Affiliation Of American Rail Aligned With US DOT In Derailing Electrification

Just lately I printed an evaluation of main geographies’ and economies’ remedy of decarbonization of rail. The thesis was easy: India, Europe, and China are correctly electrifying rail quickly and the US (and by extension Canada and Mexico) are pursuing unhealthy approaches. North Individuals confirmed up in droves in feedback on LinkedIn and in CleanTechnica to make excuses. And it’s not simply the poorly knowledgeable, however the Affiliation of American Railroads (AAR) which can be denying actuality strenuously.

Within the preliminary article, I identified that three geographical areas with related geographic extents, related extremes of climate, related extremes of geography, 25% of the world’s GDP and 45% of the world’s inhabitants, had all checked out the entire information on rail and reached the identical conclusion: electrification with grid-tied catenary overhead traces and a few batteries was the reply for every part besides some tiny edge circumstances. India: 83% and rising quick. China: 72% and rising quick. Europe: 60% and rising. In the meantime, one nation and the a lot smaller by GDP and inhabitants neighboring nations of Mexico and Canada who principally need to associate with regardless of the US does, have regarded on the similar information and utterly ignored actuality.

For this visualization, I’ve added the Russian Federation, regardless of it being a smaller economic system and clearly a rogue and failing state for one easy motive: the Trans-Siberian Railway. That’s the longest railway on the planet throughout a number of the roughest, coldest, most distant, and rugged terrain on the planet. How do they hold it rolling alongside its tracks? Electrification with overhead catenary wires. It runs 5,771 miles (9,288 km). That’s over twice the width of the US. Oh, and the Russian Federation has about 37% of its rail community electrified. I’ve additionally added Mexico and Canada to make it clear that one main developed continent simply doesn’t get it.

Word: I’ve excluded Africa and South America as a result of the kilometers of rail is far decrease. There are fascinating information factors in each continents, after all, however that is centered on main rail networks in main economies. That mentioned, it’s value noting that Morocco by itself has 4 occasions extra excessive velocity rail than all of North America, and that rail is quicker too. And it’s electrified. For that matter, Australia has extra electrified rail than the US, and its inhabitants is thousands and thousands in need of Texas alone.

So what are the justifications that North Individuals make? And are they endemic within the considering of specialists in addition to random web commenters?

Properly, the primary one is that our inhabitants density is just too low to assist high-speed rail. That’s possible the most typical objection. So let’s assess it, utilizing, after all, American-supplied information.

Hmmm. Siberia doesn’t look any extra densely populated than the US Prairies or Canada. In truth, take a look at China. Have a look at these huge inside areas with barely anybody residing there. Clearly different main geographies take a look at sparsely populated areas and say, ‘electrified rail by these areas is the reply’, not ‘let’s hold burning fossil fuels within the age of the local weather disaster’. But quite a few commenters make it clear that comparative inhabitants density doesn’t say what they suppose it says.

This isn’t restricted to American exceptionalists. Right here’s a Canadian skilled, one Josipa Petrunic, president and CEO of CUTRIC, the Canadian City Transit Analysis & Innovation Consortium in 2022: “our giant geography and low inhabitants density.” It’s head-scratcher why an city transit group did a report on lagging electrification of all rail in Canada, however I assume CNR and CPR have been uninterested. The commerce affiliation, aka lobbying group for US freight rail, the Affiliation of American Railroads (AAR) doesn’t fairly play the cardboard of their bluntly and inaccurately titled place paper Oppose Rail Electrification & Assist Wise Local weather Coverage, however you possibly can hear it hovering within the background.

For Canada, after all, there’s a transparent reply. We don’t have a rail community per se, we now have a rail hall that goes east to west throughout the nation hardly ever straying extra the a few hundred kilometers from the US border. 66% of our inhabitants lives inside 60 miles (100 km) of the US border. 90% of our inhabitants lives inside 100 miles (160 km) of the US border. Rail runs by the populated strip of Canada, simply because the Trans Canada Freeway does. Yeah, one freeway throughout the nation.

There’s a rising consensus in Canada (exterior of the oil patch and its oily clingers-on) that the power hall Canada wants is a significant HVDC pipe by each province with connections down into the US alongside the best way. And there’s an apparent right-of-way operating throughout Canada by each province with connections all the way down to Canada, the rail system. And the 2 collectively counsel that combining the efforts of electrifying rail and operating HVDC alongside the rail are extremely complementary actions. Even one of many final Conservative Prime Ministerial candidates proposed in 2019 that electrical energy transmission be included with pipelines within the rail power hall.

