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THE VIEW FROM JOHN F. MCHUGH
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RAILROAD ELECTRIFICATION
THE ULTIMATE STIMULUS PROGRAM
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THE VIEW FROM JOHN F. MCHUGH
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RAILROAD ELECTRIFICATION
THE ULTIMATE STIMULUS PROGRAM
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The 2003 New York City BlackoutWhile control of deficits is important, investments which will pay for themselves in a short period of time, increase national efficiency and reduce dependence on imported oil should be made. Where such an investment is also a stimulus package which, due to existing law, can be implemented quickly, one wonders why it is not already in progress.
This nation is huge and has two major solvable problems, ageing transportation infrastructure and a power grid which is inadequate to national needs. May I suggest, two birds with one stone.
Electrification of the railroads, with feeder transmission capacity large enough to transmit energy from wind farms and water falls into urban areas is currently exempt from all regulation so long as the facilities are used for traction by the railroad, owned by the railroad, confined to exiting railroad lands and are built without government funds.
Today, the construction of new power transmission capacity is all but impossible due to environmental and siting regulations which favor narrow 'not in my back yard interests.' Thus, our urban areas must use extremely inefficient gas turbine stand by facilities to accommodate periods of high demand. These facilities can start quickly but use expensive petroleum based fuel and are grossly inefficient when compared with other generating facilities.
Despite the need to supplement the power grid which has been obvious since the 2003 eastern blackout, it is currently estimated that due regulatory issues it will be 12 to 17 years before a transmission line can be built form the wind farms of the far Midwest to even the urban centers of mid America.
Electrification of the railroads however, can be achieved now. Such a system can provide transmission capacity between wind and other green energy sources and our urban centers as well as provide a secondary national electric grid. Thus, the approval process, which is now delaying the construction of transmission facilities for years, is eliminated or at least confined to one agency, the Surface Transportation Board which applies a single standard, the public convenience and necessity measured on a national scale.
Electric railroads can be powered by anything that can be made to generate electricity, including wind. Electrification would end the oil dependence of half or more of our critical freight traffic, a major strategic accomplishment, reducing the hemorrhage of wealth importing oil causes.
Specifically railroads can effectively connect the wind farms of the Great Plains, where the wind never stops, to urban power markets as quickly as the work can be done, not in 15 to 20 years if stand alone transmission lines continue to be the only choice of the transmission industry. In addition to railroad rights of way which crisscross the wind farm area and penetrate to the heart of all cities, railroads still own large tracts of land in those windy areas.
Electrification will reduce the nation’s production of green house gases both directly by using green energy to power the railway and indirectly by transporting such power into population centers renting surplus capacity built into the transmission lines needed for the electrification system. As the railroads go nearly everywhere, they become a supplementary national grid. Earnings from the grid will offset the loss of coal traffic which can be expected as this program should substantially reduce the nation’s carbon footprint.
Today a growing 40% of the nation’s intercity freight is on the rails and volume is increasing even in this recession. As the cost of oil increases, much additional freight will be shifted away from the highways. While the railroad is already far more fuel efficient than highway, electrified railroads increase that efficiency significantly both as to the reduction of green house gases and by increasing system capacity and safety due to far more powerful locomotives, faster acceleration, higher operating speeds and greatly increased breaking capacity due to the systems unlimited ability to absorb the energy generated by dynamic breaks. And as residents on the Eastern Connecticut coast learned with Amtrak’s electrification, electric trains make far less noise.
Short term, this program can provide employment quickly as the technology and designs to accomplish this entire program are available now off the shelf. It is assumed that the massive nature of this project will spawn national expertise in railway electrification and hopefully a domestic industry to improve upon and produce most of the components at greatly reduced costs due to the volumes in issue. For national defense purposes no component should be used which cannot be replicated in the United States.
