Is shipping freight by rail and water better for the environment?

[rangerrebew]

Is shipping freight by rail and water better for the environment?
October 11, 2018 by Cody Januszko, 

Transporting freight by road accounts for around seven percent of the world's total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Recognizing that heavy road freight is particularly hard to decarbonize, Carnegie Mellon University researchers have published a paper to review the ways that goods can be transported via alternate means, such as by rail or water, to reduce both emissions and energy use.

In a recent paper, Decarbonizing Intraregional Freight Systems with a Focus on Modal Shift, published in Environmental Research Letters, a team of Carnegie Mellon Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) researchers, led by EPP Ph.D. student Lynn Kaack, explore strategies for decarbonizing freight transportation and policies to encourage the shift. The team also included Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation faculty affiliates Parth Vaishnav, M. Granger Morgan, and Inês Azevedo.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-10-shipping-freight-rail-environment.html#jCp

[Fishrrman]

Imagine a train like this, a mile long.
How many trucks is that?

[Smokin Joe]

Rail and water are great--where you have rail and water.

Moving rail and water around gets expensive, and consumes resources, which I doubt were factored in.

[SolutionaryRail]

One thing I deeply appreciate about the subject of rail transport is its capacity to transcend ideology and get to real problem solving.

About 6 years ago I was challenged to "Green" a 2008 paper on the Northern Transcon.  I assembled a team and worked on the project for a few years before publishing the book Solutionary Rail in late 2016. 

Here's the 3.5 min video we created last year to introduce the ideas in the book. 
http://SolutionaryRail.org/srvideo

I hope you will find it an excellent compliment to the article from the Carnegie Mellon team.

May this be a source of common cause in otherwise divisive times.

Forward!

Bill Moyer

 

[IsailedawayfromFR]

what I see in this article is defining the carbon emissions and fuel usage of either one as better or worse for the environment.

Besides the obvious response that it may be better to have higher CO2 emissions than lower to hasten plant growth, there is zero contained in article about environment effect from say occupying land for rail systems or for how ship discharges effect water pollution.

[Sighlass]

Just a heads up, I imagine this Bill Moyer (SolutionaryRail above) is the leftist in this video.


https://vimeo.com/194827714

https://vimeo.com/backbonecampaign (for a list of his antics)

Yep, a environmental radical leftist nut.

[RoosGirl]

Just a heads up, I imagine this Bill Moyer (SolutionaryRail above) is the leftist in this video.


https://vimeo.com/194827714

https://vimeo.com/backbonecampaign (for a list of his antics)

Yep, a environmental radical leftist nut.

From that first video, by the interviewer Sam Champion, "It's tough to pin you guys down...."

Bullshit it is, they're commie scum that support the likes of antifa, per video at 1:31.  Who let this piece of shit join the forum?

[rustynail]

Carbon dioxide is Not a pollutant.

[Free Vulcan]

Rail and water are well utilized in this country. The county I live in is on the Mississippi and has one of the busiest rail lines in the nation. Trust me when I say they are busy.

Problem is rail and water aren't everywhere, and much less so than they used to be when smaller rivers were dredged for transport and far more rail lines existed.

In Iowa rail lines are around 30 miles apart going east-west for non industrialized areas.  There aren't many north-south rail lines anymore, most that are, are connector lines and not long distance. To get freight to places in between you need trucks.

Other types of freight are also more conducive to be shipped by truck because of the kind of freight and the time factor involved. Retailers like Walmart couldn't do what they do with rail.