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this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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The problem is, what's the alternative? Unless we make some new discovery or give up on modern society, this is how we get off fossil fuels. I hate it, I just don't see another answer.
The same solution that's been around since 1879...... the electric train.
There is no environmentally friendly way to keep our current mass transit system, which is currently just everyone over the age of 16 having a car.
The problem is simple, the solution is simple, the only thing that makes it a difficult problem is because we don't have an economic incentive to shift capital away from private ownership.
First of all, electric trains require batteries, which require these minerals. Secondly, so does every electronic device in your house for other reasons.
So I have no idea why you think electric trains will do anything about mining conflict minerals.
Not trying to nitpick your general point, but electric trains can get power from an electrified third rail or overhead lines.
Generally not if they are going across the country though.
You have no idea what you are talking about..... Electric trains predate the combustion engine and were used to transport trains all over the world. You are pretending as if it's difficult to hang a wire over train tracks, or electrify a track.
Battery powered trains are largely a failure, as you are using most of the output of the battery to move the battery. They typically only have about a 100k range and are only employed in cities as local transit.
Every high-speed train on the planet is run on electrified rail, a third of all railways are electrified, this including the entirety of the trans Siberian railway.
Please explain:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-battery-powered-trains-europe-180982468/
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/first-of-many-battery-trains-enter-service-in-germany/
Also, stringing cables across vast distances where there are no cables is not some sort of simple task like you make it out to be.
Maybe read the article you posted as evidence? It's not a battery powered train, it's just an electric train that has a small battery to reap back a little energy conservation from braking. The battery is largely just a marketing tool used to sell it to politicians.
"They are designed to replace diesel multiple units and operate as regular electric trains when running on electrified lines"
The same train system.
Harder than laying rail lines across the same vast distances.....? Or harder than replacing every engine with a battery power, and maintaining those complicated engines and replacing those consumable batteries?
Again, you obviously have no knowledge about trains. Why are you so set on spreading misinformation about them?
Harder than laying rail lines that already exist? Yes. Why wouldn't it be? Or do all new tracks also need to be built?
What do you think is harder, leveling, elevating, compacting, laying down ties, and then laying and welding kilometers of the rail.....or you just digging a hole every 200 yards and hanging wire?
We are already doing things a lot more difficult by simply laying down track, electrifying it isn't going to be a problem. If the Russians could electrify rail all the way to the Pacific +50 years ago, I think we can manage.
No, you could hang wire relatively easily and cheaply. But electrifying the rail would be the best solution. Something you could easily do while doing track maintenance over time.
The rails we utilize have to be regularly replaced anyways, we aren't running on the same track we laid down a hundred years ago.
This is not a difficult material problem, this is how the majority of large nations handle mass transportation. America is just more concerned with protecting their car and airplane industry than they care about logistics or about solving climate change.
The tracks could have been laid down 100 years ago and just replaced on an as-needed basis. Why you think that rapidly laying wires all over the place in order to stave off climate change is some simple task that people just need to make an effort at I don't know.
Because it is a simple task? Compared to laying down a road or even maintaining it it's a breeze. San Francisco recently converted all of its rail to overhead wiring in 4 days.
The reason so many countries are laying down thousands of miles of new electrified rail is because it is immensely more economical and less time consuming than any other mass transportation network. It's the same reason why California is doing high-speed electric rail, because it's too economically damaging not to.
Expanding road lanes and the maintenance of these expansions would cost the state several more times than highspeed rail, and move significantly less cargo and people.
Again, you're talking about things that have already been done vs. things that have to be done. I'm not sure why you think it's easier to do something that hasn't been done yet than something that you don't have to do because it's already done.
We were discussing the solution to mitigate fossil fuels consumption while not relying on environmentally and socially exploitative battery industry.
Therefore I am comparing what we are doing to what we need to be doing to mitigate this risk. I don't know why you find that a foreign concept....
That would be like me questioning your solution of battery powered cars. Replacing every single combustion engine in America is harder to do than what we have now.....no shit. The whole point is choosing a replacement that mitigates the stated undesirable effects, which requires change.
When looking at systems of mass transit you have to compare things like production cost and maintenance to things like capacity or efficiency, in all these categories no vehicle exceeds the effective outcome of electric rail.
Somehow you have come to believe that electrifying rail is difficult when compared to other mass transit systems despite not providing any reason why. Roads are already harder and more expensive to install and maintain, and we keep on expanding them just fine.
