Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
wrote in :

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
wrote in news:7417d5-p8l.ln1
@mail.specsol.com:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
wrote in news:1is5d5-uv9.ln1
@mail.specsol.com:

Jim Logajan wrote:
wrote:
LOCAL trucks, LOCAL trains, and LOCAL busses, but not those
hauling
crap between cities, much less across the country.

Absent the invention of Mr. Fusion, there isn't going to be
any
electric powered trucks hauling carrots from Fresno to
Chicago.

Ahem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive

Electric trains work in parts of Europe because a long haul
there
is what would be called just down the road in the US and for
local
transit such as the Bay Area Bart system.

What, a 2,000 mile long electric system is down the road?

Where is there an electric train system 2000 miles long?

Absent the invention of Mr. Fusion, there isn't going to be any
electric powered trains between LA and Omaha or even El Paso.

Not with an attitude like that there isn't!

Attitude has nothing to do with it, it is economics.

Who is going to pay to string up and maintain the overhead wires
for
the 140,490 miles of freight railway in the US?


Same people that pays for everything, you.

And what would be the motivation to do this unless there was some
astounding breakthrough and electricity became esentially free?



Well, when it's cheaper than diesel.... That's what we're talking about,
I believe.

OK, so there is this astounding breakthrough and electricity becomes
essentially free and you electrify the roughly 150,000 miles of
freight railway.

That takes care of about 38% of the freight in terms of ton-miles.

Then all you have to do is electrify a couple of orders of magnitude
more highways and build electric trucks.

Then all you have to do is electrify all the roads between the rail
depots, distribution centers, and all the shops, stores, and supermarkets.

If the astounding breakthrough occured, it would be far simpler and cheaper
to just synthesize diesel fuel with the electricity, which isn't done
now because the cost of the energy to do it is too high.


--
Jim Pennino

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