It seems as if Duke Energy is going to toss up some money for the Streetcar. I have a feeling its mostly for environmental and engineering but it'll be helpful for sure. Somewhere Over The Rhine has the link.
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I am not an ultra renewable energy fanatic, though I do definitely support it, but I really wish some of the transit agencies would build their own renewable energy sources to power their electric traction vehicles. Imagine if the entire NEC and NYC subway, LIRR, Metro North, SEPTA, MARC and WMATA, NJT electric lines were fed by a dedicated renewable energy source installation somewhere in the Northeast.
Because transit authorities were prohibited from also being public utilities. That's one of the things that led to the decline of private streetcar companies (in addition to competition from the automobile, of course)
Good point, though I thought it was the otherway around. Either way then a utility could build a source with the transit agencies as the sole/primary customers. My point is that this way electric transit would be truely green, so many times electric transit's power source is coal fired power plants which hurts some of the arguments supporting electric traction operations.
On the point of utilities having to divest their transit companies, I heard that National City Lines lobbied for the law so that they could get lots of transit companies on the market and then just swoop in and buy up all these companies, is this true? Was this their intention, or more or a coincidence? the reason I'm cautious is because i know a lot on this topic of National City Lines is half-truths.
Actually, at least part of the NEC is in fact powered by a dedicated renewable source. I believe there's some hydro dam that has special 25Hz single-phase generators just to power the ex-PRR electrification, though of course Amtrak does import a considerable amount of power from the regular grid as well.
thats good to hear about the power of the portion of the NEC
from what i understand in the northwest much of the power is hydro there too and i believe that it powers the trolleys in seattle and vancouver and i assume much of portlands trimet power comes from hydro also
the city of sf owns the hetch hetchy dam so all of muni is hydro power.
i think calgary bought wind power for the light rail system there.
but from what i understand outside the west coast its pretty much all fossil fuel power
6 comments:
I am not an ultra renewable energy fanatic, though I do definitely support it, but I really wish some of the transit agencies would build their own renewable energy sources to power their electric traction vehicles. Imagine if the entire NEC and NYC subway, LIRR, Metro North, SEPTA, MARC and WMATA, NJT electric lines were fed by a dedicated renewable energy source installation somewhere in the Northeast.
Because transit authorities were prohibited from also being public utilities. That's one of the things that led to the decline of private streetcar companies (in addition to competition from the automobile, of course)
Good point, though I thought it was the otherway around. Either way then a utility could build a source with the transit agencies as the sole/primary customers. My point is that this way electric transit would be truely green, so many times electric transit's power source is coal fired power plants which hurts some of the arguments supporting electric traction operations.
On the point of utilities having to divest their transit companies, I heard that National City Lines lobbied for the law so that they could get lots of transit companies on the market and then just swoop in and buy up all these companies, is this true? Was this their intention, or more or a coincidence? the reason I'm cautious is because i know a lot on this topic of National City Lines is half-truths.
Actually, at least part of the NEC is in fact powered by a dedicated renewable source. I believe there's some hydro dam that has special 25Hz single-phase generators just to power the ex-PRR electrification, though of course Amtrak does import a considerable amount of power from the regular grid as well.
thats good to hear about the power of the portion of the NEC
from what i understand in the northwest much of the power is hydro there too and i believe that it powers the trolleys in seattle and vancouver and i assume much of portlands trimet power comes from hydro also
the city of sf owns the hetch hetchy dam so all of muni is hydro power.
i think calgary bought wind power for the light rail system there.
but from what i understand outside the west coast its pretty much all fossil fuel power
yes we are working to start a system here in Cincy. Love your site, lots of good info. Please keep it up.
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