Many a post and thread has been expended on the interlocking issues of railroading, energy sourcing, and the possibilities, if any, that the future will bring in terms of these two sides of the same coin, in terms of future motive power choices. We are all familiar with the issues of oil, coal, electrification and nuclear power. This morning, as per usual, I was watching television with my morning coffee. My wife said something that I did not catch and so I turned the sound off. I was watching the screen while she spoke. There was a large lump of coal being followed by an equally large crowd…huh? That got my attention. GE Coal technology was the product being advertised. I turned the sound back on. John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek was being interviewed. He made alot of interesting observations, one of which struck me. He said every generation makes the mistake of thinking it’s contemporary problems are “the worst.” He used recent news and compared the severity of what’s going on to what happened in The Civil War. Short version is The Civil War was worse. What he said next is the point, as a society because of this way of looking at things as “worst”, completely discount the relevance of the past. Last night I was re-reading “Black Gold-Black Diamonds,” by Eric Hirsimaki, about the dynamics of the PRR decision to dieselize along with other hold outs like the C&O and N&W. There were two chief factors for this reluctance to give up coal fueling their motive power. It was not only the fact that their major customers were coal producers, but, in fact, these roads made a substantial income in traffic derived from supplying coal to other roads to burn as fuel in their motive power. On the PRR, this traffic derived from supplying fuel for other roads amounted to 10.9% on top of the 16 million tons it consumed in house. Railroads as a end user consumed 25% of all coal mined. December 11, 1946 was the Pearl Harbor for
In a nutshell-no. Right now, literally millions of jobs are going overseas, where the labor is cheaper. Where would you find all the manpower required to run a modern day,big time, steam railroad? Hint-they won’t want to do hard work for low pay.
On a related note, I’ve often thought what a big learning curve it must have been for railroads and railroaders to change over from steam to diesel.
Certainly we will use more coal and less crude oil in the future, but it’ll be in liquid and gaseous form, not as a solid.
For this to happen, the price of crude will have to stay at current levels, steadily, for a bunch of years. I bet it won’t unless our gov’t acts to remove price volitility risk for syn fuel investors.
I’ll bet we see $35/bbl oil and $1.50 gasoline, at least for a brief moment, before this year’s out.
Here’s an interesting position paper on how to get usable fuels from coal.
In other words, it’s not a return to coal so much as it is a new utilization of coal to fit the liquid fuels infrastructure.
However, it’s still cheaper to combust coal directly than it is to gasify/liquify it, and that gets back to Wallyworld’s hypothesis of whether some form of direct coal combustion via neoclassical steam is less expensive than dieselization. Whether we’re talking about the Fischer-Tropsch process, the Karrick process, the Bergius process, or some other method of indirect liquification, there are costs associated with each processing step. There’s also the direct liquification concept of low rank coal water fuel as marketed by Silverado, in which it is surmised that this fuel might work in a combustion turbine if not a compression ignition engine.
The question then is which method of utilizing coal will work best.
I agree that oil may have that potential - maybe less so gasoline because there aren’t enough refinaries around to keep all of the SUV’s out there in gas on account of NIMBYism and “boutique” gasolines. Sometimes I wonder about the wisdom of the Big 2.5 automakers – you can tally up how much gasoline refining capacity is out there, that capacity is constrained, and that pretty much constrains the total market for large cars and small trucks or automobiles in aggregate.
My instinct tells me that the Peak Oil scare is overblown from the standpoint of actual geologic resources, but that the high price of oil is real for the near term on account of the venality of various actors – the inflexibility of auto makers in offering more fuel-efficient cars, the desire for big cars and trucks that won’t go away – I believe that consumers are postponing auto and truck purchases waiting for a turn in gas prices to buy what they want rather than being resigned to high oil prices and buy a small car, and that in itself keeps prices up, the socialist vogues and fallacies governing many oil producing provinces (nationalize/demonize those with the money, talent, and technology to keep the oil flowing and then wonder why production keeps tailing off – think Venezuala, Iran, and others).
I think it is a mistake to believe that high gas prices by themselves will drive the public to demanding/accepting more passenger trains because 1) current passenger trains are not that much a fuel saving - automobiles and airplanes have improved while trains have been of pretty much the same weight and aerodynamics with somewhat improved Diesel locomotives, 2) gas prices move in boom-bust cycles.
If oil doesn’t go down to 30 dollars/bbl soon, all of those alternate sources will start kicking in if they don’t get mired in environmental restrictions, but
I find that railroading and paradigm shifts are a fascinating subject although I appear to be in the minority. In 1946, even as the tidal wave of dieselization began, the PRR upper management viewed their diesel purchases as a stop gap measure until the research and development of new coal driven motive power could be perfected, and even more amazing they were very concerned about protecting their patent rights on this technology even as the profitability of diesel motive power was undeniable. Only the decreased profitability of the PRR as a larger organisation halted this research and development as their financial condition worsened. Returning to our era, it is worthy to ponder when the oil does become scarce and it of course it eventually will, is it certain we will have to relive the pangs of reluctance we experienced going from coal to oil? It is interesting to note, at least to me, when one reviews developmental motive power today, nearly 99% of it is oil fueled…is this a replay of the past?
