Falcon48 -
This isn't as big an issue or problem as might be expected.
RWM and I had an informative debate about this a month or so ago on another thread here. As best as I can recall - I don't have a lot of time right now to look it up or duplicate it - he came up with around a 4 % increase based on the gals. of diesel fuel consumed, whereas I came up with around 1.5 % based on the HP-HRs. generated by or actually used from that fuel. The difference between our calcs. is mainly waste heat that goes up the exhaust stack and mechanical friction as far through the drive train as the generator, etc. I believe it's fair to state that we both thought it would not greatly disrupt the power grid generally.
Some other aspects to consider are that many railroad operations tend to occur at night or at least during the usual 'off-peak' hours, so they likely would not be straining the utilities' capacity then.
Also, the coal burned in a power plant may ultimately result in less carbon released per HP-HR. at the rail, than diesel fuel burned in the locomotive's engine. Or not - it will depends on their relative thermal efficiencies, the transmission line and mechancial losses, respectively, and any carbon capture technology that can be fitted to the plant but maybe not to the locomotive which has to remain mobile.
I'll try to address your remaining points/ questions - as well as the several valid points raised in RWM's post of yesterday morning - a little later on.
- Paul North.
Paul and RWM: This may sound ignorant or redundant or both, but does regenerative braking on an electrified system have very much impact?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Railway ManThe only potentially postive economic rationale for electrification of which I am aware is the avoided cost of air emissions, and only if the cost per ton of avoided CO2, NOX, VOCs, and PMs are increased dramatically above current levels. There is no business case for electrification -- not even the thinnest hope of one -- if the only thing we are going to do with it is avoid buying diesel fuel and maintaining diesel-electric locomotives. Not at $8/gallon diesel fuel, either.
While the original poster did refer to government financing of rail electrification, he did not specify whether he was referring to electrification as a business case or as a case of avoiding air emissions. It seems to me that the latter is the more likely of the two, and as you say, the increase in the cost of emissions would have to be high enough to make the case for electrification.
The current target for U.S. CO2 reduction is 17% below levels of 2005 by 2020. How close to making the emission avoidance case for rail electrification would that target be?
Paul North's response to my post of earlier today on railroad electrification indicated that elctrification would only increase U.S. power consumption by roughly 1.5% to 4%, so availability of power wouldn't be an issue.
But this still illustrates the uncertainly facing a railroad that's considering a electrification investment. If the power requirements are going to be met mostly from existing generating facilities, that means they are mostly going to be met by coal fired utilities, since that is where most of our electricity comes from. Given the real possibility of adverse government action on use of coal, the railroad can't just assume that, even if the price of oil rises, the price spread between oil and electricity (particularly electricity produced by coal) will be great enough to justify the investment over the years it will take to recover it. While that doesn't necessarily torpedo a decision to electrify, it tips the scales further away from it.
Why wouldn't the government also take similar adverse action on the use of oil = diesel fuel for the conventional locomotives, which would further increase the price of oil, and rebalance the scales ? Diesel fuel/ oil has a substantial carbon content, too. Meanwhile, the world's petroleum prices keep on rising . . . .
I'm no expert on this, but my 'naive' opinion/ thought is that a carbon tax or 'cap and trade' kind of program, etc. will 'raise all boats' / costs more or less equally. I dont see where that would fatally disadvantage electric production - mostly coal - with respect to diesel fuel locomotives. Actually, if such programs are fairly implemented - a big 'if', I concede - the railroad ought to get a substantial credit for the carbon emissions that are saved or forgone by eliminating the diesel locomotives, correct ? So perhaps that impact will be more or less neutral.
Other opinions and more informed insights and correction, etc. are welcomed.
Thus, if we wanted to reduce rail emissions by 17%, and we were going to stick with a value of $33/ton, the net value of the avoided emissions would be $250 million.
The key unknown in this calculation is what the future value of a ton of CO2 will be. It could be a number much greater than $33.
RWM
Paul_D_North_Jr Why wouldn't the government also take similar adverse action on the use of oil = diesel fuel for the conventional locomotives, which would further increase the price of oil, and rebalance the scales ? Diesel fuel/ oil has a substantial carbon content, too. Meanwhile, the world's petroleum prices keep on rising . . . . I'm no expert on this, but my 'naive' opinion/ thought is that a carbon tax or 'cap and trade' kind of program, etc. will 'raise all boats' / costs more or less equally. I dont see where that would fatally disadvantage electric production - mostly coal - with respect to diesel fuel locomotives. Actually, if such programs are fairly implemented - a big 'if', I concede - the railroad ought to get a substantial credit for the carbon emissions that are saved or forgone by eliminating the diesel locomotives, correct ? So perhaps that impact will be more or less neutral. Other opinions and more informed insights and correction, etc. are welcomed. - Paul North.
