Panel: Railroads have lots of questions, some skepticism about zero emissions

WASHINGTON — While global transportation transitions to a cleaner future fueled by alternative power sources, North American railroads have fewer good options outside of diesel fuel.

“We love diesel; we like to take showers in diesel,” joked Michael Nicoletti, a partner at Innovative Rail Technologies (IRT), at “Toward Zero Emissions in Rail: Lessons Learned,” a panel discussion held at the Transportation Research Board’s 124th annual meeting here.

Nicoletti’s observation underscored a fundamental truth about freight railroading as it’s configured in the United States: No cheap, easily produced substance packs the same power per molecule as the fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil refined for use in diesel engines.

That’s why an estimated 42,000 locomotives compliant with Federal Railway Administration regulations, and many more non-FRA units, run on diesel.

But, there’s a catch.

Emissions from diesel exhaust produced by locomotives, trucks and ships cause as many as 30,000 premature deaths each year. A decades-long global movement has succeeded in achieving substantial reductions in diesel emissions and given birth to an alternative fuel industry that is taking aim at perhaps the most problematic mode — rail.

“There are virtually no current standards that exist that are directly applicable to zero-emissions (ZE) equipment on rail,” said Marcin Taraskiewicz, rail and transit vehicle technology lead for HDR. While standards do exist for other applications of ZE energy sources for other industries, he said those standards aren’t always fully, or even partly, applicable for rail use.

Rail standards are still years away, Taraskiewicz said, and as the technology matures as-yet-unforeseen requirements may need to be defined in the future. No current regulations exist to govern the design and use of ZE equipment; such regulations tend to be rooted in past experience that in and of itself is lacking due to the absence of its use in significant numbers. Those difficulties are compounded since regulations lean on relevant standards, which still don’t exist for the technology.

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