End of Diesel by 2040?

[Clive Mortimore]

How are horses on the methane emission front?

Very good, it is capturing it. 

 

You don't need new fangled flash in the pan ideas like that. Solar power is the obvious answer. Sun shines; grass uses light to produce fuel; horse eats grass and refuels; horse pulls carriage up the steep bits; gravity does the rest.

 

Its so obvious and no carbons to worry about.

And as by-product there is fertilizer for the fields of grass. That is easier to capture than the methane.

[Clive Mortimore]

And Pacers - nothing kills Pacers.

 

In the even of a Nuclear war, the Southerners would be stuck, us Northerners would just turn up at a local station where a Pacer would still be late running.

Good excuse for rail operators to say they cannot replace the pacers because they would not see a return in their investment of new diesels by 2040.

[Clive Mortimore]

I'm starting a new business manufacturing these...

 

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/C9CT8T/vintage-Hornby-railways-winding-key-for-clockwork-model-trains-C9CT8T.jpg

 

Andi

I suppose you will be applying for the job of chief winder up. :sungum:

[Dava]

Johnson Minor, more plausible than his big bro, has spent the last few years as Higher Education Minister inventing lots of things that really didnt need to be done and making lots of work with few benefits - especially for students.

 

Now exiled to be Rail Minister, a move he didnt want, he has to be seen to do 'something'. How the new policy stacks up just months after Grayling cancelled the MML and Northern electrification projects which we actually needed, I fail to understand.

 

Dava

[jjb1970]

On the bigger question, few scientists now dispute that climate change is real and linked to emissions to air. There is still debate over figures, models, mitigation options etc but the fundamental question is now pretty much agreed. Combating that climate change will require some pretty fundamental changes in energy and resource use to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The debate tends to be dominated by carbon dioxide yet nitrous oxide (associated for example with agriculture) and methane are both massively more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. We need to drastically reduce emissions, as well as combating climate change it'll probably make for a big improvement in local air quality and public health too. So reducing diesel and gasoline use makes eminent sense, personally I'm not a fan of biofuels as alternatives to conventional hydrocarbons as the eco credentials are quite questionable and there are issues about land use etc. Clearly, alternatives should be less environmentally damaging than what we use now, but what irritates me about this particular story is that the railways should have an easy ride on this one and should be well placed to take advantage of clean transport policies given that unlike some other transport modes not only is the technology already there (putting wires up) it's been proven for decades and should make financial as well as environmental sense already. If only DafT and NR hadn't dropped the ball on electrification.

[Steamysandy]

A new non steam version of Bullied Q1 will be produced with power arrangements being worked out from the Hornby trains section of 1930s Meccano Magazines.The winding mechanism will be contained within the chimney

[APOLLO]

What we do in our tiny island doesn't affect the world very much. What happens in the USA, China, India certainly does, and those three countries virtually run and depend on diesel. Few alternatives for them - renewables won't do it - billions of people in China & India are expecting rising "western like" life styles, as their right.

 

Brit15

[jjb1970]

What we do in our tiny island doesn't affect the world very much. What happens in the USA, China, India certainly does, and those three countries virtually run and depend on diesel. Few alternatives for them - renewables won't do it - billions of people in China & India are expecting rising "western like" life styles, as their right.

 

Brit15

 

Indeed, however it is worth noting that China is investing huge sums in renewable energy, pushing electric vehicles and after a shocking past is now tightening up environmental regulation. They're very aware of their own exposure to climate change and also see opportunities in clean energy etc. The USA is also investing heavily in clean energy, many are fixated on Donald's inspired insights on the evils of ecomentalism and fail to notice that plenty of clean energy projects are still going ahead there.

[jjb1970]

This isn't just about trains. Road transport is already moving towards and EV future and both shipping and aviation are under intense pressure to lower their GHG emissions. Shipping will probably see the biggest technological transition since sail gave way to steam over the next 20 years. As conservative as shipping is, it is now accepted that it isn't a question of "if" but "when" the industry will decarbonise (and how it'll be paid for......).

[Ron Ron Ron]

....OK burning the hydrogen is a pretty clean process, but how about producing the electricity to create the hydrogen in the first place

 

 

Use hydrogen to produce the electricity that is used to produce hydrogen...and so on and so on.

 

Hey! I've just invented perpetual motion. 

 

.

[The Stationmaster]

This isn't just about trains. Road transport is already moving towards and EV future and both shipping and aviation are under intense pressure to lower their GHG emissions. Shipping will probably see the biggest technological transition since sail gave way to steam over the next 20 years. As conservative as shipping is, it is now accepted that it isn't a question of "if" but "when" the industry will decarbonise (and how it'll be paid for......).

