"Big rigs will have to slash fuel consumption by 23 percent".

[user removed]

Originally Posted by Clev

Could the hydraulic accumulators also be used to supply power to the existing hydraulics, i.e. compactors, liftgates, etc? Listening to an idling diesel rev up just to compress some trash really grinds my gears.

Clev the braking energy lost could be used for compaction or any other function, especially the terrible waste of braking energies with the exorbitant cost of brake repairs on trash trucks.

regards
Mech

[redneck]

Yeah, I forgot all about the hydraulic hybrid system that Eaton is working on. Perfect for trash trucks that have short duration high start up loads with the added benefit of regentive braking to recharge the system with all those stops.

Definitly a win-win.

So why don't we see them everywhere...???

>

[dcb]

the price/research hump is too large for the market to clear on its own I guess.

[jakobnev]

How far is America willing to go to avoid the obvious: Electrified rail.

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by jakobnev

How far is America willing to go to avoid the obvious: Electrified rail.

To infinity, and beyond!

[t vago]

Originally Posted by Patrick

To infinity, and beyond!

Okay...

Tell me how we're supposed to expand our electrical infrastructure when the industry is so heavily regulated that it's going to be impossible to get coal or hydroelectric plants built, and next to impossible to get gas or nuclear plants online. Heck, tell me how it's going to be done with solar or wind turbine, when the amount of extra capacity needed to build a viable electric rail would end up costing the consumer more than it does by merely shipping using big rigs now.

I'm certainly very curious as to how that's going to happen, and I don't want to hear excuses that contain the phrase "Big Oil," either.

[p38fln]

We currently have a fairly decent train network for freight - the passenger network sucks in every way imaginable, but as for freight, you can get just about anywhere by train.
There are currently freight services offered by several of the larger carriers (Schneider and JB Hunt for example) that utilize trains as part of their routes. Their trucks pick the freight up at the factory, load it on to the train, then the train takes the freight cross country, where another one of their trucks will unload it and deliver it to the store. This is called 'intermodal' freight, but is limited to freight that isn't time sensitive - trains are nontoriously slow, taking up to a full month to deliver freight during the busiest times of the year. The fastest I ever saw was a full week from Marion, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois - which is less than a day by truck.

As for expanding the electrical network - trucks are some of the most fuel efficient vehicles on the highway, getting about 16.6 g/100 miles to move 22 tons of payload. The average pickup truck gets about 12.5 g/100 miles to move 5 tons (If it's actually being used as a truck).

if enough pickup trucks were used to haul the same amount of payload as one semi-trailer, they would burn 55 gallons per 100 miles traveled (Actually a little more because you wouldn't use half a truck but this is just rough calculations)

A train is more efficient, and would burn about 5.5 gallons of fuel to travel 100 miles with 22 tons of freight (According to BNSF's '1/3 the fuel' estimate).

Railroad - 0.25 g/100 miles per ton of freight
So big trucks - 0.75 g/100 miles per ton of freight
Pickup trucks - 2.5 g/100 miles per ton of freight
4 Passenger car @ 40 MPG with 1000 pound weight carrying capacity
- 5 g/100 miles per ton of 'freight'

I used the 40 MPG figure, based it off of what I remembered about a Toyota Corolla, and didn't take anything off for running at full load. For the pickup truck, I used 8 MPG which is about the worst case scenario, although they can get considerably more with a low profile aero trailer - I got 14 MPG pulling a tractor for example. For the semi, 6 MPG is just about the industry wide average.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by t vago

Okay...

Tell me how we're supposed to expand our electrical infrastructure when the industry is so heavily regulated that it's going to be impossible to get coal or hydroelectric plants built, and next to impossible to get gas or nuclear plants online. Heck, tell me how it's going to be done with solar or wind turbine, when the amount of extra capacity needed to build a viable electric rail would end up costing the consumer more than it does by merely shipping using big rigs now.

I'm certainly very curious as to how that's going to happen, and I don't want to hear excuses that contain the phrase "Big Oil," either.

How is anyone, corporate or governmental, going to "expand our electrical infrastructure", without the demand to support it? Also explain how it's "government regulation" that is holding back the nuclear industry, when no one but the rubber-stamping NRC will insure a nuclear plant?

[dcb]

Lets not get another heavy thread, nobody here has the answers to these questions. We can evaluate electric rail in another thread perhaps, starting with basic efficiency numbers, then make it make sense for the masses once it clearly makes sense by itself.

Old Mech is right to bring up Hydraulic Hybrids here though, absolutely.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by p38fln

As for expanding the electrical network - trucks are some of the most fuel efficient vehicles on the highway...

But in the long run, it doesn't matter how fuel efficient trucks or diesel-electric trains are, if we don't have the fuel.

OTOH, I figured out once that you could run the current US rail system by building just 19 1 GW reactors - and that's just 1-1 replacing the energy from current diesel, without figuring the higher efficiency of electric, and the recapture of braking energy on the downgrades.

I sometimes see trains belching diesel smoke while going over Donner Pass, one struggling uphill westbound from Reno, another eastbound from Sacramento, and wonder why no one can seem to see that two electric trains, timed right, could do it practically for free.