Posted on 03/07/2013 9:12:05 AM PST by thackney
Once everything gets converted, the maintenance savings would be astronomical.
Fuel Savings alone will me Billons of dollars per year.
me = be
With all the recently discovered/recoverable shale gas, it’s about time!!
Assuming the cost differential between the two fuels doesn’t decrease dramatically, then even the conversion and maintenance costs would not erase the savings.
In fact, locomotives being powered by CNG makes more sense to me than millions of automobiles.
Yeah, buddy! Imagine what the price of diesel could do with an extra 1.3 billion gallons released back to the marketplace.
Just to keep us in reality, it would take many years to convert all of their locomotives to LNG, and that 1.3 billion gallons represents ~2% of the US diesel/fuel oil market.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MDIUPUS1&f=A
Still a good thing, but this alone isn’t going to send prices falling far and fast. But every bit helps.
LNG works better for something like a train over CNG. Also works good for long-haul trucking and fleet serviced vehicles like garbage trucks and UPS, etc.
Replacing 1.3 billions gallons of diesel fuel with natural gas reduces carbon dioxide emissions by about 5 million tons a year. And that’s just from this one company.
So if an environmentalist asks “What can I personally do to help stop global warming?” say “support fracking!”
I don't know what that means. Translation?
How much of the savings would be neutralized by the explosion of one LNG tender car in the wrong place?
Diesel = 8500 cal/l, while LNG = around 4500 cal/l.
That means that you’ll need almost twice the LNG to generate the same energy as with Diesel.
So when you talk about price, right now LNG is so low that buying twice the energy is still cost advantageous.
What’s likely to happen is that locomotives will go truly hybrid - LNG AND Diesel. When the price point on LNG gets to the point where it makes more sense to use Diesel, they will.
BNSF is looking to differentiate the supply chain in order to create price competition between sources.
Fish and foul, not fish or foul.
Since LNG first has to be vaporized, then the methane diluted to 15% concentration before it can be ignited, there is no way to explode and LNG tanker.
The price spread.
Diesel is now approaching $4/gal. The cost of an equivalent amount of energy from natural gas is less than $2.
I think weight is a bigger consideration to a train over volume. That is what takes the energy to accelerate and lift over hills.
1 million BTU = 12.1 gallons LNG = 42.4 lbs LNG
1 million BTU = 7.2 gallons diesel = 51.5 lbs diesel
Diesel - less volume to carry but more weight vs LNG.
A gallon of diesel fuel cost an average of $3.97 last year, according to federal statistics. The equivalent amount of energy in natural gas cost 48 cents at industrial prices.
Berkshire’s BNSF Railway to Test Switch to Natural Gas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324539404578342540494619344.html
To get around the subscription requirement for some Wall Street Journal articles, you can search for the title and click the link from the search engine.
First link at the above search.
Does the diesel price ($3.97) include road taxes, which wouldn't apply to railroads? Thought about that after I'd posted.
The $3.97 is the average for highway grade price, so it would include the tax.
If I read Chapter 1 Fuel Taxes Page 7 of the following correctly, that tax applies to trains as well.
Publication 510, Excise Taxes
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p510.pdf
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