‘Biocoal’ Fuels Steam Train Comeback
28th May 2012
Forward into the past!
The university, along with Sustainable Rail International, are to restore a 1930s locomotive – 3463, a 4-6-4 Hudson-type loco built by Baldwin that’s spent its retirement at the Kansas Expocenter in Topeka – as a test bed for bio-coal. The locomotive has already been stabilized prior to the trip to Minnesota for restoration.
If all goes well, the university says, it expects to create the “cleanest, most powerful passenger locomotive”, costing less to maintain and fuel than current diesel-electric locos.
And, since there’s no point in ambitions if you don’t make them big, the consortium also hopes to take the restored loco up to 130 miles per hour (nearly 210 km/h).
Good luck finding tracks that will handle that speed in modern America.
Its biocoal – cellular material processed into a solid fuel – exhibits the same energy density and material handling properties as coal, the university says, but without coal’s heavy metals. The biomass is also carbon-neutral, and produces less ash, less smoke (sorry to those for whom the ‘magic of steam’ includes the smell of burning coal), and fewer volatile off-gases.
Note there’s no discussion of how much it costs. Which means that it’s far more expensive than real coal.
May 28th, 2012 at 09:31
Wonder why the Left has such a fascination with trains. Chances are pretty good that most of them have never ridden on one and wouldn’t ride it even if it was available.
I guess once an idea makes it into the Little Red Book of Leftist Rhetoric it just never goes away.
May 28th, 2012 at 11:51
It was great news, and if really becomes viable considering so many factors, i.e capital cost, running cost, Green energy, less emission, there is no reason why it should not be tried out. I guess India is a very good market for this. How about starting off one project for the Indian market. If this fuel is really produced in a massive commercial way, wildly thinking can it also be used in Thermal power plants ??????
May 29th, 2012 at 13:46
When you see “bio-” added to the front of a word, you should hang on to your wallet because the cost is going to be astronomical!