Seattle WA - An article on the Crosscut web site brings to light an interesting slant to the rail debate. The environmental impact of building a light rail line.
The writer, Emory Bundy, does a rather good job in pointing out that building a rail line has a much more serious impact on the environment than the pro-rail and environmentalist crowd would have you believe. Remember, rail is sold to the public as being good for the environment but the environmental costs are completely ignored.
Bundy states: "As an offset, Sound Transit claims it will save 14,000 tons of CO2 annually by running light rail trains on electricity, sparing the region emissions that otherwise would be generated by automotive traffic. Even if granted, it would take 90 years from completion of the line to break even on the energy transaction. If Sound Transit should manage to cut tunnel-related greenhouse emissions in half, by aggressive use of hydro electricity and human labor, an implausible proposition, it still would take 45 years to break even."
That's a long time to just break even on the environmental carbon footprint but Bundy failed to mention that even in the time frame given, the line still wouldn't break even on the environmental costs. Why? Even taking the shorter of the two times, 45 years, the line would have been rebuilt several times over. Each rebuild making more of a carbon impact and adding more time before the line breaks even on it's carbon footprint. The number also doesn't take into consideration the day to day maintenance on the line which also will add to the carbon footprint. In short, the Sound Transit extension will never pay for itself environmentally but will continually add carbon debt that will never be paid off. And no, buying carbon credits from Ozone Al won't cover it.
Actually, this whole carbon footprint nonsense is just that, nonsense. I am pointing this out the way I am simply to show people that rail isn't as environmentally friendly as proponents like to make it out to be. Those who are rushing out to buy "carbon offsets" (I could do a whole series on that scam) for a trip to the store will be shocked to see that the environmentally friendly rail line they take to work isn't as eco-friendly as they thought. As green is one of the big selling points for expensive rail projects, the public needs to understand that it isn't as green as the proponents say it is.
Getting back to Bundy's article. Bundy should have just left the article as a relatively decent informative piece. Instead he turned a good and informative article into a joke by going off in the last third of the article about how everybody should be riding bicycles to work. Over the years, I've worked next to people that biked to work and let me tell you, they stunk from their sweat in the summer, looked like a drowned rat if it rained and on some occasions, looked like they stopped off to do some mud wrestling on the way in. I'd rather take the bus.
While Bundy does miss a lot of points such as not comparing the impact of road building to rail as well as making assumptions on demographics, he brings up some valid points. Rail won't really help reduce the problems that its proponents say it will. In Seattle's case, hydro-electric power helps but in other parts of the country, all rail does is move the pollution from one location to another; namely to a coal-fired power plant in an already near capacity electrical power grid.
I could go on for days as each item in Bundy's article brings up two or more items that need to be covered. Slapping a rail line down isn't as simple as it may seem. The same goes for a busway or highway as well. Rail however, has more of a direct negative financial impact to it due to its much higher cost and as shown by Bundy, rail also has much more of a negative environmental impact than the general public is led to believe.
Beside the major distraction of his bike speech at the end, Bundy's article is pretty good. It brings up some good and valid points about the environmental impact of rail that are rarely mentioned. Many of these things I have been saying all along but there was some new information as well as a new way of applying what I already knew to better counter the pro-rail environmental rhetoric.
The writer, Emory Bundy, does a rather good job in pointing out that building a rail line has a much more serious impact on the environment than the pro-rail and environmentalist crowd would have you believe. Remember, rail is sold to the public as being good for the environment but the environmental costs are completely ignored.
Bundy states: "As an offset, Sound Transit claims it will save 14,000 tons of CO2 annually by running light rail trains on electricity, sparing the region emissions that otherwise would be generated by automotive traffic. Even if granted, it would take 90 years from completion of the line to break even on the energy transaction. If Sound Transit should manage to cut tunnel-related greenhouse emissions in half, by aggressive use of hydro electricity and human labor, an implausible proposition, it still would take 45 years to break even."
That's a long time to just break even on the environmental carbon footprint but Bundy failed to mention that even in the time frame given, the line still wouldn't break even on the environmental costs. Why? Even taking the shorter of the two times, 45 years, the line would have been rebuilt several times over. Each rebuild making more of a carbon impact and adding more time before the line breaks even on it's carbon footprint. The number also doesn't take into consideration the day to day maintenance on the line which also will add to the carbon footprint. In short, the Sound Transit extension will never pay for itself environmentally but will continually add carbon debt that will never be paid off. And no, buying carbon credits from Ozone Al won't cover it.
