The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: May 25, 2006

179 comments on DrumBeat: May 25, 2006

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 10:01am

Many have doubted that railroads could take the load from the highways. I am surprised at this.

People can hypothesize dozens or hundreds of CTL plants, but have trouble getting their heads around the concept of putting back double tracks which were torn up a few decades ago for a lower property tax single track.

AFAIK, there are shared triple tracks in Wyoming serving the coal fields. The US standard railroad ROW is 100' wide. One can do a lot in that space.

On a macro level, in 2002 railroads carried 27.8% of the ton-miles; highways 32.1%. If half of the highway ton-miles were switched from highway to rail in a decade; railroads would have to grow the "normal" growth in our economy + a compounded 4.7% to take half of the trucking ton-miles in ten years. My goals are, if anything, too modest !

The rail capacity problems of today are "bottlenecks". Most lines have excess capacity. And simply adding more tracks will help with that.

"Coal is clogging our railroads, they can barely handle the load".

I live close to what I have been told is the world's busiest railroad bridge. I have never seen a coal train on it. Lots of containers, tank cars, boxcars, grain cars, automobiles, piggy back truck trailers, lumber, steel, etc. but zero coal.

The railroad business is much more than hauling coal.

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tate423 on May 25, 2006 - 2:11pm

I just had a "power lunch" w/ some senior members of my RR. I was asking about the capital spending projects underway re: laying new track. He did acknowledge that we are go back and adding second main tracks to some heavily congested areas, mainly coming out of the west and moveing east. There is a giant double mainline tack being laid from LA it loops down through AZ, TX, and come back north to Kansas City. This is the largest track project currently.

In addition he said we have a monopoly on the tracks that are coming out of most ALL ethanol plants. This was done roughly 3 years ago and our tracks are connected directly to many, many refineries. As he said, "you can't pipe ethanol." I didn't know if that was true, so I left it alone.

Lastly he said LNG is not an option, at least from a RR standpoint and he went on the knock it for what it was. He also said we've been moving heavy equipment up to Alaska in anticipation of a need. I wonder how soon we'll have that "need."

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fallout on May 25, 2006 - 2:33pm

Ethanol cannot be piped for several reasons.

It tends to separate in the presence of moisture.
It is a powerful stripping agent, and tends to remove corrosion and similar debris in pipelines, which ends up in the liquid.

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tate423 on May 25, 2006 - 3:03pm

I did the smile and nod when he said it...thanks for the info.

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DIYer on May 25, 2006 - 7:21pm

1. It tends to separate in the presence of moisture.

Well actually no. The problem is it doesn't tend to separate. Water and ethanol are mutually soluble in all mixtures. So the water is just taken up by the EtOH and goes merrily along with it. Hydrocarbons do not mix with water, which can be separated from the stream by a simple sump, a low place in the pipe, whatever. (I'm not intimate with pipeline technology but do have a bit of lab experience)

As for (2), all that wet ethanol tends to rust things. That, and even anhydrous ethanol is a polar solvent, which has more of a tendency to remove lubricants and coatings or soften them to where they no longer stay in place.

You have to make all your pipelines and equipment out of different materials than you do for hydrocarbons. Since it's kinda expensive to replace thousands of miles of pipe, they'll just truck it. There will be this interval of time while TPTB come to their senses, and they can truck the ethanol for that long. Or TPTB won't come to their senses, and the whole system will collapse. In which case they can also stop trucking the ethanol.

OTOH, I believe synthetic- or bio-diesel, can go through existing pipes without much trouble.

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fallout on May 26, 2006 - 11:06am

Thank you for the more complete answer, DIY. I was going from memory and layman's understanding, which as we all know is sometimes not entirely up to snuff.

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tate423 on May 26, 2006 - 1:07pm

Ka Ching! How long do you think we can keep a charade of promising this as the best alternative? Some variables I see are the subsidy currently making it "viable." Keep in mind we were subsidizing the oil co's even as they have been earning. SO I think the subsidy can go on for a long long time. Also the 30% reduction in mileage should wake a whole lotta people up. It won't until people are actually using it.

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 6:10pm

Did the topic of electrification come up ?

BTW, I would like to forward an eMail copy of my conference handout to you.

Please send me an eMail at Alan_Drake@Juno.com

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ericy on May 25, 2006 - 5:25pm

Regarding electrification, one emergying technology that may be of interest here is the zinc-air fuel cell which Engineer-Poet has written about in his own blog. He discussed the possibility of using this in a railroad locomotive:

http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2005/07/super-cooled.html

He did some back of the envelope calculations down in the comments to see if the idea was even close to doable, and on paper it might be plausible. I don't recall offhand what the efficiency is of these things.

My point is that if such a thing were to work, you could effectively have an electrified railroad without the need to string overhead wires.

You would need the electric locomotives, of course. In actuality railroad locomotives are already electric - in theory you might even be able to adapt a diesel locomotive so that it can draw electricity from they fuel cell instead of from the diesel generator, but I don't know whether the actual designs they use could easily be adapted in this fashion - given that they weren't designed to be used in this fashion there might be other problems.

You would also need the fuel cell itself (presumably in a car of its own), and finally you would need the infrastructure to recharge the fuel cells with electricity.

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 6:07pm

"Emerging technology", "New Infrastructure"

DAMN IT !!

We do NOT have time for delays for something that MIGHT be better (but probably won't be) !

One can ride on electric trains from London to the Pacific Ocean ! TODAY !

It has been done, the problems are solved, we have a century of operating experience in every climate, it is "off the shelf" technology, it is affordable, it is VERY efficient, it is environmentally benign and it is about the quickest alternative that can be implemented !

