Electrified Rail: An Overlooked Mitigation Strategy for Peak Oil?
Posted by Robert Rapier on October 20, 2006 - 9:19am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: electric rail, electric transport, hirsch report, light rail, peak oil, public transportation [list all tags]
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Roger Bezdek is one of the co-authors of the "Hirsch" reports, AFAIK the only official US Government analysis of what to do about Peak Oil. Below is a link to an interview with Dr. Bezdek with links to his two reports.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/713
I have reservations about the proposed mitigation strategies (~$5 trillion for coal-to-liquids, oil shale, enhanced oil recovery and better vehicle efficiency) and believe that he has overlooked mitigation via electrified rail.
Dear Mr. Hirsch, Dr. Bezdek and Mr. Wendling:I believe that your two reports for the Department of Energy on Peak Oil overlooked the best single option in dealing with this problem. I have attached two related papers of my own for your review and comment before spreading them more widely.
The best solution, in my opinion, is for you to simply incorporate them into your suggested mitigation strategies as an addendum and I would be willing to co-operate fully in that. However, I will try to promote this option as public policy in any case.
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
Dr. Bezdek will be a speaker at the ASPO conference in Boston (I will be moderating a Saturday after conference workshop). In that context, I sent him the following eMail. It summarizes in advocacy form my basic policy for dealing with Peak Oil.
Dear Dr. Bezdek:
The short version of my position is that the best Peak Oil mitigation options are two related steps that we can take. They may, or may not be enough, but they are the best and first steps that we should take.
One - Electrify our freight railroads and replace the double and triple tracks taken up in recent decades. (Double track has ~x4 the capacity of single track). See EU & Japan. Russia finished electrifying the Trans-Siberian in 2002 and finished to Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean last Christmas Eve. There are no technical obstacles to electrification or higher general freight capacity that cannot be resolved in one decade.
Two simple public policy steps are required IMO to implement. Any railroad that electrifies is exempt from property taxes (also encourages track improvements to meet demand) and putting tolls on Interstate highways (as Eisenhower originally wanted to do). Accelerated depreciation is always good.
In twenty years, over 2 million barrels/day of refined diesel could be saved in a Peak Oil environment.
Two - Build Urban Rail on an urgent basis. Start on ~$120 billion in plans (some active, some dusty) within one to three years. As the first wave is under construction, design a second larger wave and a still larger third wave, all completed within 20 years.
The United States built subways in the larger cities and streetcar lines in 500 cities and towns (as small as 18,000) from 1897 to 1916. The US had about 90 million people, 3% of today's GNP and primitive technology (coal, mules and sweat). Can we do one fourth as much today with x30 the GNP and modern technology ?
Public policies were successful in transforming our urban form from 1950 to 1970. Virtually every downtown was abandoned and most pre-WW II housing was "trashed". We can transform our urban form in twenty years, that is a demonstrated historical fact.
Public Policy ? 90% federal funding (same as Interstate Highways) and reduced bureaucracy. I prefer a two path approach (federal process & get 90% funding up front OR build it locally and get results based funding ex post facto).
Oil saved ? DC Metro saves 1/2 to 1 billion gallons/year, directly and indirectly. Multiple x50 over twenty years with an urgent, but not crash effort. Peak Oil will push Transit Orientated Development more than VA loans and highways pushed "white flight" decades ago.
Two and a half - Promote electric trolley buses. Public Policy: FTA funding at 92% for electric trolley buses, 75% for fossil fuel buses.
Promote transportation bicycling. Make it patriotic to use less energy, especially oil.
Electric motors are much more efficient than internal combustion and rail is much more efficient than rubber tires. Shifting freight from heavy trucks to electrified railroads replaces 20 BTUs of diesel with 1 electricity BTU. Most recent data is that 0.17% of US electricity is used for transportation (including 8,000 subway cars of NYC). The electricity needed for the steps above can easily come from either conservation or new wind installations.
Unlike CTL, oil shale and EOR, my proposals have positive feedback with Peak Oil. The worse things get, the more oil they "produce".
Peak Oil will be a large and brutal hammer. People and industry will flock to the shelter of non-oil transportation IF IT EXISTS! Otherwise, they will just be beaten down.
I have more (a semi-high speed passenger and freight rail network, geothermal heat pumps & solar water heating to replace oil & NG, compressed NG for specialty transportation, bio sources of monomers, Strategic Rail Reserve to supplement the SPR, nationwide HV DC electricity grid) beyond these basic steps.