Mexico really tried to impress a significant rail hall, however that failed. In stretches the infrastructure remains to be there, simply with out wires. Time to mud off these plans and lengthen them.

However, after all, the US is the elephant within the mattress with the beaver and the agouti. If the elephant rolls over, the rodents, no matter their uncommon dimension, are nonetheless crushed. If the elephant sneezes, the lovable and traditionally over hunted rodents get COVID.

And so again to the AAR report. It leaned on an odd examine printed by the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Rail Transportation and Engineering Middle (RailTEC) from 2016. Apparently electrifying rail is just too arduous.

Keep in mind, about 45% of the world’s inhabitants and 25% of the world’s GDP have 60% to 83% penetration of electrical rail with overhead catenary traces powering locomotives which can be normally able to operating on the catenary overheads or their inside diesel turbines. A lot of the rail traces exterior of China have been constructed many years in the past, usually nicely over 100 years in the past. Just about all electrification of those rail traces occurred after they have been constructed, added to operational rail traces. Hold this firmly in thoughts.

So what does the report say that the AAR quotes? “There is no such thing as a “off the shelf” zero or near-zero emission locomotive expertise for North American line-haul freight service.”

That’s right. Expertise which is lavatory normal in huge swathes of the world, which was added to operational rail roads after they have been constructed, with massively scaled industries delivering locomotives, doesn’t exist. I had assumed the AAR as a lobbying group was misrepresenting a report by a college, so I went to the examine in order that I didn’t malign their work by accident. However that quote is straight from the RailTec report.

I’d already dealt within the unique article with the fact that the remainder of the key geographies have equally harsh geography and challenges. However what does the AAR say? That electrifying rail is near unattainable within the US as a result of:

“This might require: Constructing a catenary system in each sort of geographic location, together with congested cities, remoted deserts, rugged mountains, and throughout rivers; Delivering electrical energy by 1000’s of rail tunnels, a lot of which lack enough house for catenary wires; and Rebuilding many main bridges to offer clearance and assist for catenary wires.”

Sure, precisely what India, China, Europe, and the Trans-Siberian of us managed to do with out breaking the financial institution. However America can’t?

There’s additionally the fascinating declare: “Moreover, an electrical locomotive in a position to fulfill the extraordinarily demanding necessities of heavy long-haul freight railroading would value way over a brand new diesel locomotive prices right this moment.” Sure, all of these hybrid diesel-electric locomotives that may have catenary adaptors added aren’t match for goal. The remainder of the world’s freight necessities are utterly completely different to North America’s. Positive.

Let’s take a look at the desk of information I labored up for the earlier evaluation. The US has a few billion fewer tons of freight kilometers (btkm) than Europe or China. Does anybody actually suppose that Europe and China have radically simpler freight rail necessities than the US?

What it does present is that the US has an terrible lot of rail that’s barely used. Taking Europe, the btkm to rail size ratio is about 16:1. China is about 20:1. The USA is about 8:1. Meaning the rail community is a lot better utilized in these nations and so it’s attainable to spend money on them. The US is an outlier in having such an inefficient rail system.

That is really one of many few accuracies within the AAR doc: “America’s freight railroads function overwhelmingly on infrastructure that they personal, construct, preserve, and pay for themselves.” Nevertheless it doesn’t get the comparability proper. As a substitute of asking if that is smart within the context of electrification of rail, it as a substitute says that inland delivery and highway freight don’t pay for waterways or roads, so it’s a aggressive drawback if rail homeowners need to spend any cash on rail. The precise comparability is to different main geographies to ask if the US system makes any sense. Guess what China, India, and Europe (together with most different nations) have in widespread. Yeah, the state owns the rails, and infrequently the rail operators too.

However within the US, rail was constructed by the unique robber barons, and continues to be privately owned and operated by modern-day equal companies. In consequence, far too many rails, and completely no incentives for the non-public companies to optimize or electrify. As a substitute they cry poor. It’s too costly for them. It’s too costly to interchange the locomotives. Even when the federal government funded the entire infrastructure work, it’s too costly for the poor rail firms and they might be uncompetitive with highway freight. Sure, the AAR paper says that.

