Yes, I’ve seen both. The question is, how much would it cost and how long would it take to convert our existing system to electricity. You haven’t answered either of those questions here. For example, if we run the electricity through the current rail, what additional equipment is required? Presumably you will need something to electrify the rails, some safety stuff that keeps folks from getting cooked, and those train thingies which can actually run on the electrified rails. All of that is going to cost money, since our current rail system is geared around diesel engines running on non-electrified rail. Most of the people who operate and maintain the current system aren’t trained or checked out on this new proposed system.
And these are just the issues at the top of the list. There will be myriad others. So…what’s it going to cost, and how long will it take to implement? (this, of course, leaves aside whether or not this is even a good idea and is just asking for some ballpark figures)
I’m fresh out…sorry (ok, so I had a bit left after all)…
What is going to be less expensive to the Dude in Phoenix? Raising the price of gas by around $2/gallon, or forcing him to move, buy a new electric car, pay for your electric train, and all the other bright ideas being tossed around? Considering the staggering sums we are talking about to try and force our current system off of oil (even if we are talking a decade or so time frame), I’m thinking that raising the price of gas at the pump would be the least of his worries.
Mind, I’m not a big fan of the government fucking with the market through taxation, but if the alternative was a War on Oil™ then it would be a matter of doing what’s necessary to avert disaster. JMHO of course.
The area around Toronto has a commuter rail system call the GO Train. There has been on going discussion about electrifying the system to replace the diesel engines.
This guy’s blog provides a rather long winded discussion about the on going issues. To make a long story short, at least one company was supposed to provide a cost evaluation for electrifying the GO system, or at least parts of it. One of the apparent problems with the study seems to be that the numbers are getting inflated to discourage it from happening.
Towards the bottom, he provides these figures:
1 km is 0.621 miles, and $1 CDN is $0.9407 USD. So in American that would be a little more than $3million per mile.
The AMTRAK System has about 21,000 miles of rail. So you’re looking about about $66 billion just to convert their lines. Then there is a cost per train.
This wiki page talks about converting from a third rail system to an overhead system. And then mentions areas such as Paris that electrified their system. In theory one could did up the cost of doing that.
One of the key benefits to using electric trains is that you can then decide how you want to produce electricity.
Currently the option is diesel, diesel, or diesel. So when the cost of diesel goes up you’re fucked.
Compare that to a system of electric trains that use oil, coal, natural gas, hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear. As the price of the first three fluctuate you can adjust. The next three once established provide sort-of-free power when conditions are right, reducing the dependence on the first three. The last one just makes sense all around but can’t get off the ground.
I’ve got an uncle in law in India that has a car with two gas tanks, one for petrol (gas) the other for natural gas. As he drives he notes the cost of each, does some crazy calculation in his head, then buys and runs off which ever is cheaper at the time.
My shitty car only runs on petrol (gas), so the price goes up I pay more, and if gas runs out I’m fucked. There is an advantage to diversifying–as has been exemplified by that poor guy in Phoenix.
I don’t know how accurate those figures are, but let’s just go with them for the sake of the discussion. I’m sure more knowledgeable 'dopers will chime in if the figures are way off.
According to Wiki, there are 140,490 route-miles simply for freight in the US (as of 2006…it might have changed by now). At 3 million/mile that would be $4,214,700,000,000…or a bit over $4 trillion, assuming my math is right. And that’s JUST for the track…I don’t know if that includes all the other infrastructure that would be needed (I doubt it), or the trains themselves, or the re-training of personnel…or the other thousands of ‘or’ conditions I’m probably missing. And this would just be one aspect that would have to change to really prosecute a ‘war on oil’.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be looking for ways to move us from oil to ???..we should be doing so. But the thing is, we ARE doing this already. We are exploring the alternatives and seeing what works and what doesn’t from an engineering, scaling and economic perspective. And ‘we’ includes more than just the US. Europe is looking at this too. The Japanese especially have a HUGE stake in finding a viable alternative. China and India as well. Just about every modern, industrialized nation on earth has a stake in figuring out the next big thing…and that leave aside the huge stake the various companies out there have in figuring out the same thing. Look at the monetary figures involved!
