So far as I can determine, no one has yet drawn attention to a feature article in today’s Washington Post re: the amount of pollution that diesel locomtives contribute to the environment, particularly compared to trucks. It was not a favorable comparison. Without any other comment, I suggest that those interested check the Post website for this article. Don’t know how to link to the site but it’s very easy to find. It was not, of course, written by Don Phillips, who was released as the Post’s railroad expert a year or so ago. All is not well in watchdogland!
The Washington post’s web site is www.washingtonpost.com
Found the article on the Post’s website and suprise! You have to be a member to login. I know it’s free but I just couldn’t bring myself to accept the fact I would have to be a member of anything that is related to the Post. Anyhoo, how did they come to the unfavorable conclusion compared to trucks? Trucks are very inefficient when it comes to moving freight compared to a railroad. I wonder how they managed to twist that one around? Please expound!
While they’re at this, they oughta take their testing equipment to some of the nation’s largest airports and sniff the air there, too.
Solution;
Electrify with hydro and nuclear power !
Anyways I’m not too surprised when many older locomtives are still in use for switching and they may often burn low grade fuels. Switching does not produce a good miles per gallon . There is alot of redundant moves of equipement and smokey old engines .
Whoa!!! They cite Houston rails as a particular particulate problem? The city of refineries and auto/trucks galore?
I’m pretty sure they are hitting all venues. Those tree hugging hippies with their air sampling devices never sleep [:(]
Personal experience: when we lived in Maryland we were 4 to 6 miles south of BWI airport, in a development with a clubhouse and swimming pool. The Home Owners Association had to buy a cover for the pool because of all the jet fuel planes were dumping/leaking/sending through the engines unburned/whatever. The cover, while not cheap, was much cheaper than having the pool drained and scrubbed periodically.
Amazing. Yet there are literally thousands more diesel trucks on the highways than locmotives on the mainline. The amount of jet fuel in the air must also be at “obscene levels”.
But even the environmentalists with some common sense have to realize that as time progresses the 2nd generation diesels are being retired and the new, fuel efficient-low emissions units like the GEVOs will be blazing the mainlines and those (ugly) green goats take over switching duties. Yes, it will be a while as there are still quite a number of GP38-2s, GP40-2s, SW1500s, and GE Dash-7s in service (snap those photos while you still can).
I am quite in favor of any kind of effort to reduce polution, but please save me from the hysterics.
If you look at the chart that is included with the article you will note the following:
2007 Soot Trucks 91,000 Tons, Railroads 32,000 Tons
2030 Soot Trucks 14,000 Tons, Railroads 25,000 Tons
Just a few things. I’d have to think that underlying the stats is some kind of forecast of truck miles and locomotive miles, but there is no indication of that in the article. Suppose there is a change in the ratio between the two? A further question. Is it possible that railroad diesel engines are way ahead of truck engines in polution control technology? Anybody with a grain ought to know that the closer you get to zero, the harder it gets.
So anyway, in 23 years 77 thousand tons of soot are going to be taken out of truck exhaust streams. One wonders where it will go. Some experience drivers say it is already a miserable job.
My experience with similar “studies” in the recent past has been these “researchers” just rehash and reproject old data. Most of the pollution data acquired was from the Dash-2 era EMD 2 cycle 645, which by todays standards, is both a fuel hog and gross pollution emitter.
The recent Tier 2 710 is much better in both regards, however, they are not nearly as good as the new GEVO. GE’s big diesel is in a class all by itself from an environmental viewpoint.
A switch to low sulfur diesel fuel will help both engines, but enforcement agencies WILL up the requirements in the near future. EMD got the 710 to pass Tier2, but it will be increasingly harder to get it to pass future regulations. GE has the decided advantage in this by investing $200 million in a clean sheet, world class diesel engine design.
My advice to EMD railfans is this: Enjoy the 2 cycles now, because they will be as obsolete as steam in the next decade, from both a fuel economy and pollution viewpoint. EMD really needs to get the bugs worked out of the 4 cycle 265H engine or they are history as a new locomotive builder.
They just don’t want you to notice thier SUV’s…Hey look … it’s elvis …
Blah blah blah, global warming, blah blah blah. What about the billions of cars, trucks, and planes?
Not a very useful ariticle if the focus is “what should we do about NOx and soot?”
All it does is compare total emmissions by mode in 2007 and 2030. Not normalized for ton-miles, cargo value-miles or anything useful. There is no discussion over whether it would be beneficial to move more freight by rail. Looking a the stats in the article and guessing that rail will still have a significant total ton-mile edge over truck in 2030, I’d guess that moving more by rail and less by truck would still reduce overall emissions.
The great proposed reduction in truck emissions suggests that there is some technology currently under developement to be applied to truck diesels. Is this technology transferrable to rail? What would be the impact? What would be the cost? That would be interesting to read about.
The Wash Post article generally left me with a “so what?” feeling.
The drive by media strikes again![%-)] They got it 100% wrong, as I expected. And they got their “jollies”,"defending the planet from the emissions of our machines! Never mind that they benefit from the products the rails haul into DC and elsewhere…[D)]
Hey! I have two SUVs and both of them pass required pollutions emissions testing every two years. They might use a smidge more gas, but I knew that when I bought them.
You can’t get away with a polluting vehicle in the Chicago metro area very long. They’ll eventually take away your drivers license – after a series of big fines.
Good points. You’ve asked the appropriate questions the author and her editor apparently didn’t think belonged in the article, because they had their greenie agenda already set. A really good writer would have foreseen authenticity of the “statistics” she employed to make her point being questioned by intelligent readers (as is being done here in this thread), and diffused those queries in the original piece. But the reason this wasn’t done?
Because the entire premise of this Washington Post article is ridiculous, just like the host publication. To write a critical piece based on some liberal think-tank’s wild speculation and then to put “guessed” numbers of soot levels 24 years into the future into a table (which, not so coincidentally lends it an ersatz air of authority) is nothing more than creating controversy for controversy’s sake. Bad journalism, for my money.</
Why are 2-cycle diesels are less able to meet higher emission standards than 4-cycle diesels? I have never heard that before. I know that 2-cycle gas engines have higher emissions that 4-cycle gas engines because the 2-cycle gas engines burn their lubricant in addition to their fuel. But that is not the case with 2-cycle diesels.
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Even though 2 cycle diesels do not mix the oil with fuel like two cycle gasoline engines, the cylinder design of EMD’s allow a greater amount of lube oil past the rings into the combustion chamber than a 4 cycle diesel. Lube oil being burnt = more pollution.
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The two cycle combustion cycle is simply not as effective for a complete fuel charge burn as a 4 cycle engine. The fuel charge is not fully burnt which = more pollution + less fuel economy.
There are ways to mitigate the above two problems, but they can never be reduced to the levels of a four cycle design. Once pollution reduction regulations and/or fuel economy needs rise above a certain threshold, the 2 cycle design is not competitive (i.e. the reason why Detroit Diesel stopped making heavy truck 2 cycles ). The fuel economy portion of the last statement is one of the main reasons why GE has sold close to 4 times as many GEVOs as EMD has sold ACes to date.