:54 PM Regarding the use of water in coal transportation and/or coal fired power generation, the idea of creating transportation fuels from coal via liquification plants in Wyoming, Montana, et al may be of greater value to the nation in the near term than electricity generation. Does anyone have any insider information on how much (if any) water is required for coal liquification vs coal fired electricity generation? Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 29, 2005 8:43 PM Forget the water. The railroads will have done something by the time this is finished. Think of how dang long this would take to build. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 8:39 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding mark_in_utah: a utility guy question-Is there such a thing as a "closed link"? type of power plant that condenses and re-uses the water? There is. The Wyodak plant outside of Gillette is such a plant. It uses virtually no water for the cooling system, beyond the initial charging of the system. It's similar to the radiator cooling system on your car. It costs much more to build a plant this way, and results in a less efficient plant. Most steam turbine power plants use a closed loop system for the "clean" water which is recurculated between the boiler and the steam turbine. They then use cooling towers to condense the steam and pump it back into the boiler. Some use a "once through" system where they use river water to cool the steam, and then cool the river water back down before dumping it back into the river. Most plants in Utah and drier locations recurculate the cooling tower water. This results in the water becomming loaded with solids, which requires a periodic purging of the water, treating of the water to remove the high solids, etc. before it's dumped into a local river or pond. Some plants use the water, experimentally, to irrigate some nearby alfalfa, which can handle higher salt loads. Mark in Utah Reply Edit CSSHEGEWISCH Member sinceMarch 2016 From: Burbank IL (near Clearing) 13,492 posts Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 9:12 AM It would appear that futuremodal tends to take himself much too seriously and has never taken time to read Mario Puzo, "Fools Die" in particular, which is one of several places in which I have read or heard the term in question. As far as building excess capacity in advance, it is obvious that futuremodal has not lived in a large metropolitan area for an extended period of time. Highway widening projects don't occur except in response to congestion problems and several years usually pass between the initial proposal and the beginning of construction. The same applies to rapid transit and suburban rail expansions and extensions. Building in advance is a controversial concept that many feel only contributes to suburban sprawl. The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 10:30 AM Buffalo Central Terminal was built in advance, a huge grand train station that never reached capacity and is now derelict. A sad waste is what easily happens to building in advance. Reply Edit SALfan Member sinceApril 2002 From: Northern Florida 1,429 posts Posted by SALfan on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 10:55 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal [ MWH - Your snide comments are unbecoming for a so-called professional. David P. Morgan or J. David Ingles would never slip to your level. Sounds like the bitten dog yelping, to me. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 7:30 PM Mark in Utah - The ability to recirculate water seems to be able to work just as easily for a closed loop pipeline as in a generating plant, if not easier. The generating plant needs to keep the water clean to keep from damaging boilers, injectors, et al. The coal pipeline water only needs to be purged of things that might block the pumps. There would be an efficiency cost in such a system, the question then is the overall capital cost of a closed loop coal pipeline vs the overall capital cost of new rail tracks. CSSHEGEWISCH - Tell us more about that suburban sprawl in the PRB. You need to get out of the projects once in a while. goat - Of course it was a waste, it was a rail passenger terminal. Could've just as easilty thrown their money away on a buggy whip factory, for what it's worth. I would venture a guess that a new "built ahead" highway, railroad, or pipeline would find it's value rather quickly. JOdom - Read the various offerings of the various TRAINS editors over the years, and tell me which one seems most inclined to "aspire" to the level of a Ted Rall. Then go and wipe the brown off your nose. Reply Edit Murphy Siding Member sinceMay 2005 From: S.E. South Dakota 13,567 posts Posted by Murphy Siding on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 8:45 PM What keeps the water in the pipeline from freezing? Dave: You're a smart guy, and you have a lot to say. Can you please try not to pick fights? I know,Iknow, I have three boys---"he started it". Think about it, would you rather talk about trains, or have an insult-topping thread? Thanks Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 9:21 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Mark in Utah - The ability to recirculate water seems to be able to work just as easily for a closed loop pipeline as in a generating plant, if not easier. The generating plant needs to keep the water clean to keep from damaging boilers, injectors, et al. The coal pipeline water only needs to be purged of things that might block the pumps. There would be an efficiency cost in such a system, the question then is the overall capital cost of a closed loop coal pipeline vs the overall capital cost of new rail tracks. You missed what I said earlier. The closed loop system is for steam generation for the boiler & turbine. The open loop system is for condensing the steam (cooling) back out so you can pump the clean water back into the boiler. Without the cooling system, which uses "dirty" water, you MUST use once-through clean water for the boiler. Power plant boiler water is VERY clean. You just wi***hat your drinking water was as clean. Distilled, PH balanced, no solids, etc. The chemistry is tightly controlled to prevent costly corrosion in the boiler and condenser tubes. The cooling tower water's chemistry has a tightly controlled chemistry as well to reduce corrosion of the cooling tower. The water just isn't as clean, and is high in solids due to the partial evaporation of the water. A pipeline would use MUCH more water than any equivalent power plant. In your thinking you also must include the power consumption at the receiving terminal of