Another interesting backstory is a comparison of Nikola Telsa and Edison. What does this have to do with railroading you may wonder. Telsa demonstrated and perfected radio controlled weapons in the late 1800’s, won a Supreme Court suit against Marconi that proved beyond any doubt, that he invented radio, he developed polyphase transformers, flourescent lights and alternating current transmission we now use. Ask any school kid who Telsa is and you will draw a blank stare. Go to the Smithsonian and try to find him athough Edison is amply covered.
Ask anyone who LD Porta is and you will get the same reaction. Here is a genius that in spite of the current paradigm, continued to perfect coal driven motive power through gas producing combustion coal firebeds and lempor exhausts, etc. I recall when he passed away. no one noticed. I received an e-mail from Ross Rowland who agreed after I wrote an appreciation of him, that he was one of the most unique talented gentleme
A lot of this can be explained in the differences on how European and American engineers view themselves. European engineers view themselves as men of science and often come up with these elegant but not necessarily practical solutions. American engineers also like elegant solutions but are aware of the limitations of the real world and more than willing to improvise a less elegant but more practical solution.
I would agree if we were discussing philosophy. I would also agree if oil was not an endangered species. I would agree if we were’nt sitting on a ton of coal during alot of nervous folks talking of energy as a national defense issue, and we were’nt sending kids to the desert to protect our interests. I would agree if China was’nt gobbling up more of this dinosaur poop in a competitive market. I would agree if a huge oil deposit in our backyard was’nt held by a socialist dictator that sent our president scurrying down there to shore up our sagging realtions. All the energy driven “future” motive power choices are oil fueled. Is solar power, nuclear, methane, wind power, fuel cells readily adaptable for motive power? If so, I would agree. What is practical …electrification no one can afford? In a practical sense… the answer is right under our feet and the development of new technologies to harness it in a locomotive may become a practical necessity. You dont miss your water till the well runs dry. Plan B anyone?
Oil is a long way from being or even becoming “dead”. When the time comes that it becomes more costly to develop the remoter oil fields and reserves dwindle, the cost of oil will naturally rise. It won’t be a sudden leap in price, but more along the lines of the price fluctuations that we have already seen, but with more of an upward trend.
The marketplace will adjust to that increase - existing technologies will become profitable. New technologies will continue to be developed. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Interestingly, as oil becomes more expensive, personal automobile travel will decrease. Passenger trains may even become profitable enterprises again.
I would agree if demand was static. Even the most conservative oil analysts acknowledge the inevitable drop off in production…and the higher curve of demand meeting long before the last drop is processed. In other words…cost is an issue. The cooperation of and dependance upon non OPEC countries will have to increase along with an escalation of Mideast production.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html
As others have pointed out, no one wants an oil refinery built in their back yard, whether you agree or disagree. Our capacity to even process what we have when we have it is a problem…refinery issues are behind the recent surges in cost vs demand. The geopolitical issues of oil can be added to our list…the reluctance to utilize coal reserves in light of the oil situation makes my point more cogent, is this 1946 all over again…coal to oil and oil to coal? Look at any car commercial…high horsepower …luxury cars…drive by any car lot…demand will exceed capacity to deliver…it’s happening right now…look at gas pump prices. The market is driven by a dynami
Wallyworld, thank you for your disagreement.
Oil, like many other commodities, is an elastic commodity. As the price rises, demand drops.
If the government were to implement an oil price stabilization plan wherein the price of oil would gradually increase over the next 20 years to $100 a barrel (or even $150), demand for oil would decrease considerably over those twenty years.
Our demand is not for oil, it is for energy. It is our energy usage that is continuing to spiral upwards. Oil just happens to be the current form of providing that energy.
Here is a link that perhaps is more to the point…an MSNBC story
Fortunately for all of us, Deffeyes was wrong with his 2005 prediction.
I tend to not follow the “doom and gloom” crowd, mostly because they have consistently been shown to be wrong. And even the times when they have been right, the negative consequences were relatively short-lived.
I agree completely! The problem is, that in the very short term, demand is highly inelastic. That’s a good part of the reason these small supply changes and disruptions cause big changes in price! (And why governor Bubba’s dropping of the gas tax down here after Katrina didn’t save consumers a plug nickel!)
If you reduce the risk of investing in alternatives, the return doesn’t have to be as great to get investors interested. This is truly an area of national interest where the gov’t can act for the greater good within the framework of free enterprise.
