Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad is partially correct. Rail could be (but isn't today) a cleaner ground transport medium. And BNSF is doing fine exploratory and demonstration work.

But locomotive pollution cleanup is in its infancy. Most locomotives go entirely unregulated and have ZERO emissions controls. The RR do need lead time, but there is no technical reason that T2B5 or even T2B3 diesel regulations could not be met with today's control technology on Locomotives where size volume or cost is no restriction.

In stead of wasting time trying to twist the EPA rules for clean air into a pretzel to regulate a non-pollutant like CO2, the time and effort would be better spent implementing regulations for the rail locomotives ONLY a year or two behind the regulations falling on and already being met by their automotive brethren.

It is more important and better promulgating regulations for T2B3 conformance in 2011, for all new locomotives with a mandated retrofit program for completion by 2015. It is much better than fooling around with ZEV mandates for 10, 15 or 20% of all electric vehicles as aprt of the amrket mix. These vehicles are technically unready as they were in 1990; themandates will not be met, or CO2 regulation that the Courts will throw out, and perhaps the valid EPA clean air regulations as well, as as a part of them. Just like the proverbial "baby with the bath water".

You don't think that could happen? Look at the murderers and rapists walking the streets as a consequence of lawyerly "technicalities". When lawyers get to arguing, Reality and Justice has no part in any decision.

The trouble is that methane-dominant gases are harder to liquify than propane, butane etc. Therefore I think compressed natural gas (CNG) will increasingly become a liquid fuels replacement. Perhaps the experiments in hydrogen storage will lead to lighter tanks. Apart from NG the gases that could be used include biomethane, DME, hythane and synthetic natural gas (SNG) from biomass. In 20 years time most of the semis left on the road could be running on some kind of CG.

Stan,

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the EPA has a duty to regulate CO2 emissions under existing Clean Air Act mandates, so I don't see how there is much room for courts or lawyers to get the well established NOx, SO2, PM and ozone rules thrown out.

If lawyers are known for splitting hairs, I don't see them as like to go entirely in the other direction and start over-generalizing.

EP,

Electrifying the RRs is a reasonable idea; I am heartily in favor. But it won't work over the entire US. As the RR's tracks get further from the electric generators, the loss to simple electrical resistance becomes prohibitive. As a single locomotive can emit pollutants in excess of a few thousand road vehicles combined, there is a lot of easy ground to make up, by starting in earnest to clean them up.

NBK,
The Supremes said no such thing,as you state. They merely said that the EPA could consider regulating CO2, if the case can be built for it. Even then, the Supremes reserved to the Courts the right to decide at some later date, that what the EPA proposes to do is either correct or warranted. The issue is not decided; merely delayed.

Meanwhile the CARBites and the politicians push forward.

Increasingly the case, when the science shows that CO2 has little to do with the cause of warming, and the regulations have been put into effect, there is still the possibility to wreck the real and valid EPA pollution laws.

If a non pollutant like CO2 can be regulated how do you regulate water which can be thousands of times worse? The much ballyhooed FCV, which purports to be the golden dream of a Zero Emissions Vehicle, which emits "only water" is then a major polluter...

You can't even encourage and revert to "walking or biking", since YOUR BODY is a bigger emitter of both CO2 and water, as well.

BTW, here is a map of planned RR electrifications of the 1970's.  Chicago to Los Angeles is a pretty good stretch, no?  Do you think that we may have forgotten how to do the wiring in the last 30-odd years?

Stan, it does turn out that fossil fuel generated CO2 is indeed a significant contributer to the current warming trend, as predicted by Arrhenius over a century ago. Our atmosphere is now a bit thicker and warmer than it was a hundred years ago, and the surface and the oceans are warming up as a result. The science is now focused on predicting how fast the climate will warm - and let's hope that the answer is slowly, not rapidly... though we'd better be prepared for the rapid climate response scenario, and get off fossil fuels as fast as possible.

As far as electrifying trains goes, it does seem that the long distance between centralized electricity generators and rail lines leads to unavoidable transmission losses. This is a good argument against massive, concentrated electricity generation projects located in remote areas, i.e. the huge gigawatt coal plants of the Southwest (which also dump massive amounts of sulfur, nitrogen oxides, arsenic and mercury into the atmosphere, along with fossil CO2). The advantages of a more distributed network of electricity generation are pretty obvious, and a distributed network can also take advantage of local, non-CO2 generating power sources: some areas have geothermal, some have a lot of wind, some have sun, some have abundant agricultural biomass, and some have a lot of natural gas resources. Natural gas also produces CO2, but is (1) far less polluting than coal and (2) produces more heat per CO2 emitted than any other hydrocarbon.

We should be moving toward a electrical generation system that replaces every huge fossil-fuel based GW generator with a hundred 10 MW-scale renewable electricity generators - this would also result in fewer transmission losses and more efficient use of electricity.

The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the AUTORITY to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. The case was not weather or not they should, but weather or not they could. There is a difference.

Liquefaction of NG requires a lot of energy. About 5-10% of NG is combusted to deliver this energy on big industrial installations. On small installations this portion is bigger.

The main problem with LNG is that it should be kept at cryogenic temperature at all the time. Small fraction of LNG in cryogenic tank constantly boils-off, and when engine is stopped this portion should be vented or flared-off. LNG makes sense only on equipment working 24/7, which is the case with most port equipment, but not with on-road trucks.

NGK:

Supreme Court did not rule that EPA should regulate CO2 emissions. SC ruled that EPA argument that CO2 is not covered in Clean Air Act is not valid, and EPA should investigate if CO2 is harmful emission or not, and present their arguments. Most likely that decision to regulate (or not) CO2 emissions will be made by US Congress, and not decided in courtroom.

NBK:

Yes, you analysis is (unsurprisingly) precise. But the doubt remains: should extremely important issue to be decided by activist judges in court, based on laws not even remotely intended at the time of writing to regulate our entire life and entire economy? EPA is lacking legal authority to regulate whole energy sector (responsibility of DoE), agriculture (DoA), transportation (Highway Administration), taxation and international trade (Treasury and Congress), etc. Decision of such magnitude is better to be directly addressed by legislative branch, and preferably on national level.

LNG does have a boil off problem. LNG tankers at sea run on the boil off. So the trucks would have to carry only the LNG that they will use within a short period of time.