I’m quite serious about the costs, actually. I won’t get into the bailouts and whether they were or weren’t worth it, as that would be a hijack, but I don’t think some folks in this thread are really grasping the magnitude of the costs that are really involved in getting us off of oil by fiat change. It’s staggering…many times what even the US’s massive GDP is.
Personally, I’m for a gradual, market driven approach, with perhaps the government giving out generic incentives that don’t attempt to direct research into any one technology. One way this could be done, as I said, is simply to increase the tax on gasoline at the pump. Yeah, this would be a hardship on people…but it would be much less of a hardship than if we tried to do some of the other things suggested in this thread. Making people buy a new electric car would be MUCH tougher…and it wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons I can think of off the top of my head. It would be cheaper than trying to force the rail companies to electrify their system and run on electricity, or force the power companies to go solar or wind. We could use the extra taxes to encourage development of possible alternatives, or spend it on new nuclear power plants. Hell, we could just keep spending it on hookers and blow for that matter. The point would be to try and stimulate the market by putting a price pressure on the cost of gas at the pump, which, in theory at least, should stimulate companies to bring their alternatives to the market place. Then we can evaluate those alternatives and see what actually works (economically, socially, manufacturing/scaling wise, etc) and what doesn’t.
It does not include the cost of the trains, but if you look at what I posted it shows what it includes. Couple of things to consider:
when the price of oil goes up again, all the diesel trains will have to deal with that cost increase. The cost of having diesel trains seems cheap compared to $4trillion in upgrades, but only because the cost of diesel is so low.
Trains have to be replaced eventually, you don’t have to scrap the current ones right away. Put in the lines, then let/encourage/force the train companies to comply.
There is actually a pretty significant cost savings once you electrify a rail system. plus a host of side benefits
It’s part of the cost of infrastructure. Think of all the trillions of dollars spent right now to expand the federal highway system. 2 lanes become 4, 4 lanes become 8. I know you recognize the need for the interstate highway system. And you probably see a need to maintain and expand it. The highways near me have billions being dumped into them to expand them so more people can drive. It was more than enough money to electrify the rail lines in the area. This money is already being spent on oil-dependent projects.
What you are going to see in terms of “gradual market approach” will depend entirely on the cost of oil. I think a huge tax on oil is a great idea, because it will create both a higher perceived cost of oil, as well as a boost to government coffers.
If you follow your market approach (assuming gas at $5 or $6 a gallon) you will see very predictable results (this assumes the relative cost of electricity stays low): more hybrid (and high mileage) cars, car pools and a demand for car pool lanes, people switching to plug in vehicles for shorter use, city planning based on shorter drive times, expansion of public transit as well as non-oil-based public transit, changes to homes and home design.
Now, as intelligent individuals, we can either wait for the price of oil to go up, artificially force the price up, or side step it all and go straight to the end goals. Those goals being the results of high oil prices, ie dramatically less dependence on oil.
This concept of “war on oil” simply follows in the footsteps of the war on drugs and the war on terror which involved massive amounts of upfront government spending, and insanely draconian laws. Except, maybe this time we’d get something out of it.
I did look it over. But I’m sure there would be more things missing than just the trains. Even if that’s not the case, however, that’s still a hell of a lot of money, no?
The thing is, it’s not likely to go up enough to justify the costs any time soon, no matter what happens. If the costs continue with the same trends, then rail roads themselves will be looking into viable alternatives, and testing them out in the crucible of business and economics. Maybe electrification is the wrong answer. Perhaps natural gas will be the way to go. Or maybe it will be methane burners or fuel cells…or some other technology (maybe nuclear steam engines ;)). The point is, if you direct (by fiat) the rail roads to simply implement electrified rail (or whatever) when it doesn’t make economic sense, you not only cost a bushel basket full of money but you close off all other research. After all, if you force in a $4 trillion dollar change you aren’t likely to turn around and try and put something else in, even if the $4 trillion change turns out to be a white elephant. At that point you are stuck with whatever you get.
Why not just let them figure it out for themselves? If it makes economic sense, then they will move in that direction without forcing them to do so.
It would have to be damn significant to justify the up front capital costs. We’re talking about something that could run up to a quarter or even half of the US’s GDP for a year, after all. Your ROI would be…well, damn long I’d say.