 

Ah, aviation - now there's a ready target if the number of aircraft which pass over our house at times to get in the landing stream for Heathrow is any guide.  And they're running on closer headways than the GWML.  So why do we need a third runway at LHR if the aim is to reduce emissions when the stated reason for that runway is to increase the number of emission creating instances per day?

 

Yet again non-joined up thinking seems to stalk the corridors of Whitehall

[Dunsignalling]

Ah, aviation - now there's a ready target if the number of aircraft which pass over our house at times to get in the landing stream for Heathrow is any guide.  And they're running on closer headways than the GWML.  So why do we need a third runway at LHR if the aim is to reduce emissions when the stated reason for that runway is to increase the number of emission creating instances per day?

 

Yet again non-joined up thinking seems to stalk the corridors of Whitehall

Fully joined up. If (when) it comes to a choice between Economy and Ecology, capitalist governments always make the same one. 

 

John

[SwissRailPassion]

Why wait till 2040?

A rolling programme of electrification would massively reduce diesel use within 10 years. Oh hang on.

Perhaps he could tell us about 2020? That would be a challenge.....

 

All those nice new DMUs in production with a book life of 30 years just got more expensive Mr Johnson.

 

Who is spending £360M on new Diesel engines to bolt onto Japanese electric trains for 27.5 years? Is that your department Mr Johnson?

 

The media could have field day with all this. Where are they?

[Junctionmad]

In an age when governments, economists and political commentators can't even reliably predict what's happening next year, let alone in twenty years time, or seem able to spot a s**t fan collision that's going to smack them one in the face, coming a mile off, that my old granny could recognise.

 

You have to admire their confidence and fortitude, into the face of the rest of us p******g ourselves laughing, to keep coming up with this guff.

 

From the same experts that wanted you to join the Euro, gave us diesel cars, didn't see the banking crisis coming, didn't see BREXIT coming and now predict economic doom and gloom because of it, even though thus far it has stubbornly failed to materialise, is it any wonder experts seem to have such a poor reputation nowadays oh and if you drink so much as one alcoholic drink a day you should be dead by now.

 

You see, for as long as we pay these people to keep coming up with these things, they will have a tendency to keep saying them.

 

sadly , you expose a version of the " we're done with experts " type of thinking that is dangerous in the extreme , because by definition , its suggests that the " ill - informed " are actually better at  understanding whats right. History isnt on their side in that regards.  While of course experts may make mistakes, and future glazing is a difficult task, Id prefer to have my future outlined by those with some technical knowledge rather then uninformed populism 

 

Climate change and all its associated issues is going to be an enormous challenge for the developed and developing nations, as well as localised pollution issues.  Any reading of reasonable scientific texts on the matter, leaving aside the pronouncements of politicians will show you that there are serious issues to be dealt with.  Transport in all its forms represents one of the single biggest contributors to the problem and hence why we are seeing increasing focus and  more and more determination to instigate  real change.

 

I worked in the car industry , it is was then  and remains a well known fact in the industry that diesel is " dirty " , what the industry played up to was the  rather  myopic focus on C02 and the fact that by a series of clever " tricks " , the diesel was presented as a solution , when those in the technical know, knew full well that it was largely a con job 

Edited February 13, 2018 by Junctionmad

[royaloak]

Sun shines? We should be ok in June,July and some of August then, not so much the rest of the year...

Thats easy to solve, just put some wires over the tracks and attach a few million 'daylight' bulbs to them, you could even arrange it so they only turn on when there is a train underneath them, what could possibly go wrong? 

[royaloak]

You missed out Cher.

I thought they were banning plastics?

[Finsbury]

Before the thread gets dragged on topic with facts and such dull.. A previous poster remarks on up and downy pantographs. If this were found to be unfeasible and tunnels had to be dug, surely a bit more digging and we are in the world of double decker trains (diesel, of course)?

Robots and home working for us untermensch makes such theorisation utterly redundant, obvs. (Or should that be O.V.S.B?)

 

Kindest,

Bernie

[jjb1970]

Ah, aviation - now there's a ready target if the number of aircraft which pass over our house at times to get in the landing stream for Heathrow is any guide.  And they're running on closer headways than the GWML.  So why do we need a third runway at LHR if the aim is to reduce emissions when the stated reason for that runway is to increase the number of emission creating instances per day?

