Railroads' role in helping U.S. achieve energy independence

[tpatrick]

If the goal is energy independence, we may not need a multi-multi billion $ electrification project. Just bring back the coal burning steam locomotive. Not the smoky, inefficient steamers we all know and love from the past. We know how to create clean burning highly efficient steam machines. We know how to MU them. We can address the balance and dynamic thrust problems. Even with other technical problems to overcome, we could do so far easier and cheaper than the proposed electrification. And the petroleum savings would be significant.

On the other hand if the goal is to end the use of fossil fuels, steam does no good. The real problem is to overcome the political resistance to nukes. There is no other technology presently feasible that could produce the massive amount of power required to electrify the entire railroad system.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

As far as the railroads are concerned, they should get electric if possible. Electrifying of the entire system? Yes but be prepared to spend billions here and there hopeful starting slowly so spending isn't all at once. Big problem though. That is alot of power to transmit. For this I will break away from the socialist view of nuclear energy that it is bad. Nuclear power is only bad if you don't know what the hell you are doing (ie Three Mile Island and Chernobyl). There is one such country that has seemingly been a nuclear energy wizard for safety and that is Great Britain. They offered help to Chernobyl who unfortunatly refused. Get them as a consultant and listen to them and do what is required. There is also an interesting process that was being worked on. It was a reactor that performed a chain process of fission-fusion-fission (something like that) With that kind of energy, you could power quite a large grid, all that would be required is the physical infrastructure to support such a large output of energy.

I don't know how much research if any has gone into diamonds as a part of energy along with energy (you have seen the movies) and I don't think there really is anything that resembles dilithium crystals on this planet anyways so I say go nuclear because this is not the 50s 60s etc, a lot safer and it's alot more productive and cleaner than coal and other fossil fuel generating plants. Also if possible, start some hydro dams and start thinking about geothermic and solar plants just to reduce the need for expensive high maintainance nuclear plants. Also as far as I know, there is no real safe way to dispose of radioactive waste other than lead cased holding cylinders stored deep beneath the ground usually in old mines.

At any rate, more electric using rails and other mass transit including buses, would make for a cleaner environment as well as a more independent energy user that could give the finger to OPEC and be comfortable about it.

Junctionfan: Your points made are music to an old generating plant construcion type like me and are in more ways than one somewhat refreshing. Well said[#ditto] and my complements on a well thought out and well put posting[tup]

[Junctionfan]

Electricfication would be easier as you can draw more power to get tons of HP. Some of thease locomotives can get to 8,000 hp=2 SD70s about!

[Anonymous]

I agree that Shelor is providing some naive but still interesting solutions for the goal of U.S. energy independence. At what price are we willing to pay and to what lengths are we willing to go to achieve true energy independence? I would think that in terms of what we would have to pay, oil at $50 or even $100 a barrel is still preferable to the mega billions that would have to be spent on electrifying the entire U.S. rail grid.

[Anonymous]

Shelor’s article combines rail electrification with a new DC power grid. As I recall, AC power lines have a practical limit of 500 KV but DC power lines in Russia are 1MV and that implies half the line loss. I doubt that justifies replacing existing AC power lines. Then he claims conversion from diesel electric to direct DC electric would significantly lower costs. How can he claim that? I’d think operating costs would be comparable and then adding infrastructure costs for electrification and I think electric becomes more expensive, which probably explains why US railroads don’t electrify.

Someday, railroads will have to stop consolidating trains and send freight one remote controlled powered car at a time but I won’t live to see that on BNSF or UP.

[Junctionfan]

As far as the railroads are concerned, they should get electric if possible. Electrifying of the entire system? Yes but be prepared to spend billions here and there hopeful starting slowly so spending isn't all at once. Big problem though. That is alot of power to transmit. For this I will break away from the socialist view of nuclear energy that it is bad. Nuclear power is only bad if you don't know what the hell you are doing (ie Three Mile Island and Chernobyl). There is one such country that has seemingly been a nuclear energy wizard for safety and that is Great Britain. They offered help to Chernobyl who unfortunatly refused. Get them as a consultant and listen to them and do what is required. There is also an interesting process that was being worked on. It was a reactor that performed a chain process of fission-fusion-fission (something like that) With that kind of energy, you could power quite a large grid, all that would be required is the physical infrastructure to support such a large output of energy.