But most of those costs were incurred over literally decades. Expansion or maintenance don’t cost trillions…they cost billions. What you are talking about here is spending trillions to get back to basically where we are today. At that point, you will still be spending the same costs for expansion and maintenance as today…but you’ll have the legacy of trillions of dollars in debt that will need to be paid down. And those trillions are JUST for rail. We haven’t even started talking about what it would cost to switch over personal transport to a non-oil based system. Or power plants (presumably at some point you’d want to declare a war on coal as well). Or all the other things. The mind boggles at what the actual costs would be. Granted, if we are talking about a half century or so, then $3 trillion isn’t so much. However, IMHO, on those time scales we are ALREADY moving away from oil.
I guess my point is that this thread seems to be trying to fix a problem that is already fixing itself, and is probably doing so as rapidly as is humanly possible, given real world constraints. Without massive dislocations, shortages and huge amounts of funding (which would be impacted by the loss in productivity such a move would have on the economy, among other things) you CAN’T just declare war on oil and have that be meaningful. It would be like declaring war on gravity or the sun.
I want to state that I am not in favor of forcing anything.
We could help the privately owned freight railroads electrify their main lines, for the benefit of the whole nation. Right now, we are choosing not to and I think that is a big mistake. Instead, we are sticking to the old normal, like it’s 1965, which it clearly is not .
A 250 kilowatt-hour battery! I reckon a train might travel quite a ways utilizin’ one of those. And in today’s e-environment, they are bound to get bigger!
I understand the top of a train represents a rather large surface area compared to most vehicles. Solar film might be installed to boost the output of the electric motor(s) for long trips- which is pretty much every trip in an electric train…
Since these batteries are so large, allow them to be installed/uninstalled. That is, say Try2B Local Windfarm charges up batteries with wind. The truck shows up, picks up the charged battery, drops off an empty one, see ya in a few days. I put my boots up on the porch-rail and watch the wind pay my bills.
Why is this company’s type of battery special? Consider this:
Batteries are likely to improve in a way similar to disk-drive space. The kinds of mechanics involved are similar, as I hope this example illustrates. IOW, yes, we can obtain enough raw materials. And, you can see how the mere opposition to the war on oil retards the progress of e-tech.
There are a lot of points on this thread and while I could answer them all, I don’t practically have the time. I’ll be back. I am glad wmfellows showed up for real this time Shall I mark you too down as an opponent to the war on oil?
xtisme: I want to point out that while you are criticizing the war on oil, you are overlooking the guy who proposes pumping our fresh groundwater deep into the earth where it cannot be retrieved, to extract some gas whose price never stops increasing and which can be burnt only once, profits maximized for Halliburton. Do you seriously consider it prudent to go down that path? Ought we commit ourselves to this for 40-100 years?
Compared to what? Total cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are around $1trillion. This year in total the US has spent over $25billion on the War on Drugs.
Well, no, I disagree. Over the past 100 years all the research done has been on internal combustion engines, at the expense of steam and electric/battery which all started out at the same time. All your arguments prove we are essentially stuck with that technology. The rail lines could have been electrified at the start, which would have been cheaper than converting, and now we are stuck.
If the government was to push a head with this plan (and I’m not actually saying they should), but if they did, all the research currently devoted to the internal combustion engine would just shift over. Industry doesn’t have any particular love affair with oil, nor does it have any reason to use it other than it’s price/availability. Cut it off and industry switches over and carries on.
After the switch you’ll start to see huge improvements in electric trains, engines, batteries, etc.
Or worst case scenario, it becomes unprofitable to ship by train, industry will respond by minimizing the distance goods are shipped. A read a book a few years ago called The Hundred Mile Diet, about a couple trying to eat locally on the West coast. They thought it would be easy because they were so close to where a lot of crab gets caught. Long story short, the crab is caught off the coast of Washington State, then taken by boat to China for processing before being shipped back.
This is why European countries dominate wind farm technology, it was never profitable/incentivized for American companies to bother researching it. Most of Europe has been working on this for decades.
Short answer is that industry works on short term gains (remember the mortgage meltdown) and have no interest in doing “what’s best for the American public.” Never have never will. If only is cheap they’ll use oil. As you suggested, if government were to interfere and make oil expensive, they’d have an incentive to switch.
