If you pay attention to any serious rail advocate (no matter how "green" their proclivities) you will see that electric rolling stock is vastly superior, but only catenary fed. Battery-Electric rail is a fairly useless dead end, mainly desired by US planners who have no interest in learning best practices from other places.
No doubt the diesel engine will continue to be very useful in a large number of situations where electrification is impractical, and synfuels are an excellent way forward in this regard (even using solar - look at what Terraform Industries is up to). But mainline rail need not be primarily diesel.
One (non-rail) example of what you might call a third way (but really just tailoring the machine to the need) are partial catenary bus systems - small battery systems in electric buses which run a large portion of their route under catenary. It’s an elegant solution that captures some of the benefits of electrification (in particular particulate reduction in high population areas) at a lower material cost.
Keep in mind that the US (and Canada) have a lot more long distance rail lines than in the EU. It would be a monumental task to electrify those long distance lines.
Not highly relevant to my point here - trying to replace the diesel engine with a battery is a Rube Goldberg absurdity, except in very narrow applications, such as in some underground mining. Yes, railways can be electrified - very old tech. If it made sense, the railroads would have done it a long time ago. Bring this up with UPRR, BNSF, etc. Also, passenger trains such as in Europe are much easier to electrify than freight lines on grades, such as is the case in the Rocky Mountains. On the steepest runs, they have to load up sometimes 6 or 8 more diesel-electric engines.
We are fully in agreement that battery electric locos are absurd.
However I take exception to “if it made sense [to electrify] railroads would have done it a long time ago” as US rail is a particular area in which operators consistently make choices often against their own interest, and in complete ignorance of best practice. That may be more true for passenger rail than freight, but nonetheless.
With that said, I do not know what the analysis would be for electrifying freight, fully or partially. For passenger rail with EMU train sets, it comes down very obviously on the side of electrification - performance, maintenance cost and uptime are far better than diesel.
I don’t see in principle why an electric locomotive might not see superior performance to a diesel-electric, particular on steep grades, but I presume electrifying all branches of a freight network would be impractical, and perhaps performance increases for all electric locomotives without the advantage of EMUs would be marginal - but I don’t know! Presumably some sharp person has performed an analysis so point the way if it’s out there.
US freight railroads are cost-of-service regulated utility. The STB sets rates. Your question goes to the railroads and the STB and is not a topic I have addressed.
Well, they use electric trains a lot in Europe. Most of Russia, including long routes all the way to Siberia use electric trains and an overhead catenary. The only justification for that is the fuel economy of electricity vs diesel fuel. That complex system just could not compete with a battery locomotive with current battery prices and energy density. You would be far better off to use battery locomotives with fast charge stations at train stations. Could be wireless charging also. A battery locomotive may make more sense than a battery light vehicle since the locomotive will optimize the economics of electric charging. I can't see diesel city buses, LRTs or trolley buses competing with battery electric. Of course the way they are pushing up the price of electricity with wind & solar scam energy vs how much they are pushing up the price of diesel fuel leaves considerable uncertainty in the future economics.
In the meantime the series hybrid diesel or methanol locomotive would be the obvious choice. Methanol being much cheaper than diesel, and an optimized methanol engine being much smaller, lighter, more efficient and much cleaner exhaust than a diesel. The methanol engine would run continuously at the most efficient speed charging the batteries which would also store downhill and stopping energy for acceleration and hill climbing.
If the electric motor can be grid-powered, that's the best of all worlds. The essay is focused on the battery and fuel density. Grid power is far more dense than a diesel fuel tank. Battery-power is absurd.
It's not one fuel fits all. Diesel is great for large engines. For most cars, battery power is way more efficient. It costs me 3 cents per mile to "fuel"my model Y and with my solar system, I don't even pay the 3 cents. What is the cost per mile for diesel in a car? 5 times more?
Costs are coming down. Batteries are moving to LiFePo which are cheaper and will out live the car. As for vehicle costs, I could have easily paid more for a gas BMW with less performance.
If you pay attention to any serious rail advocate (no matter how "green" their proclivities) you will see that electric rolling stock is vastly superior, but only catenary fed. Battery-Electric rail is a fairly useless dead end, mainly desired by US planners who have no interest in learning best practices from other places.