I don't know how much research if any has gone into diamonds as a part of energy along with energy (you have seen the movies) and I don't think there really is anything that resembles dilithium crystals on this planet anyways so I say go nuclear because this is not the 50s 60s etc, a lot safer and it's alot more productive and cleaner than coal and other fossil fuel generating plants. Also if possible, start some hydro dams and start thinking about geothermic and solar plants just to reduce the need for expensive high maintainance nuclear plants. Also as far as I know, there is no real safe way to dispose of radioactive waste other than lead cased holding cylinders stored deep beneath the ground usually in old mines.

At any rate, more electric using rails and other mass transit including buses, would make for a cleaner environment as well as a more independent energy user that could give the finger to OPEC and be comfortable about it.

[martin.knoepfel]

As a matter of fact, high-speed-tracks in Europe are electrified by high-voltage A.C.
(15 kv/16,7 Hz or 25kv / 50 HZ), even in countries where the conventional railroads run on DC.

Same thing for some new freight tracks (Betuwe-Line from Rotterdam to the Ruhr-region and for contries that electrified late (UK, Portugal, Denmark). There must be some advantage in high-voltage AC. But for large-distance transmission of electricity, high-voltage D.C. is the best solution. for example for a national grid.

IIRC, more than 20 years ago, there has been a "Trains Turntable" in "Trains". The author proposed a Interstate Defense Electric Railway. IIRC, it was more or less the same as in the article quoted above - except for the idea of the national grid. Unfortunately, I don't have this copy of "Trains" anymore.

[Anonymous]

Ladies,Gentlemen, Railroaders, Railfans, Democrats, Republicans, Independants, and all who refer to themselves as North Americans in the contiguous land mass and those areas of our interest beyond the seas: We have now arrived at a subject that is larger than just the railroad community but also the related communities of the Electric Generation and Transmission industry, the banking, construction, labor, and investment communities and not a few politicans. I have gone to the EnergyPulse website and have looked over the consultants recommendations. Being one with both a public (highway construction) and private utility (generating plant construction) background I feel that now is the proper time and place to begin the discussion for this "opportunity" within the groups that are effected and have an interest. Let us first understand a few things before we start: I have never known a consultant that could do much more than give an idea of what may be possible in an opportunity of this size. To give Mr Shelor credit he does bring out a real possibility. Unfortunatly he does not recognise or apprieciate the size, expense or time required for such a project. We are just with the railroads speaking of about 20% of the U.S. economy and the other half of his recommendation is at minimum involves the majority of the nations' economy that depends on electrical energy (for sourses check out the web site of the Edison Electric Institute for electrical projections and costs). As more than a few electric company execs rail and other execs have said "He really needs to study the whole picture before he recommends such a project" He has made no projection of the environmental impact, Gigawatts required, construction costs involved or the amount of understanding between businesses, legal requirements to be overcome and/or the economic sacrifices that would have to be made by more than a few people and that is before the first yard soil is moved, concrete placed or Megawatt generated and transmitted. Let's say that we as a nation descide to do this recommendation. It costs aprox $250 to $500 per kilowatt to be built under conventional fuels (meaning Coal, Natural Gas or Nuclear). Bio-mass while dependable is not as developed technologically and wind power is not the most dependable of generating fuel sourses. I think that our consultant needs to seek a calculator for the costs of such an undertaking. Now that's just the electric utility side. As for the requirements for ownership and operations on the railroads, I leave to you who work closer in the rail community for requirements and costs on that side of hte question. In the words of General's George Patton, U.S. Grant and R.E. Lee and others "May the balll begin."