There certainly are a lot of tentacles to this carbon issue. In a way, carbon taxes do raise all boats, but the core objective is to reduce CO2. So, while diesel and coal both produce CO2, it might be more cost effective to reduce CO2 at the power plants rather than onboard each diesel locomotive—depending on the cost of new electric locomotives or new dual mode locomotives, and the cost of electrification, either at once or incrementally. So electrification to avoid carbon taxes may be more cost effective than sticking with diesel and higher carbon taxes, even though both fuels produce CO2.
As I understand it, the EPA announced yesterday that CO2 is a health risk, and that they will take measures to curtail CO2 emissions, based on their power to do so, which flows from the supreme court decision a couple years ago that decided that the EPA had the authority to regulate CO2. So, under this scenario, the EPA will simply make the rules.
However, congress can pass an energy bill that would take precedence over the will of the EPA. The administration would like a climate/energy bill to take to the Copenhagen meeting that would give the president the authority to sign onto the new world agreement. Without such a bill from congress that basically approves our entry into the new treaty, the president cannot sign on unilaterally.
Congress is now between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they would like to have a say in shaping the world agreement by imposing their own set of criteria in the form of an energy bill, so they will delay until the Copenhagen summit has passed. But on the other hand, if congress delays too long, the EPA will simply impose what the Copenhagen treaty would require if the president were to sign it.
Senator Byrd is urging congress to quickly pass an energy bill in order to prevent the EPA from destroying the coal industry in his state, which the EPA would do if they move forward on their own:
http://www.wvnstv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=71553
schlimmSorry if a few questions offend you. The point still remains that 25% of the world railway lines (and most of the new constructions) are electrified, while very little is here. And why is that? Adopt every good practice? If feasible? I guess it depends on how you define feasible.Unlike myself, Paul North has some knowledge in the area, yet you always seem to have a rationale for why this and that can't be done. I am not touting Europe/Asia. I am only suggesting the US rail needs surely cannot be so unique as to be almost on a tangential course from everyone else's.
Sorry if a few questions offend you. The point still remains that 25% of the world railway lines (and most of the new constructions) are electrified, while very little is here. And why is that? Adopt every good practice? If feasible? I guess it depends on how you define feasible.
Unlike myself, Paul North has some knowledge in the area, yet you always seem to have a rationale for why this and that can't be done. I am not touting Europe/Asia. I am only suggesting the US rail needs surely cannot be so unique as to be almost on a tangential course from everyone else's.
Railways in other nations have often been viewed through a very different lens in those nations than in the United States. There are many layers of social, economic, labor, trade, currency, welfare, industrial, and foreign policy to peel away before one can begin to get a reasonably good understanding of the differences of how they are viewed from the outside by policy makers, the public, and users. Railways are an unusually long-lived investment and a great deal of the rail infrastructure, organization, and operational methods of individual systems are legacies of decisions made more than a century ago, and in some cases more than 150 years ago. Much of the electrification of railways in Europe and Asia has been influenced heavily by national social policy and national cultural mores, not any sort of application of economic benefit-cost analysis, whereas in the U.S. the decision is mostly decoupled from national policies and left up literally to a handful of individuals acting in the interest of joint-stock owners. There is good and bad about both methods, for almost any value system used to measure the outcomes.
A good way of thinking about European and Asian railways in a broad historical sense is that in those countries, the railway is viewed as a national champion and economic stability program, and capital spending is often allocated to railways in the same fashion it is allocated among many national programs such as schools, hydro dams, ports, the military, the flag carrier airlines and shipping lines, etc. Often the investment is done on a formula basis rather than a net return basis. Electrification tends to be viewed as an automatic betterment in Europe and Asia, due to its permanence, low emissions, and subjectively perceived technical superiority. It's a steam-era decision that still has street cred.
Observe that heavy-haul iron ore railways of recent construction in the Pilbara did not opt for electrification. Though these railways had ample opportunity to adopt anyone's methods, I would characterize the outcome of their decision process as "more American than we are" because they did it the way it would be done in the U.S. if we were starting only from scratch.
