How Can We Cut Our Energy Use for Commuting?
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 2, 2008 - 9:15am
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: bicycle, commuting, energy, original, peak oil, public transportation [list all tags]
How can we cut our energy use for commuting? What methods are working for you? What methods make most sense in our current credit environment? This is mostly an open thread, to give people an opportunity to talk about what is and isn't working for them. If the economy is sputtering, peak oil is around the corner, and hurricane related shortages are becoming more common, these methods are going to more and more important in the days ahead.
Some ideas that have been suggested include:
1. More work at home plans, possibly a few days a week.
2. Using a four day (or three day) work week. (See The Four Day Work Week: Sixteen Reasons Why This Might Be an Idea Whose Time Has Come.)
3. Moving closer to work.
4. Using public transit.
5. Using car pools or van pools.
6. Using a more efficient car.
7. Using a motorcycle or moped instead of a car.
8. Using a bicycle.
Of these, work at home (1), four day work week (2), and car pools (5) seem to be the lowest cost alternatives, since they do not require the addition of any other infrastructure, and do not require moving. Using a bicycle (8) is also inexpensive, and gives a person exercise as well. More use of public transit (4) requires infrastructure investment and a longer time frame. In a credit constrained environment, they may not be as feasible.
Leverage your efforts. When I discuss the issue with family and friends, I ask them to imagine that gasoline is $10/gal. How much would that impact them? Then I point to the patterns of gasoline prices over the past few years, and argue that the odds are very high that gasoline prices will continue to go up. Therefore, they should plan ahead by making sure to put fuel efficiency at the top of the priority list the next time they look for a car. I have managed to talk several people into downsizing vehicles, and I don't know anyone who regrets it.
Why not repeat the success of the Internet. Change from devices to networks to manage highly repetitive travel with PodCars, as discussed at the ASPO meeting. Automate the commuting processes with ultra-light, non-stop vehicles. This was not on the list of options. TOD needs to be open to alternatives. More of what is not working will not likely work.
Smaller cars (one ton instead of two tons) still waste vast amounts of energy moving parasitic mass (mass not cargo or passengers). Current automobiles are less than 4% efficient. At best they will never get more than 10% efficient. There is no such thing as a fuel efficient car.
In the next 6 years we can
increase public transportation by 20%, cutting oil and congestion and emission.
Well, I
1. Work four days a week. This was genuinely to spend more time with my family. That was more valuable to me than the extra money.
2. Share one (compact) car with my family of four. Does 45 (UK) mpg average.
3. Have kids (age 4 and 5) that walk or cycle to school most days.
4. Have a disabled wife who uses an electric tricycle for short journeys.
5. Cycle to work every day, all weathers.
6. Use the bus at the weekends as it is cheaper than the car parking charges (for one or two people staying more than a couple of hours)
7. Have hired a large vehicle once in the last five years to carry more people in comfort.
8. Get bulk groceries delivered once a month by the supermarket.
but I
9. Moved further away from work (from two to four miles) because the area was better to bring kids up in. (and has a strong green movement). At least that way I get more exercise cycling...
Any other suggestions?
Hello RalphW,
I live in a college town where the enlightened University and town have FREE buses so as not to clog traffic and parking. The busline runs past midnight! I can walk, ride the bus or bike into town. I walk to the grocery store (6 minutes). I car share if I need a car. Haven't used it in nearly two months.
Have had 3 bikes stolen this last year, two were locked and one was stolen right off my porch during a rain storm and forgot to lock it when bringing in groceries. The Mayor had his moped stolen right out of his driveway this week(the robbers must have rolled up and put it in a truck or van).
When living in Holland a few years ago, I was acutely aware of theft of bikes there. They ride crappy single speed bikes (no hills)Americans would throw out. They have two locks on every bike. Theft is a major problem so they deal with it by using bikes that are low in value and difficult to steal. They also have an indoor bike "parking lot" where you are given a ticket that matches the one on your bike and you have to show it before you leave(good if you take the train somewhere and you want your bike to be there when you get back).
I am 54 and adjusting to bike riding took abit of time. When riding a bike you have to be very aware of your surroundings and it took a bit of time to become comfortable in traffic.
One of the things bikes are NOT good for is carrying loads. If the loads are bulky or imbalanced it made the bike dangerous to ride....