How much in terms of would have to be used to lay all these wires and maintain them?
How much in terms?
I'm not sure what you are asking, but if it's asking how much electrifying a railway would cost, it depends on what you are doing.
The cost to electrify an existing railway is only around 1-5 million dollars a mile depending on locality. Which is cheaper than building a two lane undivided road ( 3-4 million per mile), and vastly cheaper than expanding an existing highway (10 million per lane per mile).
Again, this only seems expensive or materially difficult if you don't know anything about mass transit.
In terms of tons of CO2. That's generally how such things are measured.
Lol, please reread your question. It was an incomplete sentence, I think you may have mistyped. To answer your question.
The actual installation of electric rail would be minimal compared to a road, I mean it's not like we're having to move literal tons of material for every km of wiring.
However the real CO2 savings comes from taking diesel trains off of the tracks.
I asked about how much CO2 building it and maintaining it would emit. That doesn't answer it.
So you don't care about the total sum of CO2 involved in the project? Then what's the point of your question?
Are you suggesting we only invest in investing in solutions with zero C02 emissions?
Compared to a single highway lane
So the production and installation would be several magnitudes less than building a single lane highway.
Maintenance is a more difficult thing to estimate for trains, as most environmental impact studies include the maintenance and disposal of the actual trains into the equation.
If you want to you can figure it out yourself, but I can guarantee you that it's lower than anyother transportation network infrastructure.
Why are you bringing up building more highways? Why would more highways need to be built? There are plenty of highways and there are plenty of rail lines. The question is if building lines to electrify all of the rail lines in the world would be done fast enough with a low enough carbon output to mitigate climate change.
Because if it can't be done it quickly enough, it's not a good solution except in the very long term.
Well first of all, because we began this conversation with you claiming there isn't any better option than battery powered vehicles....... But mostly, because we are talking about a transportation network that will need to accommodate the continued growth of the population. We clearly don't have enough highways, just look at how bad congestion is in the vast majority of our larger cities, look at how much we are expanding the highways we already have. We clearly don't have enough rail, just look at how dependent we are on semi trucks for long distance shipping.
The only way to relieve this growing traffic problem is to make our transportation networks more efficient, and the most efficient and green form of transportation is electric rail, and by a large margin.
It's already happening..... As I said 1/3 of all rail is already electrified, with the majority of unelectrified rail being located in the US. We are one of the only large countries that utilize diesel engines for the majority of our rail network. Just look at Europe and Asia and see how much they are investing into highspeed rail. America is the only place that rejects public transportation options, and it's almost entirely to protect fossil fuel and vehicle manufacturers.
Couldn't you say the same about electric cars? How long do you think it's going to take to get Americans to replace over 250 million vehicles with combustion engines on a volunteer basis?
I still don't know why you are dying on this particular hill, especially considering you are clearly ignorant about the topic? You literally thought that all electric trains were battery powered..... What gives you the confidence to be so bold, yet so wrong?
Seriously, don't take my word for it. Just set aside your biases and do little research about the topic and I'm sure you would agree. There's a reason why the most progressive state in America on climate initiative is dumping billions into highspeed rail, and there's a reason why conservatives are spending millions to try and stop it.
You're still not telling me how much carbon output would be generated by electrifying every rail line on the planet.
Lol, I don't see how that pertains to this argument? You haven't answered a number of my questions, I'm just not choosing to be pedantic about it.
You're not telling how long it will take to replace every car in America, or what the carbon output of that replacement and disposal of old vehicles would be.
Stop being an academically dishonest ass, and just admit you are speaking out of ignorance.
Odd that I'm not answering the questions you asked after I asked mine, isn't it?
Expecting me to answer them first seems dishonest to me...
Lol, I have answered your question, just not to your pedantic standards. There is no study that encompasses every rail network in the world, just as there is no study that encompasses every combustion engine in the world. As the world isn't working as a single entity to fight climate change.
I have given plenty of evidence to support my argument, you have only supplied two articles that did not support your argument, and we're about the same train system.
You aren't arguing in good faith, you're just employing one logical fallacy after another because that's all you have to rely on.
You made the original claim that there wasn't a better answer than battery powered vehicles, so the burden of evidence is in your court. An affirmation made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, but I was actually trying to educate you over a very important topic.
I guess that's my fault for assuming that someone as terminally online as yourself could put their ego aside for meaningful discourse.