My personal experience in the cultural differences of railways from my overseas railway stints was that it took no genius to figure out that the culture within the transport ministries and the railways was that electrification was a good, and no one grew up thinking anything but. Not that I am saying that electrification was not a good for these railways, only that few even thought it worthwhile to seriously ask the question. If you worked for the railway, you asked for money for electrification because you thought it was genuinely necessary for the railway, the country, and your society, and besides, since the government was handing out money anyway and if you didn't ask for any it would still be spent but on something else, you wanted your share so you could employ people and give them promotions. And electrification unlike expansion of facilities or services was a 100% insider affair within the rail organization -- you could do it all yourself from planning through construction to operation and maintenance, no need to consult with landowners or towns or passengers or shippers who might have differences of opinions about what the railway should do, and might raise a fuss if you didn't listen to them. Electrification, culturally for a railway, is a wonderful tool to spend money on yourself.
I suppose it depends upon where one is standing to measure if U.S. railways are tangential from European and Asian practice. From my point of view the technical differences I find trivial, and cultural and organizational differences have been more an artifact of the differences in general culture and social values as applied to the railway, not anything unique about the railway itself. I didn't find it hard to immerse myself into the practices of the non-U.S. railways and find out what made them tick and how their managers and employees thought, because they were so similar technically and organizationally to U.S. railways.
Speaking only for myself, in this forum my goal is to not be an advocate for any government or national policy or industry or anything, but to be as nonpartisan as possible, to share information freely so that others such as yourself can make informed judgements, and to provide insights into what the industry does and why it does it. In the day job I am paid to be an advocate, but here, I am paid nothing, and if if someone dislikes what I have to say, I would think they would probably ignore me in the future unless they have a pathological need to be unhappy (and if that's the case, it'a a win-win.) If my answers lend themselves to support of the policies or outcomes that any person prefers, that's by accident, not design. Ironically, for those who think I'm anti-electrication, should the government come up with a policy that incentives electrification, it will probably benefit my income and career a great deal. I have no idea if a policy that incentived electrification or disincentived coal would be a net win or loss for the railway industry, as it depends on how the law is written. I do know that if electrification is mandated without a means of externalizing its cost and other than assessments on the stockholders of railways or the users of railways, it will lead inexorably to a general reduction in transportation services by rail and an increase in transportation costs by rail, because the shippers can't pay and the investors won't pay. I'm implying nothing here about what choices others should make about transportation policy. If someone judges that their vision for America does not have a need for rail transportation, they have every right to have that vision, and if they are the majority, they have every right to enact that vision into law. My handle is "Railway Man," not "National Policy Man."
Paul and I disagree on just about everything, but it's a very narrow disagreement among professionals. When Paul says X and I say Y, that means about as much as one person's preference for Coke and another for Pepsi. The reality is that our solution sets, where we both have expertise, are going to be very similar in cost, performance, and schedule, and in cases where one or both of us has no expertise, we go engage people who do.
RWM: Good information. You are an expert on rails all over and clearly know what of you speak. Thanks!
Bucyrus As I understand it, the EPA announced yesterday that CO2 is a health risk, and that they will take measures to curtail CO2 emissions, based on their power to do so, which flows from the supreme court decision a couple years ago that decided that the EPA had the authority to regulate CO2. So, under this scenario, the EPA will simply make the rules. However, congress can pass an energy bill that would take precedence over the will of the EPA. The administration would like a climate/energy bill to take to the Copenhagen meeting that would give the president the authority to sign onto the new world agreement. Without such a bill from congress that basically approves our entry into the new treaty, the president cannot sign on unilaterally. Congress is now between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they would like to have a say in shaping the world agreement by imposing their own set of criteria in the form of an energy bill, so they will delay until the Copenhagen summit has passed. But on the other hand, if congress delays too long, the EPA will simply impose what the Copenhagen treaty would require if the president were to sign it. Senator Byrd is urging congress to quickly pass an energy bill in order to prevent the EPA from destroying the coal industry in his state, which the EPA would do if they move forward on their own:
I really like how the "CO2 is evil" crowd is cheering the ability of the EPA to regulate something that all of us exhale as part of simply being alive (wonder if they will outlaw that?), but if only congress will pass a law dictating who can do what, all of a sudden, presto!, West Virginia coal is no longer harmful.
These folks have to get their act together. Either West Virginia coal is poison, or it's not. Congress, or the UN, or the President, can't have it both ways.