I am curious about the trike your wife uses. IMHO these vehicles could have an electric motor added, could carry cargo without balance and stability being thrown off and would be easier than riding a 2 wheeled bike for older and health challenged individuals.
What kind of trike does your wife use?
tracy
Hi Tracy,
Yup I live in a university city as well. The university bans undergraduate students from bringing cars to the city, but our buses are expensive and limited service in the evenings/sundays.
Bike thefts are very widespread here. I don't leave a bike in the city centre or near a pub on a Friday/Saturday night, because it will be smashed in situ even if the drunk can't break the locks.
There are loads of bike designs for carrying loads. for example
http://www.cyclesmaximus.com/
http://www.xtracycle.com/
This is what my wife uses. OK for modest loads. (She is coy about her age...)
http://www.electricbikesales.co.uk/shop/index.php?act=viewProd&productId...
This is my favourite possession. 50 litre box to carry groceries. Unfortunately out of production and spares hard to find.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShYV5nsi0Q
It also has the advantage of being unstealable because no-one else can ride it :)
Hi Tracy,
Cargo bikes are the up and coming bikes these days. For example, the Yuba, Bakfiets, and the Xtracycle. In my mind, these cargo bikes are car replacers.
I have an Xtracycle (which is a regular bicycle with an attachment on the back). With it, I can carry just about anything I would put in the trunk of a small car. For example, up to 6 bags of groceries (although I rarely buy that much at one time), the produce I buy weekly from the locally grown network in town (recently has included pumpkins and lots of winter squash), an office chair (taken apart), or purchases from a series of stores (just normal day-to-day stuff).
There's something very empowering about carrying so much stuff, especially if one is a woman. It looks like something really hard, but these bikes are designed to carry the weight in a way that keeps the bike steady. Then, you just need low gears, but not as low as you would expect. I enjoy seeing pickup pass me carrying less stuff than I am.
Here in Africa necessity is the mother of invention....
Malawi is one of the most bike-intensive societies I have seen. The energy situation is "interesting" and vastly different to that in the rich North: http://www.ecoafrica-travel.com/2008/09/08/malawi-energy/
I got a two child trailer by Schwin for $150 for my kid to ride in behind my bicycle. (I think those 'saddle seats' raise the center of gravity way to high) The trailer works great. He weighs about 35 lbs but it says it is good for two 50 lbs kids. I hardly know it is behind me when we ride. The biggest trouble is the trailer is a little wide and I tend to cut corners on the trails and the kid goes 'off roadin'.
I have seen other trailers or rear wheel extensions that seem to work pretty well too. I would strongly recommend a trailer if anyone wants to haul or carry stuff, like groceries.
Many in the US have moved farther away from work, too. But here we don't mean going from 2 to 4 miles. Often it's 10 to 20 or more. I wish we had a better attention to compact development.
That's the ultimate infrastructure investment: Getting cities denser.
God bless you Ralph W! Amerka is not at war for YOUR oil, nor are the icecaps melting because of your lifestyle choices. You are a real patriot, not all the idiots with made-in-China "Support our Troops" ribbons on their gas hogs.
May we all inspire many more - 300 million, say - to go and do likewise.
In August 2005 I began using the new "express bus" service that was offered (in addition to the fact that my employer is an underwriter of the program and gives me free access to the bus as a benefit). At the time I was also carpooling and so, on my non-carpooling days I usually rode the bus.
My two two carpool buddies have both had babies and altered their work-schedules (more teleworking) and I have been riding the bus much of the time. I can typically go about 4 weeks on a 16 gallon tank of gas (though I can stretch that even further).
When I do drive my car to work, it is usually to be able to run a collection of errands at lunch all at once and because there are some places the bus or the bus schedule does not allow me to reach fairly easily.
It has made a remarkable difference in my gasoline consumption and our buses are running about 2/3rds to 3/4ths full on most of the runs. In a couple of years, when our offices move, it will become even more convenient as it will require just a single bus from the park-and-ride without the connection to the city bus at the end of the express bus route.
I think we need to look at different financial models for ownership of 'public' transport by local businesses and people. A large local employer could run a bus service for its workers with drop offs/ collections at other transport hubs. If as a company you have 100 workers each wanting a pay rise to pay increased transport costs it would be cheaper to pay for transport rather than giving pay rises (although given the current climate that would be tricky)
Providing secure on site recharging for electric transport would also be a good move by an employer looking to help its workers.
