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| Re: Newest Most Powerful Diesel Electric Locomotive QUESTION (269577) | |||
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Re: Newest Most Powerful Diesel Electric Locomotive QUESTION |
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Posted by WillD on Wed Jun 21 00:32:00 2006, in response to Re: Newest Most Powerful Diesel Electric Locomotive QUESTION, posted by RonInBayside on Tue Jun 20 21:18:41 2006. I've recently seen an article in Scientific American about the prospects for very low sulfer synthetic diesel fuel made from lignite and brown coal. Apparantly we have tons of lignite which the powerplants and steel mills don't want to burn but could be extremely useful if turned into synthetic diesel fuel. Through several sulfer reduction processes the diesel fuel that results from the coal liquifaction could be cleaner than the diesel fuel which comes refined crude oil. If the coal derived diesel fuel can be used without modification in the existing diesel locomotive fleet then a significant portion of our transportation infrastructure could be insulated from foreign demand or supply fluctuations all while reducing emissions. I've always wanted to see the railroads electrify to accomplish these things, but when compared to coal burning powerplants it could well be cheaper and have a greater impact on emissions to switch to coal derived diesel.There'd be an odd symmetry to this technology since it'd bring the railroads back to being powered by the coal mines that they serve, just as the steam locomotive fleet did more than 50 years ago. |
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