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 ...
The price of natural gas conversion here, likely contains a built-in premium to cover future liability suits.
Nope.
Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion
Info I really did not want to hear, but that’s what I gets for asking the guy who knows.
Propane is like poor cell signals, one of those bitter-sweet worthwhile prices to pay for Country Living.
Guess I’ll just have to keep plugging for a local CNG filler-er-up station for my F150.
The only things I would worry about is that full tenders being pulled to remote rail yards might be a prime target for bad folks. There might also be full tenders sitting in remote yards too.
As if there were no propane trucks -- or other CNG and LNG trucks -- on the nation's highways...
Google: lng explosions
Click on images.....
Looks like one big accident waiting to happen.
Here is a tanker in Boston harbor
http://fnnc.org/pix/lng-tanker-in-boston-565x274.jpg
It might have been more accurate for me to say “replace the inefficient reciprocating diesel with a turbine...”
While the turbine might be more complex, I have to think it would be cleaner and less maintenance-intensive than the diesels are today. They might have to add extra iron to the locomotive frame, but that actually might help, since they don’t have a big lump of iron in the form of the engine block perched way up high anymore; they can shift the weight distribution more effectively. There would be more room for braking radiators and the like.
Doesn’t most of that vibration come from the diesel engine? Besides, if a turbine can survive in an Abrams, it should have no problem in a locomotive.
Go to college.
Get an engineering degree.
Learn some science.
Don’t get fooled by emotional NIMBY’s and environMENTALists.
Natural gas works just fine in the higher compression ratios of diesel engines. I’ve installed dual fuel recip engines for smaller power plant at oil fields. You either need to provide a spark, or more commonly a little diesel to start the ignition cycle. These engines have been used for decades. Mine were 31,000 cubic inch V12s, +9,000 HP.
Yeah, the motion on the rails is certainly no worse than a tank.
My experience is with stationary turbines. I’ve been on repair jobs after it launched pieces. It is just tough to think about them shaking but they obviously have made them work for worse situations.
http://www.omnitekcorp.com/altfuel.htm
We have installed this equipment at several locations. Works pretty darn well.
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