Actually, this whole carbon footprint nonsense is just that, nonsense. I am pointing this out the way I am simply to show people that rail isn't as environmentally friendly as proponents like to make it out to be. Those who are rushing out to buy "carbon offsets" (I could do a whole series on that scam) for a trip to the store will be shocked to see that the environmentally friendly rail line they take to work isn't as eco-friendly as they thought. As green is one of the big selling points for expensive rail projects, the public needs to understand that it isn't as green as the proponents say it is.
Getting back to Bundy's article. Bundy should have just left the article as a relatively decent informative piece. Instead he turned a good and informative article into a joke by going off in the last third of the article about how everybody should be riding bicycles to work. Over the years, I've worked next to people that biked to work and let me tell you, they stunk from their sweat in the summer, looked like a drowned rat if it rained and on some occasions, looked like they stopped off to do some mud wrestling on the way in. I'd rather take the bus.
While Bundy does miss a lot of points such as not comparing the impact of road building to rail as well as making assumptions on demographics, he brings up some valid points. Rail won't really help reduce the problems that its proponents say it will. In Seattle's case, hydro-electric power helps but in other parts of the country, all rail does is move the pollution from one location to another; namely to a coal-fired power plant in an already near capacity electrical power grid.
I could go on for days as each item in Bundy's article brings up two or more items that need to be covered. Slapping a rail line down isn't as simple as it may seem. The same goes for a busway or highway as well. Rail however, has more of a direct negative financial impact to it due to its much higher cost and as shown by Bundy, rail also has much more of a negative environmental impact than the general public is led to believe.
Beside the major distraction of his bike speech at the end, Bundy's article is pretty good. It brings up some good and valid points about the environmental impact of rail that are rarely mentioned. Many of these things I have been saying all along but there was some new information as well as a new way of applying what I already knew to better counter the pro-rail environmental rhetoric.
2 comments:
While Bundy does miss a lot of points such as not comparing the impact of road building to rail..."
Actually, this omission is huge - it totally undermines his argument and makes his "breakeven point" calculations irrelevant - at best.
Second, you claim that a rail line has to be rebuilt "several times over" every 45 years. I beg to differ. Short of periodic waterproofing and reinforcement, tunnels don't have to be re-dug. Much rail infrastructure has a standard useful life in the range of 20-30 years.
I agree with you that rail is often over-hyped, but your criticism here might go a little too far.
I'm looking at the whole picture of rail, not just a tunnel. Rail lines typically undergo major reconstruction/rehabilitation around 20 years or so (as do the vehicles). Some go longer but in a 45 year period, that rail line and is going to be rebuilt at least once. Rails, ties, construction equipment to do the work, etc all will add to the so-called carbon debt that the environmentalists love to talk about these days.
Looking at this from how an environmentalist may approach it, that steel for the rails has to be produced somewhere. It's not clean to produce. How much of a carbon is generated from the construction equipment. That technically will add to the "carbon cost" of the project on a long term basis.
While the tunnel itself should last with just minor repairs, the infrastructure inside will be done over at least once in a 45 year period. Just check when a transit system is rehabbing a rail tunnel they own, the financial cost for rehabbing it far more than the cost of spraying a coat of waterproofing on the walls. Waterproofing and labor to apply it doesn't cost $10 million plus.
Bundy's article at least brings a new perspective to the table. Ignoring the we all need to ride bikes rant at the end, it does give us something to think about and mentions things that usually are totally ignored.
For example, rail supporters and environmentalists are very quick to point out the negative environmental impact of busway construction and operation. When it comes to rail however, most every pro-rail person and environmentalist I know totally ignores the negative environmental impact of the construction and operation.
The Bundy article does show that rail isn't as "green" as the proponents love to claim.
My viewpoint on rail is that rail has its place. It's used incorrectly for development purposes rather than transportation but I'm so tired of having it be hyped as totally enviro-friendly when it actually isn't when the whole picture is examined.
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