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  • The End of Cheap Oil

  • General discussion about railroad operations, related facilities, maps, and other resources.
General discussion about railroad operations, related facilities, maps, and other resources.

Moderator: Robert Paniagua

Re:

 #545455  by scharnhorst
 
D.Carleton wrote:Scharnhorst, I’d like to assure you the western nuclear power programs are nothing like what the Soviet Union undertook. However, please remember that the Chernobyl reactor four explosion occurred under a totalitarian regime where capitol punishment could be invoked for inattention to duty. When western physicists ask their Soviet counterparts what they would do in such an emergency the reply had been ‘that can’t happen here.’
yeah and such accdent happened at 3 mile Island in U.S.A. in 1970's before Chernobyl. Althow there was no mess to clean up at 3 Mile Island it dose go to show that no matter whos running the show a melt down is still vary much possable!! Also what do you do with the waste product? after a few million years after it brakes down to its final stage all you end up with is a large block of lead.
 #545457  by DutchRailnut
 
Scharnhorst your comparing 1979 to 2008 ???
a lot has changed, both in welding (pipes etc) and in control systems and in training personel at Nuclear powerplants.
running your doom scenario over two plants, while thousands oif succesfull nuclear plants run all over the world is not being very realistic.
The French for expample has their entire electric supply by Hydro and Nuclear.
People like you, who perpetuate the sky is falling , are sending the USA back to middle ages.
with only 43 years of oil left we better tripple our elecric output, so we can run electric cars, electric trucks and electric trains.
and since building a big Nuclear plant takes 20 years from drawing to actually putting out power, we better start soon.

for more on Three Mile Island failure see:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle ... -isle.html

For more on Chernobyl see:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html
 #549886  by washingtonsecondary
 
DutchRailnut wrote:Scharnhorst your comparing 1979 to 2008 ???
a lot has changed, both in welding (pipes etc) and in control systems and in training personel at Nuclear powerplants.
running your doom scenario over two plants, while thousands oif succesfull nuclear plants run all over the world is not being very realistic.
The French for expample has their entire electric supply by Hydro and Nuclear.
People like you, who perpetuate the sky is falling , are sending the USA back to middle ages.
with only 43 years of oil left we better tripple our elecric output, so we can run electric cars, electric trucks and electric trains.
and since building a big Nuclear plant takes 20 years from drawing to actually putting out power, we better start soon.

for more on Three Mile Island failure see:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle ... -isle.html

For more on Chernobyl see:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html
OMG, you mentioned the FRENCH?? If it's FRENCH, it must be wrong! Look what happened to FRENCH fries, they became FREEDOM fries!! Ugh, please we get it... Obviously I was kidding, and I support the use of nuclear power.
 #557758  by delvyrails
 
Last year, the top additions to the U.S. electrical energy generation network were natural gas, wind and coal. They can produce electricity at wholesale rates about 6 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. U.S. nuclear plants are wildly expensive despite being the most heavily subsidized source of electricity. New nuclear plant energy has been quoted at about 15 cents per kilowatt hour.

Oil is now down to about 2% of electricity produced in the U.S.
 #557764  by DutchRailnut
 
Price quoted by whom ???
in same comparison is coal mentioned as the biggest poluter in electric generation ??
 #557979  by D.Carleton
 
delvyrails wrote:U.S. nuclear plants are wildly expensive despite being the most heavily subsidized source of electricity.
Subsidized by whom, exactly?

Re:

 #558493  by slchub
 
Brad Smith wrote:I don't know the article you're referring to, but I learned a lesson about the accuracy of all the Chicken Little prognosticators during the Y2K panic.
I wonder if Brad thinks we are still in a "boom era" if you will?
 #559867  by 2nd trick op
 
I've been around for most of the show re nuclear power to date. When I was a high-schooler, the number of nuclear plants on line could be counted on your fingers, but one, PP&L's Susquehanna double-reactor, was on the drawing board for a site only about two miles from the farm where I grew up. In those days, pop-science textbooks all extolled the vrtues of recycling spent nuclear fuel through the use of "breeder reators", but this technology seems to have fallen into disrepute.