[rrnut282]

I noticed nuclear wasn't mentioned as a source for this DC grid. As far as greenhouse gases are concerned, it's very clean. The newer designs that have been proposed also, theoretically, shut down in fail-safe mode.[:)]

[jchnhtfd]

I can imagine it happening, if someone could foot the bill (as Overmod says, that's the biggy). The use of high voltage DC interconnects is indeed the way to go -- eliminates a whole raft of problems with the grid. Easy enough to convert to 3 phase AC if you need if for something, but for the rails, yeah, DC is just as good -- but it would have to be down-converted in voltage. Minor details. Really.

As for power sources, indeed much of the electricity today is fossil fuel. But that is a political necessity, not an engineering one. Thjere are better ways to generate electricity, but they have political problems... and I don't want to go there...

[techguy57]

Without having read the whole article, I can seesome of the merits of this idea. , However, I see two things I want to point out:

1) Who is going to pay for the overhaul? The US government? The railroads? Can either really afford it? I mean its great in theory but in practice it means converting all the lines to electric, not inexpensive by any means, converting existing and/or buying new engines, not to mention hiring personnel to boot. UP,arguably the biggest of all the Class 1s, already has more trains than crews so adding more would only be more of a headache. And while creating a high speed passenger system could be an added benefit it would also be a headache as it would mean a heck of a lot more CTC trackage with more trains on the tracks and, would in turn, ultimately require more dispatchers.

2) How are we planning to power these lines? If the power is coming from existing power plants, the majority of which are coal, aren't we just trading one fossil fuel for another?

I can't imagine any of this happening anytime in the future, well at least not in the next 20years or so. Even if it enacted to law tomorrow (it won't given the current president's ecological policies) it would probably take 20 years to change everything anyway. There is way too much cost involvedboth short term and long term and not enough immediate payoff. Short of being forced to change to avoid global ecological disaster, this won't happen in my lifetime.

Just my 2 cents.

Mike

[Overmod]

Before any of the 'experts' comes on and mentions that high-voltage AC transmission is better suited to railroad operations, I advise a review of contemporary high-voltage DC transmission interconnects. It's interesting technology.

[Anonymous]

The following quote is from F. Mack Shelor, Independent Consultant, South River Consulting, in an article from Energy Central at:

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=872

I will cut and paste his reference to railroads rather than providing the whole article:

"4. The U.S. could provide legislation and supports to the four major railroads to convert from fossil fuels to electricity on their lines. This would move the railroads from strictly fossil fuel to a market basket of fuels and could reduce fossil fuel demand by another 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.
a. As a sub-set to this activity, the U.S. could provide a private initiative to create a national D.C. transmission system along the major rail corridors. This would provide a national grid that would not only provide a direct way to electrify the railroads but it would also significantly improve the national electrical efficiency.
b. If the freight railroads were converted from diesel electric to direct D.C. electric, the cost for moving freight would be significantly lower and the displacement of fossil fuel for trucks would further reduce the demand for imported oil. This displacement could reduce oil imports even more.

5. Finally, the U.S. could create a D.C. electric high-speed passenger rail system along the major population corridors. When this initiative is coupled with the freight rail initiative it would create a viable national D.C. grid that would redistribute the lowest cost electricity from coast to coast.
Perhaps just as importantly, this initiative would provide a viable way to utilize renewable resources. Wind as an example, can be modeled as individual projects or can be modeled as a cohesive national resource. If the D.C. system was in place, the available wind energy in the U.S. would significantly reduce greenhouse gases and would be available and reliable.
Solar-thermal energy has not been well supported in the recent legislation, but if it could be properly supported, it would also become a national resource through a D.C. transmission system.
Biomass, Geothermal and Hydro-Electric energy would become broadly distributed and would also displace a significant amount of fossil energy.
A high-speed passenger rail system using electrically driven equipment would displace a significant amount of fossil fuel currently being consumed by airlines for reasonably short distance travel."