Today I was reading about power cosumption and CO2 emissions, and I ran across a blog entry from someone in Holland. Apparently he was going to travel to a consumer conference that was 100 kilometers away and had to decide if he should drive or take the train. His decision was to take the train because it was more environmentally friendly and economical than driving.
Like many people, I am skeptical of the argument that a train is more friendly than a car. Right? Cars have catalytic converters and all sorts of emission controls that reduce their output. There aren't any hefty catalytic converters on diesel locomotives.
So I decided to run some numbers and do a little research.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train#_note-0
I assumed that the fella was taking a magnetic levitation train because that's what I'd like to do. Eventhough there isn't a maglev train in Holland that could have been used, I calculated it anyway.
According to Wikipedia, a maglev train consumes 22 watt-hours of power per kilometer and per person travelling.
Maglev = 22 Wh/pkm
[2] http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric
The generation of this ephemeral electric power produces CO2. We know that power generation loses much power during transmission and distribution. According to a study done in the late 1990s on the USA, electric distribution loss was about 7.2%.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
I'll use this loss factor for my calculations, eventhough the UK study had their loss estimates at 7.4%.
Maglev = 1.072 * 22 Wh/pkm = 23.584 Wh/pkm
For a 100 km, one-way, jaunt, the maglev transportation would consume 4716.8 Wh per passenger. This is the same as saying it takes 4.7168 kWh per person to travel to his conference.
Back to the coal burning plant that is pushing electricity to our maglev train. The DOE study in [2] states that a coal fire plant produces 2.117 pounds of CO2 per kWh. At 2.2 pounds per kilogram, that means coal fire produces 0.962 kg/kWh of CO2.
We need 4.7168 kWh to run our maglev train, so that means the train really produces 4.5376 kg of CO2 during this trip.
Reality is that the traveller likely took a diesel commuter train. These trains produce a bit more effluence and CO2, so let's consider that for a moment.
[4] http://www.aeris.eko.org.pl/niem/kalkulator/Methodology_transport.doc
A diesel train is estimated to produce 0.0294 kg of CO2 per passenger-km. In this analysis, the traveller is going 200 km, so the train would produce 5.88 kg of CO2 on his behalf.
It is surprising to note that a modern diesel train produces about 30% more CO2 than its maglev cousin. If the maglev train only cost 30% more to build, maybe we'd have more of them for travel.
The final consideration is that of a passenger car. Finding CO2 emission data for passenger cars is not too easy. I had to poke around for a bit until I found a nifty UK site that had a calculator:
[5] http://www.smmtco2.co.uk/co2search2.asp
I punched in BMW 325CI SE and got 229 g/km. I tried some other cars, such as a VW Passat, and had no luck. I was able to get the rating on a Nissan XTerra SE, which was 237 g/km. Given that the SUV and the BMW sedan were about the same, this 229 g/km figure was my metric.
200 km to go produces 45,800 g of CO2, or 45.8 kg. Holy smokes, literally! That's nearly 10 times the output of a maglev train, and about 8 times that of a diesel train. Why are we still driving our cars?? Oh yeah, because we don't have trains going everywhere we need to go.
When the traveller gets to the city, he still has to take passenger transportation to get to the conference. That produces a trace amount of CO2 by way of the bus, which is likely a clean burning natural gas vehicle.
I used to be a doubter in the train versus car argument, seeing the billowy black effluence from a diesel train. Now, though, I am convinced. If you truly have a choice, then you should make the train your choice of transportation. It simply is cleaner.
Like many people, I am skeptical of the argument that a train is more friendly than a car. Right? Cars have catalytic converters and all sorts of emission controls that reduce their output. There aren't any hefty catalytic converters on diesel locomotives.
So I decided to run some numbers and do a little research.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train#_note-0
I assumed that the fella was taking a magnetic levitation train because that's what I'd like to do. Eventhough there isn't a maglev train in Holland that could have been used, I calculated it anyway.
According to Wikipedia, a maglev train consumes 22 watt-hours of power per kilometer and per person travelling.
Maglev = 22 Wh/pkm
[2] http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric
The generation of this ephemeral electric power produces CO2. We know that power generation loses much power during transmission and distribution. According to a study done in the late 1990s on the USA, electric distribution loss was about 7.2%.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
I'll use this loss factor for my calculations, eventhough the UK study had their loss estimates at 7.4%.
Maglev = 1.072 * 22 Wh/pkm = 23.584 Wh/pkm
For a 100 km, one-way, jaunt, the maglev transportation would consume 4716.8 Wh per passenger. This is the same as saying it takes 4.7168 kWh per person to travel to his conference.
Back to the coal burning plant that is pushing electricity to our maglev train. The DOE study in [2] states that a coal fire plant produces 2.117 pounds of CO2 per kWh. At 2.2 pounds per kilogram, that means coal fire produces 0.962 kg/kWh of CO2.
We need 4.7168 kWh to run our maglev train, so that means the train really produces 4.5376 kg of CO2 during this trip.
Reality is that the traveller likely took a diesel commuter train. These trains produce a bit more effluence and CO2, so let's consider that for a moment.
[4] http://www.aeris.eko.org.pl/niem/kalkulator/Methodology_transport.doc
A diesel train is estimated to produce 0.0294 kg of CO2 per passenger-km. In this analysis, the traveller is going 200 km, so the train would produce 5.88 kg of CO2 on his behalf.
It is surprising to note that a modern diesel train produces about 30% more CO2 than its maglev cousin. If the maglev train only cost 30% more to build, maybe we'd have more of them for travel.
The final consideration is that of a passenger car. Finding CO2 emission data for passenger cars is not too easy. I had to poke around for a bit until I found a nifty UK site that had a calculator:
[5] http://www.smmtco2.co.uk/co2search2.asp
I punched in BMW 325CI SE and got 229 g/km. I tried some other cars, such as a VW Passat, and had no luck. I was able to get the rating on a Nissan XTerra SE, which was 237 g/km. Given that the SUV and the BMW sedan were about the same, this 229 g/km figure was my metric.
200 km to go produces 45,800 g of CO2, or 45.8 kg. Holy smokes, literally! That's nearly 10 times the output of a maglev train, and about 8 times that of a diesel train. Why are we still driving our cars?? Oh yeah, because we don't have trains going everywhere we need to go.
When the traveller gets to the city, he still has to take passenger transportation to get to the conference. That produces a trace amount of CO2 by way of the bus, which is likely a clean burning natural gas vehicle.
I used to be a doubter in the train versus car argument, seeing the billowy black effluence from a diesel train. Now, though, I am convinced. If you truly have a choice, then you should make the train your choice of transportation. It simply is cleaner.