By the time I was fnishing my undergraduate studies, the popular work on nuclear power was Poisoned Power by John and Arthur Tamplin. Most of the science majors I palled around with in those years were involved in the life sciences rather than tecnological fields, so their embrace of the authors' skepticism may be a bit biased. The book was re-written in the wake of the Three Mile Island fiasco by John Gofman, and I readily admit i have not had the opportunity to peruse the refinements on both sides of the issue.

But to return to the primary subject of this thread, one of the more interesting reads I've found is The Oil Factor, first published in 2000 by Steven and Donna Leeb. It's worth notin that at that point in time, the likeliehood of a new surge in oil prices driven by the industrializing nations was acknowledged within the industry, but the squeeze "at the pump" was just getting under way, and was temporarily interrupted by factors related to the events of 9-11-01. The Leebs predicted a series of rises in oil prices followed by short-term re-stabilization (the book is intended primarily as an investment-strategy guide), but I don't think they anticipated either the magnitude or the rapid pace of the price surge post-Katrina.

Of the alternative energy sources roposed, the Leebs are most bulllish on wind power; they agree with many of the anti-nuclear criticisms, geothermal is hard to harness due to the constant shifting of the sources, and solar power, while popular with the greenest of the Greens, is waiting on technological breakthroughs that may never come to pass.

Which brings me to the point: All of the Western transcontinental lines pass through the "empty quarter" -- areas that are both flat and thinly-settled; ideal locations for "wind farms" feeding catenary.

As with so many of the energy/transportation/infrastructural issues which have arisen in the last few years, this one involves an industry which has now been undergoing a slow-but strong revival for a number of years, but remains solely responsible for the development of a very expensive and immovable fixed plant, and is confronted by a public which, due to changing demographics, has a much less realistic concept of the realities of both operations and economics involved than it would have had two generations ago, voicing its opinions through media which hold only a slightly better grasp of the issues and constraints previously cited, and elected representatives focused almost exclusively upon the short term.

Clearly, we all have a lot of work to do.
Last edited by 2nd trick op on Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:28 am, edited 3 times in total.
 #559887  by delvyrails
 
2nd trick op, your points are well taken. I note that the total U.S. wind power electrical capacity grew 46% last year, according to an article in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer. There is plenty of potential wind power at some points across the transcontinental railroads, but the economics of long-distance electrified freight railroads are appalling.

When LA Metrolink's somewhat shorter commuter rail network was being planned, some wanted it electrified; but it was found that electrification would double the capital costs and that it would be more expensive to maintain, too. Today, long-distance and diverse freight routings would require that most of the main lines be electrified almost simultaneously. Including new power generating points and transmission lines all along the rail lines, catenary, substations, new locomotives, etc., the capital cost could approach a trillion dollars. A lot of useful alternative improvements could be made--and incrementally made over time-- at a lot lower cost.
 #559899  by David Benton
 
I disagree , it would be worth electrifying short sections of mainlines . probably where there are steep grades , certainly anywhere that helper locos are used .
I wonder how the economics of electrification are improved if the cantenary is also used as a power distribution line .?
 #559954  by delvyrails
 
The usual voltages for railroad catenary, which could fall disastrously on the track below, are 25,000 and 50,000 volts. Those voltages are uneconomical for long-distance transmission. In this country, the lowest voltage normally used in such electrical transmission appears to be 115,000 volts. These conductors are only strung from towers much higher than the catenary in order to keep those conductors away from the human environment.

Isolated small-scale grade- and tunnel-type electrifications existed in the past, but they were removed because of their marginal economics after the steam locomotive was replaced by the much more efficient diesel-electric.
 #560239  by UPRR engineer
 
slchub wrote:
Brad Smith wrote:I don't know the article you're referring to, but I learned a lesson about the accuracy of all the Chicken Little prognosticators during the Y2K panic.
I wonder if Brad thinks we are still in a "boom era" if you will?
Something aint it, least its a little easier for someone to grab a hold of where we're headed now when it's brought up. There's still alot of optimism out there. I'm still planning on the worst, everything is still going down just like predicted, US dollar, Banks, other energy prices, US and Global economy, housing market....

