Sunday Train: The Two Transitions to A Renewable Electricity Supply
The topic for this week's Sunday Train was brought to my mind when I listened to the Energy Gang podcast. They were discussing the question of whether "CSP (that is, concentrated thermal solar power)...
View ArticleSunday Train: Yet Another Airport Terminal Station Opens on Dallas's Orange Line
YAATS (Yet Another Airport Terminal Station) has opened in Dallas for the "orange line" in the Dallas Area Regional Transit light rail system. This is not at the regional airport Love Field, even...
View ArticleSunday Train: NEC High Speed Rail for Under $20b (from 15Jul2012)
Sunday Train this week is a re-run from 15 July, 2012Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy IndependenceOne of the transit bloggers that I enjoy reading is Alon Levy who blogs his observations on a...
View ArticleSunday Train: Reflections on a visit to the East Coast
Cross-posted from The Sunday Train ~ apologies for the jet-lag induced cross-posting delaysYour intrepid sustainable energy and transport reporter was recently required to engage in some official...
View ArticleSunday Train: Future of Rail Technical Symposium, Washington DC. 3 Feb, 2015
Last week in Washington DC, your Sunday Train correspondent was able to attend the "Future of Rail Symposium" held in Washington DC. The presenters discussed various aspects of building a Steel...
View ArticleElectrified rail one of best clean transport options
Crossposted from Cascadia PlanetElectrified Rail offers one of the best options to provide transportation powered by renewable energy. This meets one of the largest challenges to transitioning from...
View ArticleSunday Train: On Amtrak, I've got some good news, and some bad news.
This last week, there was the surprising start to a headline in the Washington Post that began, "GOP House and White House agree on something" ... and that something was: Amtrak funding (and pets on a...
View ArticleSunday Train: Five Levels of US Intercity Rail Policy
Daily Kos does not want me to post this story ... that is, the diary editor cannot handle the drop-outs in my WiFi here at University in Beijing, so it keeps giving me a fresh "new diary" page every...
View ArticleSunday Train: The Hole in the PA Keystone West Feasibility Study
One of the things I was waiting on last year was delivery of Pennsylvania's feasibility study for improvements on the "Keystone West" corridor. The "Keystone East" corridor connecting Harrisburg and...
View ArticleSunday Train: A Steel Interstate for the Keystone West Corridor
In the last Sunday Train, I talked about the study on Keystone West improvements commissioned by the PennDOT. This study finds that upgrades are expensive, and benefits are modest, in terms of allowing...
View ArticleAbout that emerging right-wing divide on climate change
In a recent piece posted to the Grist website, David Roberts tells us that "there's an emerging right-wing divide on climate change."Now I suppose that by "right wing" Roberts means Republicans,...
View ArticleSunday Train: Variable Renewables and Dispatchable Demand
Much of the focus on the Sunday Train is on electrification of transport, ranging from 2,000 mile hauls of electrified freight through to hopping on an e-bike to pick up some groceries. And spending...
View ArticleSunday Train: Benefits of the Maryland Red and Purple Lines
Just as national attention has been focused on the sections of Baltimore that have been largely locked out of the revival of economic activity in downtown Baltimore and the Inner Harbor, the new...
View ArticleBomb trains: the threat of annihilation and the politics of these ticking...
On the The Hazardous Materials Rail Transportation Safety Improvement Act of 2015: "This long overdue action will increase safety standards for the transportation of hazardous materials, like crude...
View ArticleSunday Train: In Worrying News, Non-Petroleum in Transport Hits 60-year High
The US Energy Information Administration released a story last week which sounded like good news: Nonpetroleum Share of Transportation Energy at Highest Level Since 1954. "Since 1954" means, since...
View ArticleSunday Train: Making An Energy Revolution
Writing for Politico, "Energy Visionary" Vaclav Smil writes in Revolution? More like a crawl: Undoubtedly, the U.S. is experiencing two notable energy transitions, from coal to natural gas and from...
View ArticleSunday Train: The New Gulf Wind, NOLA to Orlando
In this September's Trains magazine{+}, Bob Johnston looks at the history and current state of play of the eastern section of the Sunset Limited route, running from New Orleans through to, most of the...
View ArticleSunday Train: Cuomo Backs the Worst Air Train to LaGuardia
Back in January, Yonah Freemark covered the news that Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a genuine clunk of an Air Train to La Guardia airport. The proposal was, as Yonah Freemark put it, "an AirTrain that...
View ArticleSunday Train: Can Nuclear and Renewable Energy Be Friends?
There is an ongoing general discussion in the field of sustainable energy that does not carry the risk of the destruction of our current industrial society and economy about variable renewable...
View ArticleSunday Train: Hobbling & Liberating Renewables with Markets
A concept that has been percolating into debates over the feasibility or desirability of moving to an all-renewables, no/low carbon energy supply system is the ceiling on what percentage share of our...
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