BTW, my favorite example is Switzerland 1945. A western industrialized democracy maintained a decent quality of life with 1/400th of US oil use/capita. Electric transport, bicycles and shoe leather maintained society and the economy.
Three years later, oil demand exploded by a factor of 30. If the US used as much/capita, we could join OPEC as the #3 or #4 oil exporter.
Switzerland today (since 2000) is working on a 31 billion Swiss franc program to replace heavy trucks with (hydro) electric rail. Adjust for population and currency and it is equivalent to the US spending $1 trillion over 20 years improving our railroads.
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
I also sent this follow-up eMail, where he pointed out that a rail line to Dulles had not been built.
Dear Roger,It is a matter of priorities and finances. I am familiar with the Tyson's Corner-Dulles extension (and the Purple Line to the north, and the 40 miles of streetcars that DC wants to build. I have helped DC DOT with their streetcar plans).
The TC-Dulles line did not make the cut for the first 103 miles of Washington Metro. There is an unwritten rule at FTA, "one line at a time". So DC Metro could not get serious until they finished the Green Line and the first 3 mile extension beyond the original plan.
The Bush Administration effectively cut federal matching from 80% to 50% AND tightened criteria in response to a growing demand for more Urban Rail. This "raised the bar" but the need for the TC-Dulles line increased as well. The FTA also slowed disbursements by increasing study requirements, etc. Rationing by queue.
It is my understanding that the first half, to Tyson's Corner, is in detailed engineering design. The first attempt, using a subway in Tyson's Corner came in too high to meet current criteria, so they are looking at corners to cut. Elevated rather than subway is being considered, despite operational issues that this will cause.
Grant 90% federal funding and ground will be broken on TC-Dulles within 18 months.
The slowness you see is the deliberate result of federal decisions. OTOH, the French (who are building a tram line in every city of 250,000 that "votes correctly") are renowned for the quickness of their study, design and approval process. This from a nation well known for endless bureaucracy! But they see strategic value of these tram lines and react accordingly (as they did with nuclear power).
I admit that no endangered species reports were required in 1903 before NYC subways could be built, but there is fundamentally no good reason that the process should take more than 6 months longer today than it did 100 years ago to design and build a subway or surface rail line. We have computers, not slide rules and paper, a century of experience, and modern technology, not just "coal, mules and sweat".
I can forward more information and I look forward to discussions with you. I am arriving a day early at Buckminister Hotel and staying two days late for sight seeing. If your schedule allows this might be an ideal time to meet.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Attached is a personal list of Urban Rail projects with existing design work and route selection already done. I am sure that I have missed some. Depending upon the depth of dust, etc. on these plans, almost all could be under construction within 1 to 3 years if it were a national priority. Simply giving 90% federal funding would be all that would be required in most cases
The following list was composed by Lyndon Henry and the author from memory and likely overlooks some projects. The degree of engineering on file for each project varies significantly, and much of the information is dated. However, all of the projects noted below could start construction in one to three years if it was an urgent national priority.A rough guess is that the projects below would cost roughly $125 billion to complete.
