Railway electrification would help solve the problem of global warming

There has been already discussion about solutions of the problem of global warming, but no one has come up with the following solution: electrification of railways.

IMO all railways in the world should be electrified (and be powered by hydroelectric powerplants). Not only they'd stop polluting the enviroment, but also countries wouldn't have to import oil for these railways, and the speed of the railway would be faster. The fastest electric train in the world (German InterCityExpress train) is faster than the fastest diesel train in the world.

have you ever considered the huge amount of energy and materials needed to manufacture thousands of miles of wire, wire posts and what not, not to mention new locomotives?

add to that resistive losses, europe is much much smaller than the the Americas, long power lines do pose problems, because you can't increase voltage arbitrarily, incurring more losses than, say a transcontinental power line.

you DO get energy back when decelerating, though, that's a strong argument in favor of electrification, but i doubt it's enough to tip the balance. hard to say, depends on the country

[edit on 29-4-2006 by Long Lance]

Originally posted by Long Lance
have you ever considered the huge amount of energy and materials needed to manufacture thousands of miles of wire, wire posts and what not, not to mention new locomotives?
[edit on 29-4-2006 by Long Lance]

Have you ever imagened a dead world that can not support life anymore because all the policy makers think like you?

We'll probably be living in domes or something within the next 50 years. Fun times ahead.

Originally posted by Long Lance
have you ever considered the huge amount of energy and materials needed to manufacture thousands of miles of wire, wire posts and what not, not to mention new locomotives?

You can pay for that. How? Terminate the thirteens for all governmental officials. That way enough money would be saved to pay for the costs you mentioned.

One small problem is that large sources of potential hydro generation in the USA have already been tapped.

Not to mention that there are some long runs for the RR's crossing America's deserts and plains.
That would require quite an infrastructure.

It's one thing to transmit power to San Diego, California from Canada, but quite another to supply adequate voltage for the railroads over very long distances.

Along with that would be the losses of investments in diesel engines and the required investment in electo locomotives along with the changes in maintenance equipment and the like.
Also required would be a considerable investment in manpower to take care of the RR's electric supply lines and grid system.

I live in a railroad town and the railroad doesn't seem to impinge on the air quality to any great degree.
(I don't work for or have a particular interest in the railroads other than admiring the amount of freight they can carry. Mile long trains are not uncommon here.)

Cars are running pretty clean nowadays.

My main curiosity about air quality would be from the airlines.
I understand there are 80,000 flights per day in the US and would guess that with the tremendous amount of fuel burned, the airlines are doing there share in contributing to the degradation of air quality.

Then again, if you refer to the global warming being somewhat contained by the dimming effect of contrails etc. maybe the airlines are doing us a favor.