Electric bikes / scooters costing less than one years worth of commuting petrol and doing 50 miles for less than the cost of a hot drink are going to be taken up like hot cakes. A 20 mile commute switched to electric will save about 400 gallons a year.
I have noticed a tendency for our County (probably the largest local employer) to centralize services near the major city. This has reduced overhead costs for local government, but increased the cost to County employees and the people they serve. Similar trends have occurred in business, a kind of externalization of transportation costs. This puts everyone in a pickle now because County (and other) social services are in greater demand than ever and yet those needing them most have the hardest time getting to distant offices.
In the short term I would say that 1 and 2 are the best bets, but decentralization is needed over the long term. Local businesses and governments need to look at the needs of each population center and try to meet them where they are. Some good examples include Cuba placing a health clinic within every neighborhood and the ubiquitous neighborhood grocery store in Europe. Also, busing kids (or more likely driving kids) to large schools might need to give way to neighborhood schools.
I think you are right. Ultimately decentralization is what is needed to reduce transportation costs.
We need neighborhood schools that kids can walk to and small local offices for businesses. Perhaps some of these could be in the unnecessary large homes we have scattered all over.
Decentralized is the wrong model. EVERYTHING will NOT be within walking/biking distance.
I agree with neighborhood schools for k-6 or perhaps K-8, but a fairly high population density is required to put high schools within walking/bicycling distance of everyone.
The better model is a chain of TOD centers along Urban Rail. Much of what you need is within walking distance, but other choices and more are at other TOD nodes.
I am 4 blocks from a barber, but I use another barber 4 miles Uptown, one block from the streetcar line. If I need to go to a public library, I either walk 1.3 miles or take the streetcar to the main library or a branch (often I walk one way and take the streetcar the other). Tulane and Loyola libraries are 3 and 4 blocks from the streetcar.
I can go for months quite happily within a 3 mile radius of my home (I admit that it is an extraordinary 3 mile radius, but that is what I chose).
And simply scrapping most of Suburbia (see what the USA did from 1950 to 1970 to downtowns and many well built (unlike Suburbia) neighborhoods). The topsoil was been destroyed, miles and miles of wide roads, sewers, water mains are required to support low density populations (just think how far water and sewage have to be pumped), low density populations are inherently energy inefficient to service (home health care, police, US Mail, UPS, pizza delivery, plumbers, etc.).
Many large metropolitan areas can only support a few locations of many specialty businesses and these should be easily accessible by Urban rail. Hospitals come to mind, but also central post offices, courts, plumbing supply houses (for items Lowes does not carry), bakeries (bread, not cupcakes), dairies, printing, etc.
One of my pet peeves is the relocation of central post-offices from downtown to remote Suburbia, reachable only by driving.
Best Hopes for MORE centralization,
Alan
Suburbia cannot be adapted to small farms, the topsoil has been scrapped away (and what is left has been concreted over, poisoned, etc.)
Suburban McMansions cannot be efficiently transformed into neighborhood schools, remote offices, bakeries, etc. They are poorly built (once the design life till major maintenance was 30 years, now 20 years) and the floor plans, lighting, plumbing, etc. will make tearing down and rebuilding more cost effective than remodeling an aged building (near major maintenance) into a "sub-optimum" layout at a "sub-optimum" location.
And if rebuilt, why not rebuild a couple of blocks away from an Urban Rail stop instead ?
It depends a lot on how much resources we have.
If we have close to as much resources as we have now, Alan's model works. If we skip that level, because the credit crunch takes out most electricity, for example, it won't work at all. If we can somehow keep things together, it may work for a while, but long term, it doesn't work.
One of my concerns is that we "aim too high". One possibility is that we will spend our remaining resources trying to build something that might have worked in 2008, but by the time it finally gets built in 2020, won't work with what we still have available then. We will have trains to take people to jobs in the financial sector which no longer exist. There may not be enough food produced and shipped to the cities to keep them going. Lack of electricity is likely to affect basic services like the New York City subway system.
It seems like we would be better off using our remaining resources assuming we will not be able to keep massive infrastructure of whatever type maintained (roads and bridges, electric transmission wires, trains with imported parts) for very long.
My response
http://gencat.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/...
http://gencat.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/...
http://gencat.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/...
http://gencat.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/...
Amidst the social collapse of Liberia and Cambodia (two doomer nightmares), the railroads were still used by homemade bamboo railcars. There are reports that villagers resisted those that tried to tear up the tracks for scrap because of their utility.