Albuquerque - Light Rail and Commuter Rail plans
Atlanta - Beltway Light Rail, Northern suburbs Light Rail extension, downtown streetcar
Austin - Two Light Rail Lines plus Commuter rail and downtown streetcars
Baltimore - East-West Light Rail Line, 4 mile extension to current subway
Birmingham AL - Streetcar lines
Boston - All rail plans promised as environmental offset to "Big Dig"
Buffalo - Planned extensions to current light rail subway
Charlotte - All plans currently scheduled
Chicago - Expansions to Metra, South Shore Line
Cincinnati -Light Rail plans voted down
Columbus OH - Light Rail and streetcar lines
Corpus Christi TX - Streetcar line
Dallas - All plans through 2015 and all 2015-2030 options (roughly 145 mile system)
Dayton OH - Streetcar plans
Denver - 117 miles of Light Rail and Commuter Rail (already locally funded)
Ft. Lauderdale - Light Rail and streetcar plans under active development
Honolulu - Line currently under development
Houston - All plans voted for, 65 new miles light rail 8 miles commuter
Indianapolis - Light Rail Line plans
Kansas City - Light Rail Line proposed
Las Vegas - Light Rail plans
Little Rock - Short extensions of existing streetcar line, Light Rail line
Los Angeles - Red Line "Subway to the Sea", Vermont Avenue subway, XX miles of Light Rail, electric trolley bus plan, electrify commuter rail
Louisville KY - Light Rail line plans
Madison WS - Streetcar and Commuter Rail plans
Memphis - At least two Light Lines in comprehensive plan
Miami - 103 miles of elevated Rapid Rail (subway type) + Miami Beach streetcar (already locally funded) 90% of the population would be within 3 miles of a station and half within 2 miles of a station
Minneapolis-St. Paul - Central Light Rail connector between the cities
Missoula MN - Commuter Rail
Nashville - Commuter Rail in process
New Orleans - Desire Streetcar Line, Riverfront Streetcar Line extensions
New York City - 2nd Avenue Subway, 3rd Tunnel under Hudson, Penn to Grand Central connection, Staten Island Light Rail, New Jersey Light Rail extension, commuter rail improvements
Ogden UT - Streetcar plans
Orange County CA - Center Line Light Rail plan voted down
Orlando - Light Rail plan voted down
Phoenix - 90 miles of Light Rail already approved
Pittsburgh - Two Light Rail Lines north from current, under construction line
Portland - Green Line (both routes, one funded, other "studied" for future build)
Raleigh-Durham NC - Streetcar plans
Sacramento - Additional Light Rail expansion
San Antonio - Light Rail plans voted down
St. Louis - All plans evaluated, perhaps 100 mile system
Salem OR - Streetcar plans
Salt Lake City - 90 miles of Light Rail, streetcar and Commuter Rail (vote soon to accelerate)
San Diego - Light Rail spur to North, another to West
San Francisco - New TransBay tunnel, trolley line, BART extension, eBART
San Jose - BART extension, several Light Rail extensions
Seattle - Proposed north extension
Spokane - Light Rail line planned
Tampa - 1992 and later plans
Toledo OH - Streetcar plans
Tuscon AZ - Streetcar plans
Washington DC - Tyson's Corner-Dulles extension, Purple Line, 40 miles of streetcar lines in DC
Winston-Salem NC - Streetcar plans
And to repeat another comment I made yesterday, here's my thinking on electricity:
* You can make it from pretty much anything, including renewables
* For the fossil fuels, it's much more feasible to sequester the carbon (and other nasties) from fixed sources like power plants, than from millions of tailpipes.
* It doesn't require many exotic new technologies. Better batteries seem to be the major technology need.
* It works well for mass transit (subways, streetcars, buses, etc), long haul freight and short haul automobiles.
* An electric driven transportation system re-centers life around towns, cities and transportation hubs.
It certainly won't be cheap to build out the infrastructure required, but over the long term, I think it might be our best shot. At least that's what all the evidence I see now tells me.
As for NYC, the major issue is time I feel. We are eventually going to complete the projects you list, but it's all being done piecemeal in segments and it will take decades to make a big impact. Replacing many bus routes with electrified vehicles that have dedicated right of way building off many of the proposed Bus Rapid Transit Routes would be a quick additional increase to capacity.
I also recently wrote about extending regional passenger rail service back to Scranton, PA and then up to Binghamton, NY as a way to re-center those exurban areas. Much of the ROW still is in place.
Thanks for all the great work on this Alan.
A multi-pronged approach would be best. I'd shy away from putting all of our collective eggs in light rail or even rail in general. In many cases it does make sense. But other decisions transportation and land use-related must be made:
LAND USE
1) Are we going to try and preserve everything in existence or will we selectively abandon (and salvage for scrap) certain types of settlement or whole regions?
-why try and extend service if the area has no longterm prospects.
2)The opposite now, are there areas near existing infrastructure that ought to be more intensively developed to better utilze those resources?
3)Are there new forms of settlement going to form that concentrate residents in a single place, putting them close to agricultural resources, education, simple goods manufacture and basic service providers. Think to various relocalization projects underway or discussed?
4) What are we going to do about the "marginal places" where the addition of missing land uses (eg adding commercial and agricultural activities) make the place viable
TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS
- sidewalks. duh
- bike paths/lanes and improved parking. Most close tasks can be reasonablly be accomplished via biking. Definately short distance commuting.
- bikes and bike technology - Improve the bike offerings to encorage: all-weather comfort, electric assist, expanded cargo capacity, safe children transportation, better delivery applications. Many of these already exist (I use some already) but would benefit from lower costs and higher awareness.
