[Vwdiesel] EPA things

[pmdolan at sasktel.net]

First of all, your assumption is that electricity is generated without 
pollution or other environmental costs - anything but the case. 

However, the big one is that European railroads carry mostly people and 
have extremely high population density.  We have vast open spaces and 
carry big pieces cargo or very long unit trains.  Add to that, our 
electric grid is loaded to capacity now, can't see an easy solution to 
adding a pile more load without disaster.  T|hen there is the 
reliability issue:  when an incident such as the solar flares taking 
out the Quebec grid or some idiot doing switching wrong takes down the 
great lakes ring, it can be DAYS before the electric grid is up and 
running - and EVERYTHING would be shut down if it was power rail.  Ca 
take several days to get back up. 

IMHO, what is needed are energy recovery cars to store regenerative 
braking energy ih hill country.  Just add them to train.  Maybe 
supercaps, advanced batteries but best is probably flywheel (since 
tractive weight is tolerable on rails). 

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 13:33:03 -0800, William J Toensing 
<toensing at wildblue.net> wrote:
I agree with most everything said but will add one area where it should 
be government policy to discourage diesel use but instead encourage 
electric use, our railroads. Europe almost seems to do things much more 
sensibly than the USA does. Correct me if I am wrong, but my 
understanding is most if not all of Europe's, or at least western 
Europe's railroads are electrified. Here is an example of a great deal 
waste that I have never seen discussed before. To get over the Sierra 
Mountains here in Calif. the railroads have to add a couple of diesel 
electric locomotives. Then to descend the mountains, they use the 
energy to run the electric motors in reverse to generate electricity. 
What do they do with that electricity? They use it to head giant heat 
sinks cooled with fans to vent the heat to the atmosphere which equals 
wasted energy. If the railroads were electrified, that electricity 
would be fed back into the electric lines that power electric 
locomotives. Or, why not require e
>  lectric lines above the railroads to capture this wasted electricity 
> using electric locomotives to help provide power to electric 
> locomotives to assist trains over the mountains. Or, why can't diesel 
> electric locomotives be built to run on electricity only where 
> railroads are electrified? Then, since the state of Calif. is so 
> concerned about diesel pollution, require that all railroads be 
> electrified, as they do in Europe?
> Bill Toensing, Nevada City, CA
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