California to Require ‘Zero Emissions’ Passenger Trains After 2030, Freight After 2035
by Joel B. Pollak 4.28.23
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has enacted new regulations that will require “zero emissions” trains to be introduced after 2030, focusing on a sector often seen as a “green” alternative to cars and trucks.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Under the new regulations, zero-emissions models will be required for all switch, industrial and passenger locomotives built after 2030 and for all freight line locomotives built after 2035. Any non-zero emissions locomotive that is 23 years old or more will not be allowed to operate in the state past 2030.
The regulations also require train operators to open a spending account by July 2024 that they must deposit into every year to purchase or lease cleaner diesel trains and buy zero-emissions infrastructure. Operators that generate more pollutants are required to deposit more into the spending account, and the amount required to be deposited would also increase every year.
It is unclear how the new regulations on trains would affect interstate commerce, which is regulated by Congress under the U.S. Constitution, since many trains in California also travel through other states.
Where does California get the electricity for electric trains from? Buy it from Arizona as the usually do? Also expect a bottleneck at Needles, Yuma, or any point on the CA stateline transferring from diesel to electric.
I think they are setting an aspirational goal. Also the PTC law set a drop dead date, but when it was realized that it was impossible to meet, the date was reset at least twice to a realistic time line.
Of course it is. In my opinion the sensible short-term goal ought to be zero-net-carbon emissions, with rewards for overall reduction beyond that. Since the good, in that case, is enemy of the best, the push is on to electrify road transport and completely decarbonize railroads… etc.
Note the new wrinkle here. The zero-carbon choices for large road power are basically hydrogen-carrier or ammonia cycle… both of which require a provisioning architecture far beyond the cost of equipment and maintenance. The Europeans building hydrogen battery trains understood this and cogently made it a priority. California, cleverly realizing it can try to compel instead of trying to help develop, proposes the strategy that it will compel railroads to pay a pro-rata share of the somewhat inchoate cost of ‘zero-carbon’ intrastate (with all that that implies regarding power swapping near state borders). It then shoots itself, in the other foot from the one it shot by restricting trucks purely by age, by imposing the 23-year locomotive restriction together with a ban on the sort of clever rebuilding that got railroads more or less en masse from having to implement Tier 4 final with SCR/DEF.
Note that there is established precedent for both CARB imposition of special equipment and maintenance instate and bans on operating equipment based only on build age. Only Federal legislation overruling interference with interstate commerce is likely to prevent the mandatory finance plan – that, or permit some sort of tax break overcoming what is basically a heavy state tax no less onerous for being put in escrow rather than appropriated and spent. I think either of those is unlikely to be achieved at present… in part, I look at the shenanigans around getting the national strike stopped, and the growing push to fabricate
Actually, I think not so much, on the implementation side. Much of that traffic can probably be handled by the kind of power RPS in Fullerton is easily able to build or convert, or if the budget or likely subsidies permit, a Joule or whatever the production name for FLXdrives is.
It’s the long-distance and interstate traffic that most suffers. But even there,
One of the timeless topics on RyPN is what happens when draconian ‘air-quality management’ gets strictly applied to preservation operations. I would be reasonably sure that there are exceptions for that rolled into the proposed legislation somewhere. But… perhaps not.
One might suspect that limiting the ‘pro-rata buy-in’ for the escrow payments might easily be adjusted to give shortlines lower contribution… or perhaps having different contribution ‘tiers’ for Class II and IIIs, or operations outside a AQMD.
The article that appeared in this morning’s SD Union-Tribune quoted Yasmine Agelidis (senior associate attorney for Earthjusticw) as stating “Locomotives have not been regualted by any entity at the state, federal or local level in the last 15 years”. There two possible take-aways from her statement with the most generous is that she is incompetent and he other is that she is flat out lying.
I was disappointed that the reporter writing the story, Tony Briscoe of the LA Times, took her at her word and didn’t bother fact checking her statement.
I am also very dubious about the health benefits claimed by the state for the new rules. IMHO, the state would be better off in minimizing the acreage burned by wildfires with better land management.
Not long ago, GM was introducing their latest EV. The company flack was asked where the power to charge the car’s battery came from. “This building…” When pressed, she didn’t know where the building got its power from.
A local official later confirmed that the electrical power for the building (and the entire complex) came from burning coal…
It’s shocking (no pun intended) how many people think electricity comes from the hole in the wall with NO idea of the backstory. Then again a lot of people have no idea of the backstory behind anything.
Personally I think there’s a lot more wrong with a lot of schools nowadays besides what’s grabbing the headlines, which I find even more disturbing than the headline topics.
Just like food comes from the grocery store. Recent meme - kid mentions to dad that it’s funny that an animal (chicken) has the same name as a food (chicken). It concluded with dad saying (as an aside) that the kid was in for a rude awakening…
Not that different from when we were Puerto Vallarta on vacation and while we were riding the bus Lynn asked me what that guy was going to do with the chicken he had slung over his shoulder. I replied that he’d probably eat it.
That is the key point because earlier California mandates were not challenged does not mean this one escapes a challenge. If the Feds challenge it based on impeding Interstate Commerce…thats the end of the regulation by the state.
In my view the state passing unfunded mandates applying to railroads that cross state lines is enough to challenge the mandate.
I would opine that the first railroad to be dinged under said mandate will be the one that will fight it - probably on the interstate commerce aspect, if that applies.