4)Ridesharing/hitching network. How many times have you gone somewhere only to find out someone else was going that way too? A system that matches drivers to passengers would definately encourage more car pooling5)Rail electrification. start with the mainlines and go from there. Encourage freight to be shipped this way. container use helps this. Double tracking and selective re-alignments in many areas will make freight travel faster and allow for the re-introduction of passenger rail. Reactivate older branches and ROWs.
- Urban rail extensions. Use the appropriate rail tech. Large cities should stick to heavy rail. Can you believe one of the 2nd Avenue subway alternatives was light rail? thats not appropriate. Intermediate sized cities will benefit from light rail, the more grade seperated the better. If some small towns have legacy streetcar infrastructure in place and can put it to use, more power to them.
- Personal Rapid Transit- In certain circumstances, PRT would be ideal, mostly in large mixed use campus settings with no large peaks in travel demands.
- Internet and telecommunications: Even better, if you can accomplish something online or virtually, then you DONT have to travel somewhere. How many trips has the internet already saved us?
- Hybrid or battery trolley busses- Some places and locations it isnt practical to install rail. In those cases run busses that can: (a) draw electricity from a wire in denser urban settings (b) run off battery power for longer stretches like up to 5-10 miles between wires and/or (c) run an internal combustion engine at an efficient setting to power a generator to keep charging the batteries. This technology exists. Plus if any transportation mode will benefit from fuel cells, the bus will be it. A trolleybus-fuelcell combo may be the long term goal. If we can only have to manufacture H2 from water via renewables, applying the fuel to municipal fleet vehicles could be probably quite manageable. Again, use the overhead wires for urban areas, fuel cells for those areas in between
- Electric Cars. Screw the ICE engine. Scratch the fuel cell. Plug in hybrids (near term) and straight-up electric cars need to be the way of the future. If we cant do that, at least mode choices 1-9 are still available. I'd advocate a stronger future for electric cars IF we had...
- Dual-Mode. - Even better. Imagine a network of elevated monorail-styled track network that you'd drive your electic vehicle onto and proceeding automatically, drawing current directly from the rail. Dual mode combines the practicality of the electric car (short distance travel) and gives it long distance potential. Now you could drive only up to 5-10 miles, enter the rail system, being guided automatically and then exiting and driving the remaining 5 or so miles to your destination. Public transit applications would include creating bus runs that took advantage of rail locations to create numerous flexible running lines, dial a ride and so on. A simple offline station (like for PRT) would allow totally automated PRT style use within the rail network.
- Sail assisted shipping. Maybe not going back to preindustrial transoceanic vessels but more modern sail arrays to reduce fuel usage.
- Dirigibles. If for some reason we can no longer fuel our airplanes, we could still take to the sky in airships. Just need some hydrogen and fair weather to make this work. Any takers? Granted these things didnt have the best track record in the thirties but is there any reason why they wouldnt work with some more modern design elements.
If all else fails, walking works for most of us.Bottom line is, if the settlement is light and the travel demands (peak usage) is light, personal vehicles and bicycles are appropriate. As distances decrease and densities increase bus service and biking are best. Higher densities and demand loads require rail of some flavor, reserving the heavy rail subways for those crush load demands of Tokyo or the like. Long distance trips by large numbers of people are best mad via train.
We need to make our transportation choices based on our land use patterns and if we cant make a particular mode of transit work, then perhaps we should adjust our land uses
I'm always really nervous about this tactic. But I feel I have to pursue it. I learned it from Jerome a Paris. (Lie) I knew it way before that.
Follow my lead.
Don't ever reply to your own post. Some of the best writers in the blogosphere fall prey to this. Westexas among them. Never ever do this. I'm hoping to eradicate this process. Oily.
Thanks for your tireless work on this, Alan.
Well, actually I didn't suggest Alan for Secretary of Transport, though that might not be a bad idea.
What I did do was suggest/request that TOD do a special thread "advice to the next president" where we could air the various components of what they might do to alleviate GW, reliance on Middle Eastern Oil, and mitigate PO.
The presidential candidates are putting their position papers together right now, and we have some hope of influencing their directions if we compile our thoughts now.
For next year, there will be 8 times as much wind energy install as coal (11,754 MW vs. 1,450 MW).
Unfortunately, this situation will reverse itself by 2009.
2009 & 2010 should see 18,469 MW & 15,142 MW respectively of coal burning plants. Wind drops to 742 MW and 687 MW respectively.