And more to the point, the cost of electrifying the whole system was high, but converting just AMTRAK was pretty low. It’s entirely possible that converting the entire nation is too big a job, which is why there are alternatives such as battery powered trains. Instead, focus on electrify the commuter lines, and focus on getting more commuter lines. The US has both insanely dense populations and extremely sparse. So use the money in a “per capita” manner where you get the most return.
No, it’s like declaring war on terror or drugs. But again, to the point, if there is ever another oil crisis, or if the cost of oil suddenly skyrockets, there WILL be all the doomsday scenarios you predicted: massive dislocations, shortages, deaths. And THEN the government will be expected to do something (like stock pile massive amounts of oil) because industry will simply lag.
Every argument against this war highlights how dependent the US economy is on oil. People have no problem making fun of the Middle East for not having a long term game plan. But where it that plan for the US?
If anything happens to the supply of oil, we’re all fucked, that should worry us.
It wasn’t long ago that refined gasoline was cheaper in the U.S. than bottled water! It’s a very efficient fuel, and still quite cheap – same would say its cheapness is a problem!
The route to better alternative energy sources is private enterprise, with the market adjusted via gasoline or carbon tax. Some sort of large carbon or petroleum tax is advocated by almost all serious thinkers. The problem in America is that our Representatives keep voting the way voters (think they) want them to.
That was actually suggested by a presidential candidate in the last election. Mike Huckabee suggested we become energy independent with a “Manhattan Project”.
Not only is it possible, it could be done in a matter of years with little change in energy infrastructure using algae as a source of bio-diesel. The problem of growing it is fairly easy but currently converting it would mean a price of something like $8 at the pump.
So far government research as advanced the fuel to the point that it has been tested as aviation fuel. Not only does it work well it is more energy dense than current oil based fuels. Algae “farms” can be married to coal plants to feed off of Co2. Algae does not take up valuable farm land and is exponentially more efficient to grow than corn.
Are you saying that we just can’t go on without oil? No way to replace it? With or without a war on oil? Or is there a line somewhere, or a set of exceptions? Is it doomsday without oil, or just doomsday with oil withdrawn too quickly?
Would a proper war on oil cause a depression or a boom? If the point is simply to replace oil in every way we can, done in a manner as if there is a fire under our collective ass, wouldn’t that create much economic activity while also mitigating what you must admit are oil’s massive downsides?
It is perfectly sensible to be concerned with the costs. Sorry if I sounded otherwise.
For comparison, let’s try to measure the cost of oil. Take 20 years (at some point in the past maybe a war on oil wouldn’t have had any effect?), going back to the days of HW Bush. I only count oil imports as a ‘cost’; I see domestic oil as at worst a wash. It’s all an estimate, feel free to revise!
-20 years of oil imports, averaged to $350 billion/year = $7 trillion
-Persian Gulf War (clearly motivated on all sides by oil) = Google says only about $20 Bbillion. Really?
-Exxon Valdez spill- I can only guess
-2nd war in Iraq (why would we be there if not for oil?) = ~$700billion to ~$3 trillion
-Afghanistan War (no angry OBL over US defending Saudi oil interests, no 9/11)= $280 billion to $1 trillion.
-Deepwater Horizon oil spill- I can only guess :mad:
It isn’t obvious how to calculate the costs of the wars. There is this site.
Looks like we are in the neighborhood of $8-11 trillion. Then add two major environmental disasters, one a real record-breaker. Over twenty years, what do we have to show for it but death, pollution, and grief? Certainly not an independent energy infrastructure. For ~$10+ trillion, not even close!
Isn’t it almost as if oil has already declared war on us?
I can’t find the quote but as I remember it, it was Huckabee who said it during a televised debate: Hereis a quote that shows he wanted energy independence:
**
Places high priority on energy independence. On his campaign site, he says, “The first thing I will do as president is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term.**”
Hereis a debate quote where the term Manhattan Project was used but it looks like McCain said it. I think they left out Huckabee from the quote.
Here is a Mitt Romney site (see ‘The Time For True Energy Independence Has Come’) with the money shot. I don’t vouch for the soundness of Romney’s positions overall; just pointing out the one thing:
Shall I mark you too down as an opponent to the war on oil? 
It wasn’t long ago that refined gasoline was cheaper in the U.S. than bottled water! It’s a very efficient fuel, and still quite cheap – same would say its cheapness is a problem!