No doubt the diesel engine will continue to be very useful in a large number of situations where electrification is impractical, and synfuels are an excellent way forward in this regard (even using solar - look at what Terraform Industries is up to). But mainline rail need not be primarily diesel.
Right--I am focusing on the battery concept. If the electric motor can be grid-powered, that's the best of all worlds.
One (non-rail) example of what you might call a third way (but really just tailoring the machine to the need) are partial catenary bus systems - small battery systems in electric buses which run a large portion of their route under catenary. It’s an elegant solution that captures some of the benefits of electrification (in particular particulate reduction in high population areas) at a lower material cost.
Keep in mind that the US (and Canada) have a lot more long distance rail lines than in the EU. It would be a monumental task to electrify those long distance lines.
Plenty of long lines are electrified. Go read Alon Levy, Uday Schultz and others who have examined this issue in great detail.
Not highly relevant to my point here - trying to replace the diesel engine with a battery is a Rube Goldberg absurdity, except in very narrow applications, such as in some underground mining. Yes, railways can be electrified - very old tech. If it made sense, the railroads would have done it a long time ago. Bring this up with UPRR, BNSF, etc. Also, passenger trains such as in Europe are much easier to electrify than freight lines on grades, such as is the case in the Rocky Mountains. On the steepest runs, they have to load up sometimes 6 or 8 more diesel-electric engines.
We are fully in agreement that battery electric locos are absurd.
However I take exception to “if it made sense [to electrify] railroads would have done it a long time ago” as US rail is a particular area in which operators consistently make choices often against their own interest, and in complete ignorance of best practice. That may be more true for passenger rail than freight, but nonetheless.
With that said, I do not know what the analysis would be for electrifying freight, fully or partially. For passenger rail with EMU train sets, it comes down very obviously on the side of electrification - performance, maintenance cost and uptime are far better than diesel.
I don’t see in principle why an electric locomotive might not see superior performance to a diesel-electric, particular on steep grades, but I presume electrifying all branches of a freight network would be impractical, and perhaps performance increases for all electric locomotives without the advantage of EMUs would be marginal - but I don’t know! Presumably some sharp person has performed an analysis so point the way if it’s out there.
US freight railroads are cost-of-service regulated utility. The STB sets rates. Your question goes to the railroads and the STB and is not a topic I have addressed.
Well, they use electric trains a lot in Europe. Most of Russia, including long routes all the way to Siberia use electric trains and an overhead catenary. The only justification for that is the fuel economy of electricity vs diesel fuel. That complex system just could not compete with a battery locomotive with current battery prices and energy density. You would be far better off to use battery locomotives with fast charge stations at train stations. Could be wireless charging also. A battery locomotive may make more sense than a battery light vehicle since the locomotive will optimize the economics of electric charging. I can't see diesel city buses, LRTs or trolley buses competing with battery electric. Of course the way they are pushing up the price of electricity with wind & solar scam energy vs how much they are pushing up the price of diesel fuel leaves considerable uncertainty in the future economics.
In the meantime the series hybrid diesel or methanol locomotive would be the obvious choice. Methanol being much cheaper than diesel, and an optimized methanol engine being much smaller, lighter, more efficient and much cleaner exhaust than a diesel. The methanol engine would run continuously at the most efficient speed charging the batteries which would also store downhill and stopping energy for acceleration and hill climbing.
If the electric motor can be grid-powered, that's the best of all worlds. The essay is focused on the battery and fuel density. Grid power is far more dense than a diesel fuel tank. Battery-power is absurd.
It's not one fuel fits all. Diesel is great for large engines. For most cars, battery power is way more efficient. It costs me 3 cents per mile to "fuel"my model Y and with my solar system, I don't even pay the 3 cents. What is the cost per mile for diesel in a car? 5 times more?
it's not the fuel. It's the battery. Any idea why an EV costs $25k more than a gasoline car?
Costs are coming down. Batteries are moving to LiFePo which are cheaper and will out live the car. As for vehicle costs, I could have easily paid more for a gas BMW with less performance.
May I suggest you keep on reading? We are not thinking the same