So, in a worst case, rail is STILL useful, and it will be useful under just about any scenario short of Cambodia & Liberia.
Modern rail is VERY long lived (50-100+ years) and, compared to maintaining bridges & roads, far less material intensive for it's value.
Abandon interstate highways and maintaining streets and devote the resources that would have been used to maintain rubber tire infrastructure (other than light duty bike paths) and devote those resources to building new rail if we are truly short of resources (which we are not today).
The following projects could be "throwing dirt" in 12 to 36 months.
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2007-04a.htm
*IF* we are facing collapse in the near future, stop fixing roads today and devote every available penny to building rail today.
Alan
BTW, just outside of Sacramento is the Siemens light rail vehicle factory. Alsthom has a major plant in upstate New York, etc. Bombardier is Canadian.
GE, EMD (former GM, now Warren Buffet owns half) and Brookville make locomotives in the USA.
We could "make do" with domestic, if sometimes foreign owned, resources
*If* you want to reduce the risk of social collapse, then promoting renewable energy (and perhaps some nuke) and electrified rail that trades 20 BTUs of gasoline or diesel for one BTU of electricity is a sensible and prudent strategy.
Trying to salvage Suburbia, throwing good resources after bad, seems a good way to accelerate decline.
A total absence of electricity is unlikely IMHO. Rotating blackouts (avoiding electrified rail and focusing on households) is much more likely. France uses 2.3% of their electricity for transportation (those TGVs are hogs at 300 kph, slow them down to 200 kph, France would not collapse, and TGV electrical consumption should drop by half and overall transportation should be below 2%).
Switzerland uses 3% of it's transportation energy to move 1/3rd of the ton-miles and 1/6th of the pax-miles by electrified rail.
Alan
It is interesting how quickly discussions on this forum quickly devolve from personal plans to use a bit less energy to apocalypse.
I am not sure how we got from trying to reduce commuting costs to a complete collapse of finance, social services, agriculture, and other vital industries. I really think that these are two topics and don't belong in the same discussion.
It is clear that patterns of development that have occurred since the 1950's (some 60 years or so) and have been accelerating are very energy inefficient. It might well be that much of what was built in the last 20 years is not supportable and will be abandoned simply because it is entirely dependent on personal vehicles for transport. Very low density developments that are far from city centers are very difficult to service using any other transportation method.
Even for the worst of these developments, some parts are within easy walking distance of major transportation corridors and some parts aren't. It should be possible to service the parts that are close to major transportation corridors. It would make sense to densify these areas. This change in development patterns is not rocket science. All I am suggesting is that areas along transit corridors will densify with the greatest density occurring near major transit stops with lesser density between transit stops. Areas that are not within walking distance of transit will have far less density and are likely to be far less desirable.
Surprisingly, the market is in fact starting to recognize this pattern. The mortgage crisis and real estate crash is not occurring everywhere, but is concentrated in areas that have poor transit and very low densities.
Trains are not the only answer for transit. A full range of capacities is required to match demand to capacity. Everything from jitney cabs to small buses to full sized buses to extended buses to light rapid transit to heavy transit solutions are required.
In addition, creativity to segregate ridership by how far patrons are going will have to be used. The days of only using buses that stop at every corner are probably numbered. Intelligent use of express buses to segregate the load are also required.
It is obvious that settlement patterns will have to change drastically over the next 20 or 30 years. Perhaps it is fortunate that much of the development in the suburbs and ex-urban areas is shoddy and won't last much longer than that anyway.
These changes are large, but not cause for complete despair. We are so wasteful energy that we could cut our use by 50% and still not seriously impair our lifestyle.
It is interesting how quickly discussions on this forum quickly devolve from personal plans to use a bit less energy to apocalypse.
Gail's post was:
My counterpoint is that this is nonsense.
In extremis, if we are only able to produce 1/8th (12.5%) of todays electricity, we could devote a tenth of that to electrified rail (1.25% of current US electrical production) to electrified rail and the remainder to essential services (sewage, minimal lighting, industrial, energy efficient cooking) and still maintain an industrial society (one without air conditioning, electric hair dryers, electric hot water heaters and a TV in every home).
I also pointed out that any rail we build in the next 5, 10 or 15 years will be useful under almost any scenario, even scenarios of social collapse (not that I expect social collapse).