You don’t even have to convert the locomotive a lot. The common US freight practice has about 60 automobiles. Add one battery boxcar with a catenary overhead connection. Plug it into the locomotive. Modify the locomotive barely to permit electrical energy to return from one thing aside from its diesel generator. Circulate grid electrical energy by to the locomotive when it’s linked, and use the battery to obtain regenerative braking electrical energy as a substitute of losing it by pushing it by resistance heating coils on the locomotive roof. Have the battery electrical be used for added oomph up steeper grades or odd patches the place it’s really costly to run catenary traces, just like the tunnels the AAR states are too costly to change.

On that time, Popovich, et al., printed a examine that they’d accomplished within the journal Nature Power about simply battery boxcars in 2021. A single boxcar of batteries might present motive energy for a median US freight practice for 149 miles (241 km), and the conversion to offer energy from the boxcar to the freight engine is comparatively trivial. Tunnels aren’t 149 miles lengthy. Freight engines have diesel turbines and electrical motors. That wasn’t even catenary-connected, that was simply batteries. And for individuals who listen, sure, that’s a sub-journal of the extremely revered journal Nature, and Nature Power has a five-year influence issue of 72.478, which is to say absurdly excessive. With out wanting, that possible makes it essentially the most prestigious peer-reviewed journal within the power house, and peer assessment is high notch. After all, this simply provides to the latest announcement by considered one of Germany’s greatest states that hydrogen was thrice as costly an choice for rail as grid-tied and grid-tied/battery hybrid techniques.

As I’ve printed elsewhere, my expectation is that every one inland and two-thirds of near-shore delivery will likely be battery-electric, that container delivery will develop lots whereas bulk delivery declines extra, and that containers of batteries will likely be winched off of trains and ships in transshipment ports for recharging. There are already containers of batteries being shipped with full energy connections for grid and behind-the-meter storage by Tesla, Wärtsilä, and others. That is such an apparent pathway that not accepting actuality on it makes folks look fairly remarkably dim.

Every other face palms within the AAR report? Oh, sure, partial electrification can’t work as a result of freight must be shifted between locomotives match for catenary vs diesel operation on the edges of service areas. I actually want I used to be making this up, however you possibly can learn the AAR report your self in the event you like. They make the declare that it’s each mile of rail or nothing, they radically inflate the prices of including catenary, they radically inflate the prices of hooking locomotives up with externally provided as a substitute of internally generated electrical energy, after which after all discover that there’s no attainable strategy to electrify even a single mile of rail. It’s a exceptional doc, and one whose claims I’ve heard in numerous methods from quite a few commenters.

As a reminder on that final paragraph, India is at 83% electrification, China is at 72% electrification, and Europe is at 60% electrification. None of those huge geographies are having the slightest operational challenges that the AAR claims will happen regardless of combined rail networks. It’s just like the AAR thinks nobody exterior of the US exists, or thinks that nobody contained in the US will hassle to take a look at what different nations are doing. Oh, wait, that final one is definitely way more true than not.

As I really took CNR’s freight operations course for his or her inside workers, clambered over a diesel-electric locomotive of their yards, thought arduous about and proposed rail decarbonization options for CNR, and solutioned and kicked off their automated, map-based, geofenced, asset administration resolution undertaking masking 10 provinces and 18 states, I really feel snug saying that not one of the causes that the AAR lists have something to do with why they don’t wish to electrify. CNR and VIA Rail have been each my shoppers, and I spent a number of time understanding North American rail enterprise fashions to serve them successfully, along with rail globally extra not too long ago.

The US has an excessive amount of rail laid down in a deeply inefficient and poorly maintained community. An actual resolution could be to tear up half of it to get to Europe’s ratio of rail to freight. Eliminate the hardly used segments completely. Electrify the 50% to 80% of straightforward to impress segments out of the remaining rail. Add battery container automobiles and catenary hyperlinks in a hybrid system.

Once I say poorly maintained, that is what I imply. It is a chart of derailments by trigger within the US. Just about the entire ones on the left aspect of the chart are as a consequence of poor upkeep of rails, switches, and crossings. Eliminating half of the rails whereas transferring the identical quantity of freight could be a great way to unravel that drawback.

What’s the AAR in favor of? Properly, they don’t thoughts batteries in locomotives and yard switching locomotives, so there may be that. They usually name out hydrogen. That’s it. The batteries are clearly match for goal, though placing them inside locomotives is a silly concept when containers of them might be dropped on container flat automobiles behind the locomotive so trivially. Nevertheless it’s sort of arduous to take the AAR critically about battery-electric when their place doc is known as “Oppose Rail Electrification.”