 

Yet again non-joined up thinking seems to stalk the corridors of Whitehall

 

Aviation is trying to promote biofuels and offsetting as the answer, personally I think that is smoke and mirrors and a scam but it seems to be well received in some political quarters. I find one of the problems is that because very few of the key layers in government (either civil service or politicians) have real experience of the other side of the table they have an inadequate understanding of what drives commercial decision making and the mechanics of transportation. Particularly the interdependencies that govern complex transport operations. I once had the misfortune to get involved with some work that DECC as was did on marine fuel and their ignorance of fuel, the nature of shipping, fuel trading and supply etc would not have been an issue (let's face it, nobody can know everything and how many people are ever going to take an interest in marine fuel?) if it wasn't for the fact they were effectively telling bunker traders, fuel testing labs, classification societies, ship owners involved in the work that DECC knew best and would tell the rest of the world what to do when it was painfully apparent they were clueless. All good fun.

[PenrithBeacon]

...

 

The immediate effect of this policy is that new diesel trains will also become unaffordable as effectively their costs will have to be written off over 20 years.

 

...

My understanding is that BR wrote off the costs of diesels in 20 years. I don't know what the Inland Revenue allow now but I wouldn't surprised if it isn't 20 years too

[Glorious NSE]

My understanding is that BR wrote off the costs of diesels in 20 years. I don't know what the Inland Revenue allow now but I wouldn't surprised if it isn't 20 years too

That's not quite the same thing...

 

If you bought it, own it, and use it yourself you can pick a number that suits you (within reason).

 

If you buy it for the purposes of renting it out, and it's lifetime has now been virtually halved based on what you originally assumed it would be capable of, the value of asset you need to recover stays the same, but you have less time to do it in - therefore you may be looking to increase your rent when you can.

 

In terms of future trains (what David was saying...)...

 

Last week a DMU vehicle costing £1m (say) with a life spread over 40 years (say) is £2083.33 per month.

Today, the same DMU vehicle will still cost £1m, but with a life spread over 22 years comes in at 3787.87 per month.

 

Again, very simplistically, before any kind of "profit", no attempt at NPV, many assumptions on ROSCO's planned timescales etc...

 

 

 

[MarkC]

Politicians/cockroaches  - to-mate-to/to-mar-to

 

Good point, well made

I thought they were banning plastics?

 

Only if you turn back time...

 

[asmay2002]

That's not quite the same thing...

 

If you bought it, own it, and use it yourself you can pick a number that suits you (within reason).

 

If you buy it for the purposes of renting it out, and it's lifetime has now been virtually halved based on what you originally assumed it would be capable of, the value of asset you need to recover stays the same, but you have less time to do it in - therefore you may be looking to increase your rent when you can.

 

In terms of future trains (what David was saying...)...

 

Last week a DMU vehicle costing £1m (say) with a life spread over 40 years (say) is £2083.33 per month.

Today, the same DMU vehicle will still cost £1m, but with a life spread over 22 years comes in at 3787.87 per month.

 

Again, very simplistically, before any kind of "profit", no attempt at NPV, many assumptions on ROSCO's planned timescales etc...

You're making a very big assumption that the diesel engine lasts as long as the train does.  The simple fact is that it doesn't.  At some point you will have to replace the engines if you want get 40 years life out of the vehicles.   The replacement engine doesn't have to be diesel. 

[frobisher]

I'm never too sure about the environmental benefits of hydrogen technology.

OK burning the hydrogen is a pretty clean process, but how about producing the electricity to create the hydrogen in the first place

There's a proposal to produce hydrogen in Orkney using the excess power produced by the wind turbines that can't currently be exported southwards due to lack of capacity on the undersea cables at present, so there's at least part of your answer...

[47164]

Mmmm if the pc and veggie brigade have their full control by then we won't even be able to tap cattle as a source of methane !

[Glorious NSE]

You're making a very big assumption that the diesel engine lasts as long as the train does.  The simple fact is that it doesn't.  At some point you will have to replace the engines if you want get 40 years life out of the vehicles.   The replacement engine doesn't have to be diesel. 

That's a fair point - though whatever you replace it with would also need to be compatible with the rest of the train, and I'm not sure what that replacement could be as of right now.

 

So for example, if it's got hydraulic transmission as virtually all DMUs have then converting it to an EMU is not going to be a simple swap, neither would hydrogen-electric which shows possibilities. 

 

I don't *think* hydrogen in an internal combustion engine has been done in a rail application yet?

 

Suppose you could just convert the fleet to run on vegetable oil and that would be 'not diesel'.