Can high speed rail be electric?

High speed trains run on electricity instead of diesel fuel. Because much of the world's electricity is still generated at fossil fuel burning power plants, high speed trains do contribute to carbon emissions, however the climate impact of one train is significantly less than that of many personal vehicles.



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It'll be 100% electrified. It will use renewable power. It will literally be, not an embellishment, the greenest train in the world. Given that no major high-speed railway is fully powered by renewables currently, that may be true if the $12 billion Brightline West project opens on schedule by 2028.

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In addition, the tracks, signals, rail cars and software made in the U.S. are costlier than imports, largely because the government has not funded rail the way European and Asian countries have, experts say.

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The United States, on the other hand, boasts only 806 miles of electrified rail lines — all of it confined to the Northeast Corridor and Pennsylvania's Keystone Corridor.

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High-speed rail lines are proposed for California, Nevada, Texas, Georgia and the Pacific Northwest, and already under construction in California's Central Valley.

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The Hyperloop system is expected to be a faster and economical alternative to conventional short- range aviation and high-speed rails.

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With one possible exception, no high-speed rail system in this country could pay for itself, and the claimed external benefits - cleaner air, energy saved, eased pressure on airports - are nonexistent.

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Implementing high-speed rail will keep billions of dollars in the U.S. economy by decreasing the amount of oil that the U.S. consumes. According to the International Association of Railways (UIC), high-speed rail is eight times more energy efficient than airplanes and four times more efficient than automobile use.

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The Swiss rail network is the largest fully electrified network in the world and one of only eleven to achieve this. China has the 2nd largest electrified railway length with over 70% of the network, after India overtook china having almost 80% of its railway network electrified.

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High-Speed Rail Is Too Expensive Building the 48,000-mile Interstate Highway System cost about $500 billion (in today's dollars). Paid for entirely out of user fees, it carries about 25 percent of all passenger travel and 15 percent of all freight in the United States.

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The results of a national survey that show that nearly two-thirds of Americans are interested in traveling by high-speed rail and the figure soars to 74 percent among those in the 18-24 age brackets.

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It Takes Decades to Plan and Build However, because of cost overruns and the pandemic, the authority now projects completion no earlier than 2033, nearly 40 years after planning began. Not all high-?speed rail lines may take this long, but two decades seems a likely minimum.

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That works out to $200 million a mile for hilly areas. At these costs, Obama's original high-?speed rail plan would require well over $1 trillion, while the USHSR's plan would need well over $3 trillion. Building a system longer than China's would cost at least $4 trillion.

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The subway's contact (third) rail requires 625 volts for operating trains. Power is distributed throughout the system via 2,500 miles of cable. These cables pass beneath 7,651 manholes located throughout the city. The power required to operate the subway system during peak hours is about 495,900 kilowatts.

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All Electric Trains in The Netherlands Are Now 100% Wind-Powered. The Netherland's national railway company, NS, has announced that all of its electric passenger trains are now 100 percent powered by wind energy.

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China initially relied on high-speed technology imported from Europe and Japan to establish its network. Global rail engineering giants such as Bombardier, Alstom and Mitsubishi were understandably keen to co-operate, given the potential size of the new market and China's ambitious plans.

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