Visit look4trains.com
Railway Man Tons of CO2 per gallon of diesel fuel is 0.0111, per U.S. EPA (national average) 4.01 billion gallons diesel fuel consumed by Class 1 freight in 2007 (per AAR) Total CO2 emitted is 4,536,455.8 tons per year Value of a ton of CO2 per recent USDOT interim guidance is $33 Current value of annual Class 1 railroad CO2 emissions per year is $1.5 billion Thus, if we wanted to reduce rail emissions by 17%, and we were going to stick with a value of $33/ton, the net value of the avoided emissions would be $250 million. The key unknown in this calculation is what the future value of a ton of CO2 will be. It could be a number much greater than $33. RWM
RWM - In intermediate calculation line 3. above, there's an 'order-of-magnitude' math bust or transcription error of some kind, and maybe something else a little off. Using the numbers from lines 1. and 2., I get a value of 44.5 million tons CO2 emitted from diesel fuel used by Class I freight railroads. However, the rest of the numbers seem OK.
What else can we learn from these numbers ? Try this:
0.0111 tons of CO2 per gallon of diesel fuel x $33 per ton of CO2 = $0.37 is the value of the CO2 in each gallon of diesel fuel, currently. That's something, but not huge - a hiccup of some kind in the Arab Gulf States would have more impact. You can figure easily enough the equivalents for other $ per ton CO2 values by proportions.
These $CO2 values - by themselves - are not near enough to support electrification, either. The $250 million annual value for a 17 % reduction per RWM above would support only around EDIT: $ 1.25 1.0 billion in investment at 20 % for 10 years, per my math in a post above a ways, or maybe EDIT: $ 2.5 2.3 billion at 10 % for 30 years or so (EDIT: I haven't crunched that latter number yet, so may be off a little now 'crunched'); even the entire $1.5 Billion would support only from EDIT: $ 7.5 6 billion to EDIT: $15 14 Billion (same basis and caveats). But recall that in a post above, I calculated that to electrify the 2,200 miles of the BNSF TransCon from Chicago to Los Angeles at an estimated cost of $5 Million per route-mile would be on the order of $11 Billion. That's for only 1 major route for 1 railroad - and I believe RWM thinks that $5 million per mile figure is too low, as well.
Hopefully I'll have more time to post more on this later today.
EDIT: P.S. - From RWM's line 1. above - ''Tons of CO2 per gallon of diesel fuel is 0.0111''; or, 1 gallon of diesel fuel - which weighs around 6.9 to 7.2 lbs. per gallon -will produce about 22.2 lbs. of CO2 - which is normally as a gas, anyway - or about 3 times as much CO2 by weight as the diesel fuel it comes from ! While I'm sure that's correct from a quantitative chemistry aspect - the 'moles' and molecular weights and Avogadro's number and all that - it still seems funny to me, that the problem produced is so large in comparison to the source or raw material involved, that's all. - PDN.
You're right about the order of magnitude bust. Trying to do this with the lousy Windows calculator (I seem to have misplaced my pocket calculator) and flipping between screens for large numbers never works out well. I ran it three times because I instinctively knew the order of magnitude didn't seem right, and thanks for fixing it.
You're quite welcome, RWM - not a problem - interesting that it didn't corrupt the following figures too, though. And I know what you mean - I much prefer my HP for math - or the back of the envelope, or even my fingers. And like you, I've learned that my instincts - and yours - are probably better than the output from some junky piece of software. I suppose that comes from liking to think through 'Fermi problems' like this one. That, and being an industrial and heavy and highway construction estimator for a few years - as one colleague said to me, ''We're supposed to know how to figure out the answers and costs for everything''.
Besides - we seem to have too many other fun things to debate to let a simple math glitch get it the way. And I have a make few minor 'fixes'/ edits to my post above, too . . .
On the amount of CO2 produced by burning a gallon of diesel-the O isn't in the tank.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
Thanks RWM and Paul for the information on meeting the tentative CO2 reduction target. Just to clarify, that is 17% less than the CO2 emissions of 2005 to be achieved by 2020. Today’s CO2 emissions might be less than those of 2005 due to the recession, so either base date may be okay to use.
So, if I understand this, you are saying that the yearly rail emission of CO2 is 44.5 million tons, and the cost per ton is $33. Thus 44,500,000 X 33 = $1,468,500,000 total cost of CO2 per year X 17% = $249,645,000 cost of emission target by 2020.
Therefore, this cost would not come anywhere close to making the case for electrification. Instead, it would just be a cost passed through to the consumer. Where does the current value of $33/ton for CO2 come from? Why call it a value rather than a cost? I would have thought there is no cost of CO2 at this time.
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