I don’t know what the stereotyping of subjectively labeling " a crowd" as yet unidentified as being as biased toward doom and gloom has to do with an honest evaluation of recognising a situation that has the potential to impact economic stability and growth. On the opposite side of the coin there is self comforting reassurance that our free enterprise system has an imaginary control over external circumstances prone to change. I would say as a pragmatic rejoiner, that certain wars, certain investments, certain policies social or otherwise have only been proven wrong in hindsight, which is the point of the exercise to recognise and avoid regret later ie mistakes. The achilles heel of capitalism is consumerism when it cannot nor should not be regulated…Gregory Bateson, the father of cybernetics said it best, ultimately the idea of control is a pathology…whether it is geopolitics, human nature, or the consumption of energy…the illusion of control whether by the market or by politicians of the oil situation is to assume either an omniscient steering of trends or…welcome to a controlled economy aka 1984. Every President takes credit for a boom economy wherein any economist worth his salt will tell you that they had nothing to do with it. Herbert Hoover looked on the bright side…in 1929.Naysayers at that time were probably labelled a doom and gloom crowd. .If you have alot of coal, why not explore as many uses for it as possible? The responses I have read only indicate a reluctance as evidenced by the PRR in 1946, that the world is changing beneath their feet…Would you label diesel advocates in 1946 as doom and gloom?
Knowing that we have fixed supplies of coal and oil do not make us purveyors of “doom and gloom”. We simply need to be prepared for when we run out of such non-renewable energy sources as coal or oil. There are going to be advances made in the field of energy when it becomes commercially necessary and commercially viable.
In 1946, it was not entirely clear where the “right” direction in motive power technology was to be. Then, as labor unrest in the mining industry heated up and rail labor won large pay increases circumstances changed. Diesels improved exponentially in the 1946-48 period. As evidence, the many “phases” of EMDs, Baldwins and Fairbanks-Morse power from that era. Alco’s hasty introduction of the 244 engine so damaged it that it fell critically behind at about the worst possible time for that to happen. Steam advocates were similarly caught by the sudden nature of the changes in the industry. Witness too, the downfall of Lima, an innovative staem builder that tried diesels too late. But how were they to have known in advance of the changes that came between 1946 and 1948? EMD guessed right. Alco, Baldwin, FM and Lima guessed wrong, one way or another.
Eventually, almost any energy source becomes insufficient. But it is a lot easier to plan for an end that is actually in sight.
Let’s say that oil production never increases from current levels. What will happen? The price of oil will go up as energy demand increases. The price will tend to increase, and demand (for oil) will tend to decrease, until the point where demand equals production.
But alternative energy sources are already being explored. Some are marginally cost efficient now. Others will become more cost efficient as the price of oil increases. It is not necessary to paint a picture of economic downfall for the purpose of trying to get people concerned about the energy future of America.
Will higher energy costs affect America’s economy? So some extent. It depends on part as to how fast those energy costs increase.
I wasn’t around when diesel ramped up, so I can’t say if there was “doom and gloom” being pushed by one side or the other. But moving to a new technology generally has no bearing on “doom and gloom” prophecy. Okay, we moved from coal to diesel. So what? Were the diesel proponents claiming that “coal is going to run out and we need to be prepared”?
From the MSNBC article that was pointed to -
The worry is whether there is something worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s waiting for us
If that statement isn’t “doom and gloom”, then I don’t know what is.
But guess what - we even managed to somehow survive the Great Depression. That period has become a blip in our history books. Is it possible that there are hard times in our future? Sure. But I, for one, will not be depending upon the government for a solution.
I am sure when you say “we” you are referring to our society and culture and not “we” as a collection of individuals, because quite a few of us individuals did not survive the Great Depression and my parents’ families were financially ruined and deeply harmed. I hope that someday, someone doesn’t refer to any other national catastrophe such as the war I returned from but some of my closest friends did not, as a “blip in our history books.” I am quite glad our government found solutions to the Great Depression, particularly revisions in tax and tariff policy, monetary supply, banking regulation, credit regulations, and loans to industry, agriculture, and the public infrastructure. I don’t think the Harding and Hoover policies continuing unabated would have quite turned the deal!
S. Hadid
Having gotten my hands greasy and smashed my fingers turning wrenches and fishing out grounds on locomotives in my misspent youth, and having made a significant part of my career understanding locomotive technology and application since that date, I’m scratching my head wondering why 1946 is some magic date. Every old head I ever knew thought the magic date was 1939 when the FT showed up. The literature that looks at this in depth – Virgil Staff’s D Day on the Western Pacific, John D. McCall’s Early Diesel Daze on the Santa Fe; Harold Crouch’s essays on New York Central dieselization – makes it clear that the die was cast by 1940-41. There was never any question in their mind what was going to happen after the FT demonstration on their railroads – sometimes during the demonstration itself.
Nor can I think of any exponential difference between 1945 and 1946. The F3 was better than the FT but not THAT much better, I think. You tell me why it was at least twice as good.
S. Hadid
Maybe someone could interest Honda in developing coal-driven (in some form) locomotion. It has never wavered from improving vehicle efficiency toward making a better car, even when gas prices were low. Now it even has a natural gas powered Civic - with a home appliance connected to a home natural gas line. No need for a “gas station” for local travel. A fuel cell car next year?
Often, to address a fundamental change in reality, it takes an outside vendor with a better way of doing things.
Also, the US now imports more oil from Africa than from the Mideast.