Rail carriers contemplate life after diesel: What’s next?

livemint.com:

Railroad operators like to say that trains are greener than trucks when it comes to moving goods, pointing out that one railcar can haul three to four times as much as a truck, and one freight train can remove hundreds of trucks from the highways. Although the freight-rail industry is responsible for less than 2% of transportation-related greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S., rail carriers—like the rest of the transportation industry—are under pressure to reduce those emissions, much of which are produced by diesel-electric locomotives.

As a result, freight operators are investing in diesel-electric models that are more fuel-efficient, as well as exploring alternative ways to power locomotives, homing in on three main technologies: batteries, biodiesel and hydrogen. Coming up with cleaner alternatives to diesel-powered locomotives isn’t easy.

Any alternative would need to be able to haul freight across mountainous and desert regions, in various weather conditions and temperatures. That, combined with the complexities involved in building new refueling infrastructure for alternative fuels and uncertainty over access to constrained supplies, make it unlikely that zero-emission locomotives will be widespread by the mid-2030s as called for in the U.S.

National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, the industry says. “At this point, there is no clear winner in the next-generation locomotive fight," says Bascome Majors, an analyst at Susquehanna International Group.

Here is a closer look at some of the new technologies being tested by rail carriers. Battery-electric locomotives are one emissions-reducing option but their battery-storage capacity, and therefore their range, limit how they can be used—at least for now.