If we are to abandon anything today, it should be Suburbia. No more good resources after bad.
Addressing the balance of your post, I have pointed to the suburbs of Boston, served by commuter rail, as viable models of Rail Suburbs. Walkable communities of mainly well built housing, with over half the employment locally, and clustered around the rail station.
The energy efficiency of fossil fuel buses do not make them very viable post-Peak Oil. Specialty gap fillers, and feeders to urban rail; maybe. They cannot carry the bulk of the people transportation load.
Best Hopes,
Alan
It seems like if you have electric trains, you really want them to be dual fuel. That way if there isn't electricity, they can still run. We had railroads many years ago, but they weren't electric. I believe they were coal.
Electric railroads are inherently dual fuel. One can always run diesel under wire (all freight on the 104 mile electrified rail from Philadelphia to Harrisburg is diesel, too short to justify a changeover).
My "7 year plan" is to electrify 20% of the track miles, carrying about 80% of the ton-miles. The old locos will still be around for some decades, operating on the un-electrified track. And electrified rail lines always keep a few diesels around for rescue locos.
However, even in nations with routine blackouts (see China and South Africa in recent years), I have NEVER heard of a single instance of them blacking out rail.
Even the Paris Metro, under German occupation, when coal and electricity were diverted from French homes for the German war effort, the Germans still let the Metro run.
The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the world's most strategic RR by at least one order of magnitude. Russia could not hold onto Siberia without it ! Yet is was completely electrified in 2002. Putin is very concerned about security, but electrification is not considered a risk.
Too little electricity used and far too much value produced.
That is the key, too little electricity used by electrified rail to matter. And too much value created.
I do know that when Washington DC had brownouts and blackouts during a heat wave, DC Metro slowed to 40 mph to save electricity (vs. 55 mph top speed normally). My feeling was that this was more a PR stunt, but perhaps not. But DC Metro was never browned or blacked out.
After the San Francisco earthquake, they got the streetcars running the next day (at 3 mph through the tracks twisted by the earthquake and hurriedly realigned). On the day after the earthquake, supposedly all of the available electricity in SF was diverted to the street and cable cars.
If there is ANY electricity, electrified rail will get most or all that they need. People may be dying of heat stroke for lack of air conditioning in homes ill suited for life without a/c, but electrified rail will get what it needs. And all it needs is 1% or 2% of the electricity.
Meeting a/c demand in a heat wave can take over half of the electricity. That used by electrified rail will simply not make a difference, too small.
As of 2006, all of the New York subways, Amtraks' Northeast Corridor, Long Island RR, BART, subways in Chicago, Philly, Boston, DC, LA, Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore and light rail everywhere took only 0.19% of US electricity. About as much as hair dryers. Or about two month's typical growth in demand. And the USA gets about 7% of it's electricity from hydro, another 3% from other renewables and 19% from nukes.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html
(other renewables was 2.4% in 2006, but has grown since then).
I hope this clarifies why I am not that concerned about a lack of electricity.
Alan
Long haul diesel rail fuel efficiency is typically 436 ton-miles per gallon. That is a spectacular efficiency and a model for how to use fossil fuels efficiently. Electrifying such efficiency, combining the cost to mine, make, string and protect the copper wire with transmission losses to operate, would result in a net energy increase.
Resources should be focuses on increasing urban public transportation where we move a person at 18 miles per gallon.
Converting from diesel fuel trains to electric trains trades 2.5 BTUs of diesel (rural plains) for 1 BTU of electricity. In mountainous & urban areas, the trade is 3 to 1 because of regenerative braking (electric motors run in reverse as electrical generators, recycling the energy as they slow, just as Urban Rail does).
I not not propose# the French goal of "electrifying every meter" and "burning not one drop of oil" to run our railroads. Rather I propose a crash program to electrify the main lines, 20% of the track miles and about 80% of the ton-miles (Pareto principle), in 7 years. Simply electrifying should increase capacity by roughly 15% (faster acceleration and braking > tighter headways).
There is no need to electrify a spur to an Iowa grain elevator that may see a dozen trains/year.
For a main line that sees 50 trains a day, the 2.5:1 or 3:1 ratio in energy savings (and the switch from oil to multiple source electricity) clearly makes sense. It is not that expensive to electrify (in 2004 $, $2.5 million/mile, so the EROEI should be good).