I had to laugh the other day, I finally gathered up my stash into one nice group... as me and the wife stood back and looked at what ive bought so far to insure our survival, she stated "that's enough"... i thought otherwise. We're really teetering now i believe, as far as seeing some hard times if something were to happen to disrupt our supply.
 #562582  by David Benton
 
delvyrails wrote:The usual voltages for railroad catenary, which could fall disastrously on the track below, are 25,000 and 50,000 volts. Those voltages are uneconomical for long-distance transmission. In this country, the lowest voltage normally used in such electrical transmission appears to be 115,000 volts. These conductors are only strung from towers much higher than the catenary in order to keep those conductors away from the human environment.

Isolated small-scale grade- and tunnel-type electrifications existed in the past, but they were removed because of their marginal economics after the steam locomotive was replaced by the much more efficient diesel-electric.
Here supply lines are 11k , 33 k , 66k , 110k , 220k .
The more localised the distibution , the lower the voltage generally .
Our main trunk railway is electrified at 25 kv , but has a supply wire at 50kv along its entire lenght . i have wondered if extensions to it could also be used a a supply line to electricity companies
 #575220  by 2nd trick op
 
I'm no xenophobe; I have a number of friends with both European and Asian backgrounds, and my one brother married into a Franco-Belgian family. But I've seen enough of the class-consciousness, high taxes, reliance on foreign workers and restrictions on personal freedom in the Old World to recognize that I don't want my nation to go down that path. And I think I have a lot of company.

And unfortunately, the continuing drain upon or remaining domestic oil supply, due largely to our own failure to to cut consumption, is sending us down that path. The trends I've cited above have arisen in part because Europe depends upon Russia and the Middle East for her economic lifeblood.

Accordingly,we have to come up with a measure that will provide us with a way to keep our own economic system functioning without being subject to the whim of nations who seem increasingly intent on taking America down a notch or two. And the best defense i can think of would be to electrify 40 to 60 thousand miles of mainline, using renewable power sources.

It will not come cheap; some of the estimates I've read place the price at one trillion dollars; thats roughly $3300 for every man, woman and child in this nation. Add in the dispatching and signalling capacity to mix this operation with a rebuilt passenger network were practicable, and you might be doubling the price.

And from the viewpoint of the here and now, it will not be any more efficient. all the alternative power sources currently under research have serious drawbacks The two nations most concerned about dependence on foreign oil, France and Japan, have eschewed breeder reactors due to the relative abundance of easily-enriched uranium and thorium at present. That leaves the long-term question of waste disposal/recycling unaddressed.

And it will not "solve" the problem from the point of view of those who hope for a return to the days of bigger vehicles and greater mobility. We will still have to cram ourselves into smaller and smaller cars and find an alternative to the highway tractor-trailers whaich have to be used at some point in just about any distribution system. But we can benefit from better rail passenger service only if we have a resonably convenient and reliable way to access it.

But the alternative would be to start down the road that will leave us just one more stagnant nation. The global-warming crowd and other groups who see a safe future as unattainable without a few more layers of bureaucracy often appeal to foresight; to leaving more for those who come behind us.

I agree: but my ancestors did that for me by refusing to stay in their place in a dead-end society. We owe it to our successors to do the same.
 #575368  by delvyrails
 
Much as I would prefer to write that rails can be the major factor in saving the nation energy-wise, they haven't the leverage to do so. According to figures I've seen, railroads use only about 2% of our energy; but automobiles use about two-thirds of our oil.

So the biggest impact would come from changing what powers our cars. The replacement technology is here, thanks to the early obstinacy (but later collapse) of the California Air Resources Board which a decade ago mandated introduction of zero-emissions vehicles. As a result,thousands of battery-electric vehicles in various body types were introduced (by lease) to Californians, who drove them and generally reported favorably on them before the carmakers recalled them.

Several carmakers are introducing for sale vehicles within the next two years that charge overnight on our nighttime-underutilized electric grid. They are either full-battery or battery-gasoline hybrids. This a consumer, not a bureaucratic, method of change. It may take some tax money to stimulate the change; but it's for incentives, not for massive hardware. It'll be up to the citizens: they can replace their present gas guzzlers with electric cars during the normal 15-year replacement cycle.

As for the other third of oil use (and the use of natural gas, coal, and uranium), S David Freeman, among others, shows us how to shift both energy sources and end uses (example: heating of water would shift from natural gas to solar power). The dirty sources will shift to the ever-cheaper renewable energy sources (see his book "Winning Our Energy Independence").

It can be done, and profitably, too. So it will be good for the economy. I'm optimistic.