As for hydrogen, the German examine which discovered 3x the fee could be very straightforward to elucidate. Inexperienced hydrogen is made with renewable electrical energy. That’s about 70% environment friendly. Then it’s compressed and distributed at vital expense as a result of hydrogen could be very power diffuse by quantity, losing one other 10%+. Then it’s utilized in gas cells that are about 60% environment friendly. Even when the electrolyzers have been free, and so they aren’t and gained’t be, your power prices are at the least thrice simply utilizing the electrical energy straight in batteries and grid-tied functions. It’s not rocket science. In truth, the German examine might be being very good to hydrogen’s value case and making all kinds of assumptions about low-cost renewable electrical energy with excessive capability elements and low cost electrolyzer as a way to get all the way down to solely thrice the fee. It’s extra possible 5-6 occasions the fee, operationally. And artificial fuels are worse.

So why are so many individuals in North America making all kinds of absurd, simply disproven excuses for not electrifying rail? It’s again to non-public possession of the rails themselves. In Europe, China, and India, the state owns the strategic transportation asset, sizes it to want, and maintains it. In the USA, the federal government owns the roads, for essentially the most half, and the federal government maintains freedom of passage on waterways and owns the canals and locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

However in America, non-public companies personal the rails. They don’t preserve them nicely by worldwide requirements. There are too a lot of them. Somebody cited over 700 homeowners of various segments of US rail in a remark, one thing I haven’t been in a position to confirm, but it surely wouldn’t shock me.

And the rail companies don’t wish to spend any cash in any respect. Apparently they’re hoping that this whole local weather emergency will blow over, and they are going to be allowed, uniquely, to maintain burning diesel. They have to hate that as a substitute of having the ability to tout their inexperienced credentials because the lowest CO2e per mile type of floor transportation, now they’re are being pressured to wash up their act.

If the US wasn’t grid-locked on wise infrastructure methods for essentially the most half (see my dialogue with Jigar Shah of the DOE for examples partly 1 and half 2) then the US would nationalize all rail traces and infrastructure, rip up half of them, electrify the 50% to 80% of the remaining that makes essentially the most sense, and require operators to get batteries and catenary connections. However think about the US deciding to nationalize rail traces. That’s deeply unlikely. And picture the US funding electrification of the principle traces owned by BNSF, CNR, and the majors and ignoring the a whole bunch of different traces utterly. That’s a recipe for pork-barreling catastrophe from the standard suspects, so rational electrification remains to be unlikely.

The US transportation blueprint makes it clear that the nation goes to waste a number of money and time on hydrogen and artificial fuels which is able to all the time be costlier than biofuels, and as such gained’t be used.

What is probably going going to occur is the next. The US goes to go the fallacious means on freight rail. The rail firms are going to cling to diesel so long as they will. They are going to hold their diesel turbines of their locomotives operating possible perpetually. If the worth of fossil diesel within the US ever consists of the worth of unfavourable externalities and will get too costly, they’ll most likely use biodiesel that ought to be reserved for delivery of their trains as a substitute, losing a useful resource and making marine decarbonization more durable. The noise and air air pollution from diesel locomotives in city areas will persist for many years longer than it ought to. The value of freight rail will rise per ton, changing into much less aggressive with highway freight.

And wither goeth the elephant, so goeth the beaver and the agouti. As a substitute of getting rational rail electrification insurance policies, the Mexican and Canadian governments will likely be compelled to play the silly US video games. As the remainder of the world electrifies its rail quickly and provides battery-hybrid functionality, the US may have a number of battery-electric locomotives operating in switching yards, quick observe areas, and can declare that it’s a world chief.

In the meantime highway freight goes to impress quickly. It’s going to get the huge gas value advantages from operating on electrical energy as a substitute of diesel and costlier diesel replacements. And it’s going to be making the most of advances in autonomous highway transport to platoon 3-5 automobiles with fewer drivers and get breaks on hours on the highway because the operators will be capable of sleep in shifts. Decrease labor prices, decrease gas prices, no air pollution or noise points, a a lot completely different value ratio between rail and highway, and highway freight within the US goes to eat much more of the freight section from rail.

The Affiliation of American Railroads is lobbying arduous to radically cut back rail as a freight supply choice within the US. It’s the precise reverse of a rational enterprise technique.

We’ve got reached out to AAR, RailTEC, and the US DOE (EERE) with some questions and can replace this text as we hear again from them.