I don't know if wind has a much shorter lead time, and (hopefully) there will be far more wind installed than projected. However, looking at the enormous surge of coal generating plants coming on line at the end of the decade, we have a very good idea of where electricity for electric transport will be coming from.
Mountaintop removal for fuel.
"I Love Mountains.org" was advertising with TOD for awhile, and I would strongly urge everyone to look at their website and check out their video (they are working with conjunction with Google Earth to show the full extent of mountain top remove in the Appalacians).
Anybody advocating for greater reliance on coal really needs to look at this issue.
Would those be the 'save New orleans' no matter what, the New Orleans/New York/San Franscicso shoudl be saved no matter what, or the live in a shack without water-sewer services ideas?
This is a fine post about what he's doing for rail. Rail is a fine plan to keep a transportation grid working (although some people are gonna end up loosing their land via Emm. Domain as rail is re-asserted) Electrified rail is a great 'excess wind/PV power exists on the grid and can't be stored' application.
But not everthing Alan says is a good idea.
Its like opposing making ethyl alcohol from corn. Something has to keep Oil CEO fueled up....if he wasn't drinking, would he be posting?
Its like inserting hot coals in a stack of snowballs.
How true !
Best Hopes,
Alan
I thinks this will be repeated again and again.
If Obama is reading this (or any other forward-thinking politician from any party)...this is a step...a big baby step to energy independence for this country. More and more people want this.
It means jobs, national focus on doing SOMETHING..anything about our energy problems, a focused national population on a positive project that builds our pride instead of negative projects that bring us shame, hope for our future.
I believe it will pay any candidate off in spades to consider these ideas seriously.
My 2 cents worth.
Thanks Alan and Robert for the work (research and PR).
So I know Professor also says to make links to other sites. How exactly do these work? Are these sites that aggregates links to many places?
I read in the Atlanta paper that they are having real problems keeping an adequate number of train cars in service. The frequency of repair, especially of the motorized doors, is extremely high, even of the new cars that have been delivered. They have been forced to cannibalize some of the new cars, to keep as many as possible operating. I think that part of the problem is that the cars are made overseas, and long-term support is a problem.
I sat through part of one presentation (boring) but I think that there are good solutions out there.
Due to "Buy America" provisions, foreign designs are built in this country. A factory is set up, cars for one or more cities are built, factory dismantled. Support from foreign sources.
One purpose of the strategic rail reserve (Step 5 in below link)
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
Is to create a larger reserve fleet and to help create a stable US industry.
Best Hopes,
Alan
As far as the reliability of the new cars goes, since every transit system has different cars, everything in them appear to be unique. There is no savings from producing in large scale and after a few year the parts become scarace because no one wants to warehouse or product parts for vehicles with so few numbers in service.
If the nation standardized around just two or three vehicle types for each of the different types of rail (heavy, light, streetcar), it could both reduce cost and increase reliability. Obviously if this happened then the more rail lines in service would just make the savings and reliability go up even further.
Great work first off! Here's a suggestion though. Turn that email into a easier to read bullet format. I got bogged down once you started using
Just a thought so it's easier to grasp and for those you are sending too since they are probably short on time and want the meat of your argument staring them in the face.
Just a thought.
"If the Oil's out there, a Knox Engineer will find it, cause a little time may be all we have left.."
Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson
Great Soundtrack by Mark Knopfler!
Bob Fiske
I did not emphasis it (in part because buses do not generate TOD, and the indirect energy savings of TOD). Yet, post-Peak Oil, transit agencies will be hard pressed to outbid others for diesel and this is an oil & energy savings.
Hope this helps
Alan
BTW, San Angelo Texas built a 3 mile streetcar line in 1908. In the 1910 census they had a population of 17,8xx.
One of the battles we fight is the lack of urgency on the part of the general public.
I am struck by the number of places where I read people saying that the new discovery in GOMEX somehow "disproves" Peak Oil, the number of people who don't compare the maximum size of the discovery against total world consumption (an easy way to shake people up). And for that matter, the number of people who see lower gas prices and think that life has gone back to normal. With this lack of urgency, the public will be somewhat less interested in alternate solutions such as rail..
On the other hand, I do see some signs here and there that make me optimistic, but the pace of progress is frustratingly slow, and it is hard to say whether it is enough or not.