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Twilight on May 25, 2006 - 7:17pm

I also do not understand the need to redesign that which is already existing and effective. OK, sure, we might be able to improve it - but when will we implement it? Time's a' wasting - let's just get to work.

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ericy on May 25, 2006 - 10:36pm

I tossed it out as an idea that I thought interesting, that's all. No need to jump down my throat about it. And for that matter, it has been suggested that some locations like marshalling yards wouldn't be good candidates for electrification with overhead wires.

The problem is that despite what any of us say here, nothing at all is happening in this area. Next week the situation will be exactly the same as it is today. A month from now it will almost certainly be the same. And there is a good chance that a year from now the situation will be unchanged.

We can say let's get to work, but until the railroads develop an interest in this, nothing is going to happen. State and local authorities might be able to do some things to incentivize the railroads. Federal authorities might in theory also incentivize them, but I just don't see that happening given who is in charge now. And despite all of this, it will still have to be the railroads that decide to change their way of doing things.

So what exactly should we be doing??

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Twilight on May 25, 2006 - 11:03pm

So what exactly should we be doing??

I don't know, bitching and moaning and getting frustrated, which is what I was doing - sorry to take it out on you.

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 11:24pm

I developed a handout for the Peak Oil & Environment conference in DZC and handed out 263 of them. I send about 5 electronic versions out each week to retired politicans, columnists, professors, think tanks, etc.

Send me an eMail at Alan_Drake@Juno.com for a copy to send out as well if you like. (Anyone is welcome ! :-)

I am working for more streetcars here in New Orleans and developing some theories for their use and route planning. Plus more local recovery work whereever I can.

Pushing my agenda here, which I think will grow in influence over time.

I am pushing long odds, I know. But if I DON'T try, the odds are still longer.

I figure several thousand hours of my effort (+ money) will have a >1% and less than <5% chance to impact public policy in some positive way.

I accept that "cost" and odds.

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ericy on May 26, 2006 - 12:16am

Yeah, I know - I was there when you were handing all those things out at the meeting in DC. Long odds but worth the effort. In reality, I am just trying to think of ideas that can get things moving more quickly.

Is there any chance that Canadian railroads might be more amenable than the U.S. railroads to electrification?

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 11:27pm

Some marshalling yards are electrified, some not.

Earlier this year, France made a commitment to electrify their yards and small branch lines.

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zceb90 on May 26, 2006 - 7:13am

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) running 68 miles (109km) from London to Channel Tunnel is the first major new railway to be laid in UK for 100 years. The majority of the link opened in 2003; the final section into central London will be largely in new tunnels and opens in 2007; Eurostar services use existing tracks into central London meantime.

If it's possible to construct such a high speed link (300 km/hr) in a crowded part of SE England constructing more traditional tracks (say 130 km/hr) in rural parts of US should present few problems given necessary political will. Details of CTRL here: http://www.lcrhq.co.uk/

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DelusionaL on May 25, 2006 - 8:22pm

Alan I like the rail for long haul. If we are facing an energy crunch then we need an economical solution quickly. Looking at the local MAX here in the Portland area I don't think that the time or money is available when the realization of what we are up against gets in the MSM. I'm convinced that electric busses are the most viable short term solution. We already have the roads. We need wire and buses. Rail- needs a lot of steel, house comdemnation, it will take too much and get done too late.
I find it interesting how so many posters think that we will have mass migration and end of surburbia at the same time. Where are all the migrators going to live? In the burbs of sustainable areas (near Agriculture) I think. There is not going to be a 1 size fits all solution to this.

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 8:59pm

I am strongly pro-electric trolley buses. Although they use more electricity than comparable rail.

Portland streetcar (I took a course at Portland State University) has some very good ideas on quick cheap streetcar tracks. Not heavy enough for Light Rail.

From memory, $300/foot and three weeks per block.

I had dinner with an LTK consultant in Portland. He agreed that if the process was changed, they could cut years off the process of designing and getting OKs for a new light rail line. Costs down at least 30%.

Hand-in-hand with more funding for Urban Rail needs to come drastic reform of the process. We could learn much from the French in that regard.

Portland can get the Green Line (Light Rail) built within a couple of years, and then the line to Milwaukee (spelling) after that. Meanwhile the streetcars will go far south down river and both sides of the river. We will hopefully be in just the early stages of post-Peak Oil by then.

The line to Vancouver, with a new Columbia River bridge in all probability, is going to a problem.

What other Light Rail plans are on the conceptual drawing boards of Portland ?

In your opinion, as a resident, will these MAX & streetcar lines above, once completed, be "enough" with some buses ?

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DelusionaL on May 25, 2006 - 10:49pm

Alan, I know that rail is best (steel on steel)its just the time and cost factors as we face PO. I'm assuming that there will be some contraction in travel either by moving closer to work or just because it is too expensive that alot of "nessessary" travel today will not happen. More at home time/less soccer mom - so a tentative maybe. I agree with you about the techno-fix-ation that so many people have. There is so much older low power technology out there that we can use right now- with the nec. updating. betting on lab scale tech at this time could be a disaster.

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AlanfromBigEasy on May 25, 2006 - 11:12pm

I believe that the crunch will not hit us AT PO but rather when we are -1% post-PO.

Texas had two years after PO before they saw more than a trivial decline.

For now, I am still promoting Urban Rail with my "Step #3" being more trolley buses.

I see ETBs as being the quick fix AFTER the crunch hits. Till then, I will talk more about the "better solution".

Quite frankly, the body politic is not willing to "buy into" a doomer, quick crash scenario. I think Urban Rail sells better than ETBs in todays world.

I think we defer only in strategy and timing details.

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179 comments on DrumBeat: May 25, 2006

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