OTOH, electrifying that Iowa spur to a grain elevator is probably both a poor economic and energy investment.
Alan
# Once we electrify the main lines, a non-crash program of electrification should continue on an individual line and spur basis.
Is it practical to switch engines on electrified rails and non-electrified rails?
Your point is to double efficiency, which is good. But in terms of priority, there is at 240X (240 times; 436 ton-miles per gallon freight rail divided by 18 200 pound person miles per gallon in urban transport; 2000*436/18*299) efficiency difference between long-haul freight and commuters.
Efforts to make commuting as efficient as long-haul freight seem a priority with much greater returns.
Converting freight from heavy trucks to electrified rail will trade 20 BTUs of diesel for one BTU of electricity.
We *KNOW* this technology works, there are over 100,000 km of electrified rail in operation in every climate and Switzerland made the "big switch" in the 1920s (some single lines earlier).
Most nations operate a mix of electrified and non-electrified rail, few are 100% or almost 100% electrified. So not an issue.
An appendix to my "Multiple Birds - One Silver BB" TOD article listed the % by nation (source Indian Railways).
Alan
I agree that shifting from trucks to freight rail will add efficiency. But there are not rails everywhere trucks go.
How are your efforts going to convince rail companies to electrifying existing freight rail? It seems that if it can improve their profits they might be willing to invest.
Trains don't have to go everywhere. You just need an intermodal container transfer facility (ICTF), a siding and a crane (or monster forklift) and space to stack containers, near (75 miles) the point of origin and destination. US oil imports are about equal to transportation use of petroleum; our domestic production covers the rest. 1/6 of transportation use is rail and another 1/6 is trucks. Intermodal containers (and road railers) make it easy to move cargo by both rail and truck (and ship for intermodal containers). The sensible approach is to use trucks for the "last mile". And this is often done on longer trips but there are still many long haul shipments being done by truck. From the fuel use, we can estimate that 80% of freight miles are done via train. But a study on I-81 shows that half of the trucks were still on long haul journeys (over 500 miles). If you cut truck use by half, that gets to 90% and eliminates 8% of our fuel usage.
We already have 50% of the domestic fuel consumption for ground freight on trains (with the possibility to improve that to perhaps 75%). It is much easier to move trains off petroleum than trucks.
The US BTS Commodity Flow Survey has some statistics for all modes of transport:
54% of ton miles are shipments over 500miles (the nominal threshold for intermodal)
78% of ton miles are shipments over 250miles
40% of ton miles are by truck only
40.2% of ton miles are by train only
0.2% by air
9.0% by water
7.2% are intermodal (1.5% truck/rail, 1.0% truck/water, 3.7 rail/water, 0.6% USPS/UPS/etc., 0.7% other multiple mode).
1.4% unknown mode.
The amount of intermodal seems low but that might have to do with what constitutes the beginning and end of a particular shipment.
21.9% of ton-miles are coal (120 miles average). 8.4% are grain (138 miles average). But those aren't going very far. At first, it seemd I may have been too optimistic about the addition traffic that can go by rail/truck intermodal. It seems that interstate shipments weren't indicative of the overall pattern for truck shipments (an awful lot of ton miles aren't going very far or are already on rail) from the impressions I got from the survey. And they don't have truck shipments broken down by distance in the report.
However, another agency does.
Thus, 53% of all truck shipments are going over 500 miles (which does agree with the interstate numbers, after all) and thus are good candidates for intermodal. An additional 17% are over 250 miles. If going to intermodal reduces truck miles to 150, then assuming the middle distance in each range and only 2000 miles for the top range, we get a 56% reduction in total truck miles by moving all shipments over 250 miles to intermodal. Shipments may have to go a bit further since the nearest intermodal transfer facility may not be on-route but the extra mileage will be on carbon-free grid energy.
This assumes that the average distance to an IMTF is 75 miles. Some more some less. More remote areas are likely to have fewer shipment tons, so those areas will have less weight in the average. So some areas can be more than 150 miles from the nearest IMTF.
I believe you are correct that long-haul rail has a great future. If the investment in electrification is worth it, I believe the rail companies will electrify their rails to increase their profits.
Roughly 180,000 miles of railroad put a rail line close to just about everywhere with people (except Hawaii and Puerto Rico) and "not that far" for even lightly populated areas.
Abandoned ROWs can be put back into service where needed.