the coal driers, as well as the "pumps" along the pipeline route, which is not inconsequential. Mark in Utah Reply Edit SALfan Member sinceApril 2002 From: Northern Florida 1,429 posts Posted by SALfan on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 10:43 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal JOdom - Read the various offerings of the various TRAINS editors over the years, and tell me which one seems most inclined to "aspire" to the level of a Ted Rall. Then go and wipe the brown off your nose. What futuremodal is really saying is "WAAAAHHHH!! WAAAAHHHH!! Mommy, he was mean to me". Like most people arrogant enough to think they know everything, you can dish it out but you can't take it. When someone punctures your gasbag, you resort to insults. I for one would a hundred times rather hear from M. Hemphill than you, because he isn't a doctrinaire ideologue constantly beating the same two or three dead horses. Reply CSSHEGEWISCH Member sinceMarch 2016 From: Burbank IL (near Clearing) 13,492 posts Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 12:35 PM To futuremodal: A long time ago I was young like you and thought that wonderful new ideas would solve the world's problems if only the old-timers would accept them without question. That belief is a luxury in which youth can indulge. When I was young, I thought I knew everything and as I grew older I learned how little that I actually knew. Many of my ideas were challenged, some were adjusted to fit the realities of life and some were thrown out completely. I also learned that challenges to my ideas forced me to think more rigorously, prepare myself better and be ready to yield when my position was not tenable. Do not take the challenges to your ideas and concepts so personally. Listen to what others have to say and seek to learn from them. Everybody, not just the members of this forum, has something that they can teach you. The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 1:45 PM In the "future" they might say, of course it was a waste, it was a coal log pipeline. If it takes long to build, coal might become as dated as the buggy whip. Dirty old fosil fuel. Most of the railroad can be used for other things, maybe even OA in the end. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 7:56 PM mark in utah - RE: closed loop coal pipeline. We can assume that the cost of building a mile of closed loop coal pipeline is twice that of a mile of one way coal pipeline. The question then is does that doubling of cost for the coal pipeline approach or even exceed the cost of a mile of new rail line? Does 100 miles of a closed loop coal pipeline (including the pipeline to railcar transfer facility) exceed the cost of 100 miles of new track? Paul - Words of wisdom, duly noted. goat - Most energy analyst expect coal to remain a viable energy source for the foreseeable future. Any infrastructure project that aids in getting coal from the mine to the power plant or liquification plant will probably be money well spent, regardless of mode. JOdom - I would say that Mr. H exihibits the same bent toward ideological indoctrinization for which you accuse me in your sophomoric way. Of course, it's an ideology that has become status quo for the rail industry, so his offerings are really nothing new. If Mr. H. has ever had an original idea, show me the evidence. Reply Edit Murphy Siding Member sinceMay 2005 From: S.E. South Dakota 13,567 posts Posted by Murphy Siding on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 8:27 PM But, how do you keep the water,that you can't get,from freezing? Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, September 1, 2005 10:49 AM Ok, here is some food for thought.... I work at a relatively small coal fired power plant (225 Megawatts) and did some calculations based on our operating data and the information given in the article. One of our cyclone burner uses about 40,000 Lbs per hour at approx 70% of full load We have three cyclone burners per boiler. (40,000* 3 = 120,000 lbs per hour per boiler) multiplied by the 2 boilers = 240,000 Lbs per hour for both boilers. multiplied by 24 = 5,760,000 Lbs per day. The article states a water to coal ration of 1Lb of water per 3-4 Lbs of coal. (I used 3.5) 5,760,000 / 3.5 = 1.65 million lbs of water per day for transport The conversion of Lbs of water to gallons is a factor of .11996 1.65 million * .11996 = 197,934 gallons per day to transport coal..... That's a lot of water... and our largets coal plant is 1300 Megawatts it uses about 6 times as much fuel so figure it would require about 6 times as much water. The simple fact is that our plant isn't that big and still requires a lot of water. A larger plant would almost require it's own pipeline, just on the basis of the amount of coal and water. Me thinks this has way to go before we see anything like this on a commercial basis..... Reply Edit 12 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates I'm surprised that the folks at Gunderson haven't explored the economics of pressing prisoners into logs, and shooting them through pipelines
QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH Building excess capacity in advance of possible demand requires a much better crystal ball than most people have. "If you build it they will come" rarely occurs in real life. Also, the bee in futuremodal's bonnet does not create excess track capacity, either.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding mark_in_utah: a utility guy question-Is there such a thing as a "closed link"? type of power plant that condenses and re-uses the water?
QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal [ MWH - Your snide comments are unbecoming for a so-called professional. David P. Morgan or J. David Ingles would never slip to your level.
QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Mark in Utah - The ability to recirculate water seems to be able to work just as easily for a closed loop pipeline as in a generating plant, if not easier. The generating plant needs to keep the water clean to keep from damaging boilers, injectors, et al. The coal pipeline water only needs to be purged of things that might block the pumps. There would be an efficiency cost in such a system, the question then is the overall capital cost of a closed loop coal pipeline vs the overall capital cost of new rail tracks.
QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal JOdom - Read the various offerings of the various TRAINS editors over the years, and tell me which one seems most inclined to "aspire" to the level of a Ted Rall. Then go and wipe the brown off your nose.
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