Why aren't all US freight railroads electrified?

[JK98]

"Transferring 85% of truck freight to rail, and electrifying half of US railroads, which the author considers to be possible with a large enough investment (see Appendix Four), would save 2.3 to 2.4 million barrels/day. That is 12% of USA oil used today for all purposes, not just transportation."

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4301

[CrowdAds]

[Marvin the Martian]

And where will all that electricity come from then?

[dfkt]

[FreeZ5]

Are any US freight railroads electrified now?

Steve

[Adub]

All of the trains in Ontario are electric, but we create like 70-80% of all nuclear power in north america so its cheaper for Ontario/Canada to use it.

[FrododorF]

screw electricity, we need orphan powered trains

[McDougal]

lol...good luck with that ;D!

[Marvin the Martian]

So I guess a train is too big to be powered by these....

[McDougal]

holy crap those are big batteries...I wonder what you'd be using them for?

[FreeZ5]

Originally Posted by Adub

All of the trains in Ontario are electric

You are talking about Ontario Canada right? Or did I miss the sarcasm tag?

I can't think of a single train that's electric, not even commuter trains. Street cars and Light Rapid Transit OK. The TTC got rid of the electric trolley buses.

BC Rail even ditched their electric locos for the Tumbler Ridge coal mines.

Steve

[FreeZ5]

Originally Posted by FrododorF

screw electricity, we need orphan powered trains

Hot air powered would be good. There's enough politicians, lobbyists, etc.

Steve

[JK98]

Originally Posted by Adub

All of the trains in Ontario are electric, but we create like 70-80% of all nuclear power in north america so its cheaper for Ontario/Canada to use it.

Not quite. The US produces almost eight times as much electricity from nuclear than Canada. The US is still the world leader in producing electricity from nuclear, even though we haven't built a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country


Around 19% of the electricity generated in the US is from around 100 active nuclear power plants. Roughly 45% of the electricity in the US is from coal, around 24% from natural gas, around 6% from hydroelectric, around 4% from other renewables(solar, wind,geothermal), and less than 1% from petroleum products.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/electricity/epm/table1_1.html

I guess having all freight trains in the US being electric is too optomistic, and the goal mentioned in the article of having 80% of the ton mileage electrified
is more reasonable. The funny thing is that 44% of railroad freight tonnage in the US is coal used by power plants to generate electricity. I guess virtually all this coal is moved by diesel powered trains that burn the diesel to generate the electricity for their electric motors.

[JxK]

Why so many trucks and no electrified roads? Likely because of the lobbyists. If ever there was a legalized form of bribery, it is lobbying...

The auto lobby would never stand for anything to challenge the dominance of trucking. In fact, they're the reason we use trucks instead of trains in the first place. And the oil lobby is far too powerful to ever allow electrification (or the loss of trucks) until they are good and ready to come out with the implementation.

Corruption and shortsighted politicians never make for a good combination...

[The DarkSide]

Wow, another EPIC THREAD c/o JK98!!!

PS:

[JK98]

Perhaps it is all about politics. I was initially just thinking about reducing oil importation by electrification of freight trains and moving from trucks to electrified trains. The cost savings from a reduction in wear on highways, reduction of highway fatalities, and the decrease in highway congestion(requiring less new highway construction) are also very important benefits of moving to electrified trains.

[McDougal]

Originally Posted by The DarkSide

Wow, another EPIC THREAD c/o JK98!!!

PS:

lol, +1!

[Adub]

Originally Posted by JK98

Around 19% of the electricity generated in the US is from around 100 active nuclear power plants. Roughly 45% of the electricity in the US is from coal, around 24% from natural gas, around 6% from hydroelectric, around 4% from other renewables(solar, wind,geothermal), and less than 1% from petroleum products.

That doesn't seem to take into account surplus nuclear power from other countries the US purchases. I don't trust those wiki numbers.

Originally Posted by FreeZ5

You are talking about Ontario Canada right? Or did I miss the sarcasm tag?

I can't think of a single train that's electric, not even commuter trains. Street cars and Light Rapid Transit OK. The TTC got rid of the electric trolley buses.

BC Rail even ditched their electric locos for the Tumbler Ridge coal mines.

Steve

All of GO transit are diesel-electric, most TTC busses are diesel-electric, and all the steet cars are 600V DC.

[FreeZ5]

Originally Posted by Adub

All of GO transit are diesel-electric, most TTC busses are diesel-electric, and all the steet cars are 600V DC.

All trains are diesel-electric. IE diesel engines are used to generate AC or DC power (varies from engine-to-engine).

So by your logic, all freight railroads in the US are already electrified.

Steve

[JK98]

Those percentage numbers are calculated from the data on the Energy Information Administration website for power generated based on fuel source. They are based on power generation, not power consumption.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/electricity/epm/table1_1.html

[Adub]

Originally Posted by FreeZ5

All trains are diesel-electric. IE diesel engines are used to generate AC or DC power (varies from engine-to-engine).

So by your logic, all freight railroads in the US are already electrified.

Steve

Point taken, though not all trains are diesel-eletric as there are plenty of countries that use non diesel powered trains, and japan i believe is nearly completely electric.

I would think the reason most large countries don't convert to electric is because of the insane costs involved in converting existing lines to electric, it wouldn't be economically feasible.

It would be horribly irresponsible for the US government to even think about undertaking something like this. Financial/Bank reform is a far more important issue in the US if they don't want to be owned by china and japan in 20 years.