Power company payments for transmission should render the system profitable as soon as the first line connects a wind farm area to any major market, i.e. in about two years. In New York State profits could be achieved more quickly as the western end of the State has surplus power, water power and the St. Laurence Valley has wind farms both somewhat isolated from markets by limited transmission capacity. The State’s rail system reaches both these sources of clean power and power hungry - generating capacity poor New York City. Unemployment upstate is chronic. This is a project should, if the State acts, restore some lost industries, locomotive building and production of transmission components. The potential is to generate thousands of jobs and to create a national asset which will serve future generations.
This nation is huge and has two major solvable problems, ageing transportation infrastructure and a power grid which is inadequate to national needs. May I suggest, two birds with one stone.
Electrification of the railroads, with feeder transmission capacity large enough to transmit energy from wind farms and water falls into urban areas is currently exempt from all regulation so long as the facilities are used for traction by the railroad, owned by the railroad, confined to exiting railroad lands and are built without government funds.
Today, the construction of new power transmission capacity is all but impossible due to environmental and siting regulations which favor narrow 'not in my back yard interests.' Thus, our urban areas must use extremely inefficient gas turbine stand by facilities to accommodate periods of high demand. These facilities can start quickly but use expensive petroleum based fuel and are grossly inefficient when compared with other generating facilities.
Despite the need to supplement the power grid which has been obvious since the 2003 eastern blackout, it is currently estimated that due regulatory issues it will be 12 to 17 years before a transmission line can be built form the wind farms of the far Midwest to even the urban centers of mid America.
Electrification of the railroads however, can be achieved now. Such a system can provide transmission capacity between wind and other green energy sources and our urban centers as well as provide a secondary national electric grid. Thus, the approval process, which is now delaying the construction of transmission facilities for years, is eliminated or at least confined to one agency, the Surface Transportation Board which applies a single standard, the public convenience and necessity measured on a national scale.
Electric railroads can be powered by anything that can be made to generate electricity, including wind. Electrification would end the oil dependence of half or more of our critical freight traffic, a major strategic accomplishment, reducing the hemorrhage of wealth importing oil causes.
Specifically railroads can effectively connect the wind farms of the Great Plains, where the wind never stops, to urban power markets as quickly as the work can be done, not in 15 to 20 years if stand alone transmission lines continue to be the only choice of the transmission industry. In addition to railroad rights of way which crisscross the wind farm area and penetrate to the heart of all cities, railroads still own large tracts of land in those windy areas.
Electrification will reduce the nation’s production of green house gases both directly by using green energy to power the railway and indirectly by transporting such power into population centers renting surplus capacity built into the transmission lines needed for the electrification system. As the railroads go nearly everywhere, they become a supplementary national grid. Earnings from the grid will offset the loss of coal traffic which can be expected as this program should substantially reduce the nation’s carbon footprint.
Today a growing 40% of the nation’s intercity freight is on the rails and volume is increasing even in this recession. As the cost of oil increases, much additional freight will be shifted away from the highways. While the railroad is already far more fuel efficient than highway, electrified railroads increase that efficiency significantly both as to the reduction of green house gases and by increasing system capacity and safety due to far more powerful locomotives, faster acceleration, higher operating speeds and greatly increased breaking capacity due to the systems unlimited ability to absorb the energy generated by dynamic breaks. And as residents on the Eastern Connecticut coast learned with Amtrak’s electrification, electric trains make far less noise.
Short term, this program can provide employment quickly as the technology and designs to accomplish this entire program are available now off the shelf. It is assumed that the massive nature of this project will spawn national expertise in railway electrification and hopefully a domestic industry to improve upon and produce most of the components at greatly reduced costs due to the volumes in issue. For national defense purposes no component should be used which cannot be replicated in the United States.
Power company payments for transmission should render the system profitable as soon as the first line connects a wind farm area to any major market, i.e. in about two years. In New York State profits could be achieved more quickly as the western end of the State has surplus power, water power and the St. Laurence Valley has wind farms both somewhat isolated from markets by limited transmission capacity. The State’s rail system reaches both these sources of clean power and power hungry - generating capacity poor New York City. Unemployment upstate is chronic. This is a project should, if the State acts, restore some lost industries, locomotive building and production of transmission components. The potential is to generate thousands of jobs and to create a national asset which will serve future generations.
