Posted on 01/27/2014 5:08:39 AM PST by thackney
The diesel-burning locomotive, the workhorse of American railroads since World War II, will soon begin burning natural gas — a potentially historic shift that could cut fuel costs, reduce pollution and strengthen the advantage railroads hold over trucks in long-haul shipping.
Rail companies want to take advantage of booming natural gas production that has cut the price of the fuel by as much as 50 percent. So they are preparing to experiment with redesigned engines capable of burning both diesel and liquefied natural gas.
Natural gas "may revolutionize the industry much like the transition from steam to diesel," said Jessica Taylor, a spokeswoman for General Electric's locomotive division, one of several companies that will test new natural gas equipment later this year.
Any changes are sure to happen slowly. A full-scale shift to natural gas would require expensive new infrastructure across the nation's 140,000-mile freight-rail system, including scores of fueling stations.
The change has been made possible by hydraulic fracturing drilling techniques, which have allowed U.S. drillers to tap into vast deposits of natural gas. The boom has created such abundance that prices dropped to an average of $3.73 per million British thermal units last year — less than one-third of their 2008 peak.
Over the past couple of years, cheap gas has inspired many utilities to turn away from coal, a move that hurt railroads' profits. And natural gas is becoming more widely used in transportation. More than 100,000 buses, trucks and other vehicles already run on it, although that figure represents only about 3 percent of the transportation sector.
The savings could be considerable. The nation's biggest freight railroad, Union Pacific, spent more than $3.6 billion on fuel in 2012, about a quarter of total expenses.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Why liquified? Compressed NG works well and there is plenty of room for storage even on an adjacent car.
Because CNG requires not only more space, but heavier cars to contain the pressure. More mass required to be moved to provide the same fuel.
More info at:
Natural gas fuels:
CNG and LNG
http://www.agilityfuelsystems.com/why-natural-gas/lng-vs-cng.html
Volumetric (Vehicle range) reasons. Compressed natural gas is still 1000 times the volume of it’s liquid counterpart.
In Russia you may easily convert any vehicle using internal combustion to either natgas or propane for $200-1500. There is an industry since 1980s. I think 9 in 10 commercial vehicles are natgas powered there.
Meanwhile out here in rural USA we are stuck using propane(and getting skinned alive).
Since the engine only drives a generator, this may be a splendid idea. I wonder what the range of such a setup (one engine and one tank car) would be.
It doesn’t require much modification to allow a diesel to run mostly on natural gas. You just can’t run only on nat gas without a spark plug.
Putting the LNG on a Westport LNG Tender, rather than simply replacing the diesel fuel tanks on existing locomotives, offers a number of advantages:
More than 10,000 gallons LNG capacity—provides longer range than a diesel locomotive, reducing the need for LNG refuelling infrastructure and refuelling stops
Intelligent fueling controls will allow tenders to supply fuel to natural gas locomotives from virtually any manufacturer, reducing operational complexity and investment in different proprietary fuel supply solutions
Each tender can support two locomotives, reducing the capital investment required to move to LNG
Utilizes an industry standard vehicle design and 40’ LNG ISO tank, which minimizes cost and will allow production volumes to be rapidly increased as the industry migrates to LNG
Typically for freight locomotives, the preferred natural gas medium is liquid natural gas (LNG). Due to its density, five times more LNG can be stored in the same size container than compressed natural gas (CNG), saving valuable space and making refueling less frequent.
http://www.energyconversions.com/tender.htm
Keystone will reduce rail demand by about 20%! (NOT) Sorry Mr. Buffett!
Of course it depends on how much compression, but it is going to be more like 2~5 times, not 1,000 for typical transportation-type storage tanks.
I think that will be LNG, not CNG on the ships.
Shell to Build LNG Fuel Plants in U.S., Canada
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324539404578340720866319476
Same reply as the other thread for the readers of this thread
I think that will be LNG, not CNG on the ships.
Shell to Build LNG Fuel Plants in U.S., Canada
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324539404578340720866319476
Sorry, I mixed up threads. Too many open windows...
And then new locomotives can replace the heavy reciprocating engine with a lighter turbine, and save even more fuel.
I am not quite understanding this,having just read an article about how natural gas is expected to be increasing in cost. Being just a consumer heating with natural gas,maybe this cost increase was directed at us?? Or maybe the article I read was completely wrong?
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