I appreciate the advantages of rail vs trucking, but I cannot find data which provides a basis for comparing a diesel-electric-engine-driven system to an electified rail system from an energy demand perspective. Years back I saw some work which pointed to the advantages of electrified rail in mountainous zones, but not elsewhere, and as I recall the analysis did not look at the energy cost of system vs system.
Can you provides links to material which would support your advocacy of electrified rail in the stead of the current diesel-electric motivated system? Or journal articles, as the case may be?
thank-you
My bookmarks have:
http://www.caltrain.com/electrification.html
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29910
http://www.eccj.or.jp/databook/1998e/p94.html
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/teepa/pub.html
http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-elec2.html#sys
(The Indian Rail site has a wealth of very detailed infromation and articles about old vs. new electrification but nothing on converting diesel to electric, despite ongoing conversion in India).
I have some more on my other computer.
I have had discussions with Ed Tennyson who supervised the electrification of track from Philadelphia to Harrisburg (he also testified against GM in the trolley case where they were fined $1,000). In his 80s but still QUITE sharp.
Also Bob Reuter who worked on Amtraks' electrification from New Haven to Boston.
From both I got the "rule of thumb" that energy requirements for drop by x3 in the mountains or congested urbanized areas (lots of regenerative braking) and by x2.5 on the plains.
Larry Conrad, VP Engineering of Brookville Equipment (last US small locomotive manufacturer) said that all electrics were "more than twice as energy efficient". They make small electric locos for coal mines, tunneling, etc. and are familar with all types.
This rule of thumb predates the new GE diesel-electric locomotive P-42 with about 8% fuel savings.
Another way of looking at this is both loco types have electric final drives. One uses a small diesel ICE generator with zero transmission losses, the other uses grid power with some transmission & transforming losses. Only small islands & emergency generators use diesel generators due their poor economics, a result of their relatively low efficiency and expensive fuel.
The relative thermodynamic efficiencies of grid generation vary (wind lowest, nuke next, coal slightly better (low 40% at best), NG CCGT at close to 60%, hydro at over 95% but this analysis is nonsense given the different fuel types). So I just did an electrical BTU vs. diesel BTU delivered at the loco (as do most other people). All of the well known losses in the diesel ICE in order to generate electricity fall on the diesel mode vs. the electric mode since both end up supplying electricity to an electric motor. Electric locos lose perhaps 1% in an on board transformer vs losses in an ICE motor.
Add to this the recovery of regenerative braking.
My "20 diesel BTUs exchanged for 1 electric BTU" claim came from a x8.1 gain to rubber tired heavy trucks to diesel-electric rail with an additional savings of 2.5 to 3 by going all electric, with a potential 6% to 10% T&T loss in electricity. Using a more exact number than "20" would give a misleading sense of accuracy which is not supported by the variations in reality.
Hope this helps. If not please contact me after Boston ASPO meeting (time limited till then).
Best Hopes,
Alan
The most striking thing is the advantage of rail over road and air, but electrification clearly has its advantages as well. Even a 300 km/h train (TGV Duplex) can manage over 500 passenger-mpg (gasoline equivalent) in actual service (they manage 80% occupancy, apparently). A "standard" large North American commuter train (F59PH pulling 10 bilevel coaches) with 80% of seats filled, and operating at much lower speeds, obviously, manages "only" 330 pax-mpg.
Please note that the high speed rail with electric power gets 500+ pax-mile/gallon equilavent whilst a slower (aerodynamic drag is largest drag down till about 40 mph for most rail) diesel-electric gets "just" 330 pax-mile/gallon.
Given that aerodynamic drag increases as the square of speed at lower speeds, this supports (suggestive not conclusive) my statement. An electric commuter train might get 1,000 pax-mile. I would like to get MARC fuel #s (they run both electric & diesel-electric locos in commuter service from Maryland into DC).
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
Any comments on the work of Roger Kemp and the UK debate on operating rail system efficiencies?
Environmental impact of high speed rail (2004, ppt
pdf, 2006 htm)
Take the car and save the planet (IEEE Power Engineer, 2004,
pdf)
Transport energy consumption (2004, pdf)
Comparative Analysis of Energy Consumption and CO Emissions of Road Transport and Combined Transport Road/Rail (pdf)
Rail loses the environmental advantage (Informed Sources, 6/04)
It looks like the take-home message is that to optimize energy efficiency these systems must be carefully designed and more carefully scheduled and operated. Otherwise, off-peak load factors kill their inherent efficiency advantage.