Virginia pays for new rail spurs as an industrial incentive and to get trucks off the road.
BNSF, on their own, is very seriously looking at electrification. My efforts are having some impact elsewhere.
However, some of my time and efforts are wasted combating gadgetbahn like jPods, reducing the time I can spend on positive change and mitigation.
Alan
Spend your time as you wish. I think it is wasted both fighting Podcars and long-haul rail. Both are efficient and efficiency is needed.
Your efficiency comparision fails to consider the far greater freight payload than passenger payload. Trains and trucks each carry the equivalent of over 42,000 passenger miles per year, total freight per person would be equivalent to driving 100,000 passenger miles per year. Cars also have an average occupancy of 1.57 people, which you left out in your calculation. So ultimately, trains and trucks use about as much fuel as cars. And you overlooked that the existing rail network is much easier to upgrade than replacing 300million cars and 70 times cheaper per mile of track than building new light rail.
See my other comments on this diary.
Correction. I had been using a statistic a while back that said that rail and trucks each used 1/6 of transportation sector energy. Apparently, this is true for trucks but not rail. Good numbers are hard to find. According to EIA, trucks use 16.3% but freight rail uses 1.9% and passenger rail uses 0.14%. Thus savings from moving rail to electric are less than I thought but the savings from electrifying rail and moving half of truck freight onto rail are considerable, 1.9% for rail plus 16.3%*3/4*0.5=6.1% = 8% total savings using 4:1 fuel economy difference suggested by ton-miles/gallon figures. But since rail and truck carry about the same amount of freight, these energy numbers suggest a 8.58:1 ratio which would boost the savings to 7.2% of total transportation energy for moving trucks to rail plus 1.9% for the original rail or 9.1% total.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/appendixes.pdf
It is often claimed that electrifying our (US) entire mainline railroad network would be prohibitively expensive. That is not true.
While freight rail has very good ton-miles per gallon, it carries so much freight that it uses 1/6 of the transportation fuel. The cost of electrifying the rail lines and adding pantographs to the locomotives is much lower than the cost of the power plants that supply the power. It is also more than an order of magnitude cheaper to bring electricity to existing rail than to bring new rail to passengers. It costs $200K to electrify one mile of track (plus power plant costs, i.e. fuel costs) but one mile of new light rail track costs an average of $35 million. Track electrification costs less than outright replacing roughly 0.5% of passenger vehicles with priuses which would only reduce gas consumption by roughly 0.15% but freight electrification will cut petroleum imports by around 16%. Replacing cars after they wear out improves the economics. A single 5% one time price increase on freight, continued for 10 years, would cover the cost of electrifying the rail without borrowing money; by comparison, fuel costs have been raising rates by 5% each year which over the same ten year period is a 63% hike and that doesn't stop after 10 years. You can electrify all 140K miles of existing mainline, and convert the locomotives, for about $35billion - the price of only 1000 miles of new light rail.
Rail electrification is picking the low hanging fruit first.
I have analyzed 100% mainline electrification (140K miles) in a number of comments on dailykos.
To get 80% of the train traffic requires upgrading 50% of the track (the high traffic density mainline), not 20% as another commenter suggested. My calculations are based on upgrading not 50% but 100% of the mainline track, leaving sidings which would account for a trivial amount of fuel use un-electrified. By covering 80% of the traffic you would need 80% of the generating capacity (which is the primary cost), to cover the other 20% is only about 25% additional cost. The average freight rail journey is somewhere around 1000 miles so a couple miles of siding at the endpoints of the journey are insignificant.
On the most used 50% of the line, each mile of electrified track will see at least 20 million (gross?) tons of freight per year. Suppose it took 1 ton of equipment every 53 feet, that would be 100 tons per mile or 500,000 times less than the traffic that mile sees every year. Each mile of high traffic density track (at 700 gross ton-miles per gallon) uses at least 28571 gallons of diesel fuel per year producing 87tons of CO2 emissions per year. 100 tons of steel for catenary infrastructure would be 180 (pipe) to 283 (wire) tons of CO2 emissions. Thus, the CO2 payback time would be around 3 years - on the least used part of the high density half. Payback on the least used half would take longer but would still help keep price escalation of fuel in check. The cost of the electrification is about 2 years worth of fuel cost at $4/gallon and the cost of producing the electricity using nuclear plants would be roughly half the diesel fuel cost, if fuel prices stayed at $4/gallon.