I just came back from the Transport Logistic exhibition in Munich, where DHL presented their new battery powered freight plane. It has a 1,130 kg. payload and a 460 km range. Electric planes are coming to an airport near you.

So it can carry just over a ton of payload including the crew so maybe 1800 of actual cargo goods for a distance of 285 Statue miles and 248 Nautical miles converted. It would have the range to carry less than a ton of goods from San Fran to Reno or LA to Vegas. Lord help the crew of one of these that gets delayed on landing.

Crew???

(I say that only semi-facetiously....)

Not "semi" facetiously at all. Every one of the proposals for these small electric aircraft (up to ~12 passengers or freight equivalent) have been autonomous designs -- these are MUCH easier to design and implement than autonomous cars, and making them relatively "failsafe" is little more complicated than BRS equipment.

It has a pilot, and the distance is good for short distance hub distribution of high value goods. Copenhagen-Berlin is well within its range. And any plane eventually runs out of fuel -excess fuel costs money to carry, so you don't tank up on fuel "just in case".

https://www.dhl.com/global-en/delivered/sustainability/electric-aircraft-sustainable-logistics.html

Lets not forget that most space launches, no one is flying. And, 13 years ago, the Mythbusters showed that most modern planes can pretty much fly by self, the humans are a failsafe.

As an added safety feature, if it runs out of juice, it automatically self destructs, so no messy crashes to pick up.

An interesting read on the subject....

Short-line operator: California’s new locomotive emissions rule could ‘kill’ industry

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/short ... 06rccjNAAQ

Probably an empty gesture subject to Federal pre-emption, and I think the legislators know that.




California has a long history of working with small in-state railroads. Remember the Green Goat and battery modular locos? Those projects were state-supported. A lot of shortlines in the state lend themselves rather well to Detroit M-1 light rail style power, where it's trolley, but with "a battery range extender" so much of the system doesn't need to be wired.

In fact, such a locomotive is already in Barn 3 at Rio Vista Junction: Kennecott Copper #700. 153 kWH battery pack (one F150 Lightning). Easy to this if someone needed a demonstrator.



The 38 page CARB regulation is not the law, and is subject to change at any time by CARB itself. Contrary to the rage-baiting, CARB actually has 50 years of experience dealing with the enthusiast *car* community, and have quite correctly realized that enthusiast cars simply log too few miles to have any material effect on pollution. This led to a happy truce for pre-1974 cars. They'll figure that out with trains.



Because of the impracticality of regulating smaller and smaller niches. For instance there's a Federal limit on paint VOC - 720 g/l. California overrides that in niches large enough to matter - architectural paint is crushed down to like 35 - that's why so much paint is latex and vulnerable to mold. Auto-paint is very low as well, that's why so much is waterborne these days. But going out and regulating *artist paint* or *boat paint* is just dumb, because those niches are so small that the emissions saved would be so small as to not be a good use of staff's time.

I'm hearing Karen screaming "that's not FAIIRRRRRR! I have to get my 2009 Ford Escape daily commute car smogged, we should send out the jackboots to seize that guy's Red Barchetta which goes out 5 Saturdays a year". Karen can go suck a duck.

But more than that -- classic cars or 2472 are important to make the young'uns realize *why smog laws are important*. After all, they don't see any smog. But then say "See this? Imagine *every car and loco was like this*. Wholly smoke!



Biodiesel works directly in any diesel, that is the entire point of biodiesel. Biodiesel is modifying the fuel to avoid modifying the engine. You only need to modify the engine if you want to run on straight, unmodified veggie oil. (Also, if you're going to use used fryer oil, you need to filter, acid-neutralize and de-water it, and that right there is like 80% of the process of making biodiesel, so you might as well).

The foolish thing would be to run the diesel on low-sulfur fuel. It was there for lubricity, to lubricate fuel injection systems. Newer engines are built not to need it, but older engines need something - and as it happens, biodiesel is a fantastic lubricant. 5% biodiesel in regular diesel replaces the lost lubricity.


> Sounds like a lot of catenary is going to be strung up in CA in the next few years.

Yeah, on commuter lines and state subsidized Amtraks or others supported by the government. UP and BN will lawyer this into infinity. So will Amtrak re: the non-state-subsidized lines.

Definitely a good time to buy wooden-pole futures lol. I can see some Rio Vista style catenary getting hung on shortlines.



Used motor oil has lots of heavy metals you do not want in air or soil. Oil recycling (e.g. at your auto parts store) actually works.

> I wonder what this means for the Disneyland Railroad and Knott's Berry Farm. While I would usually think they would count as Amusement Park attractions it's pretty clear that it says "any locomotive."

Copyright and anti-opinion laws don't apply to the Mighty Mouse, and I guarantee neither will these smog laws. Disneyland Railroad will set the high bar beneath which UPRR's steam program, Roaring Camp etc. will slide.



That's a standard anti-environmental talking point, but it ignores the fact that over time, polluting sources are being replaced with non-polluting. It also ignores the *massive* energy storage plant that exists in the state; the entire California water project is rigged with high/low reservoirs so it can do pumped storage...at the time it was so they could arbitrage electricity prices, but now it's rather handy for time-shifting solar.



Yeah, but CA is pretty good at controlling those. It would be situational: the Los Angeles Basin is a different problem area than Mt. Shasta.



Political trolls rage-posting. I love when they say dumb stuff that any knowledgeable person would laugh at.

I would like to point out that at least that means that if you live near a rail line, you won't be directly breathing in exhaust fumes. Certainly not much better for the environment if they just set up new shale gas power plants to handle the extra load (discounting the possibility of replacing them later on with other sources), but you can still at least have a public health angle to it, even if it's somewhat dampened by needing to set up extra capacity.

The definition may have changed since I last looked at the sources (circa 2019) but all that 'B100' used to mean was that the chemical feedstock was 100% biologically sourced. There is considerable (carefully-designed and executed) treatment involved with any cost-effective renewable feedstock, usually via two-step transesterification (followed by neutralization, washing, etc.) for the fuel to be used in any modern direct-injection system. You would be extremely ill=advised to use WVO, no matter how well you filtered, dewatered, etc. it without carefully transesterifying it, keeping incidental soap formation from retaining some glycerin, a bunch of other stuff -- keep in mind that an alarmingly large quantity of sourced WVO comes from restaurants with fry grills cleaned with abrasive stones and mesh, the fines from which go through most real-world filters that are not bypass-filter fine with corresponding throughput and do what you might expect SiC particles to do to fuel-lubricated DLC in the injectors or after ignition, in the cylinders.
You are very right that ULSD in older engines can be a problem. I subscribed early to the idea that an additive like Stanadyne was the advisable thing to use if you want to run ULSD in a system with mechanical injection pumps or jerk pumps. Their current product is said to be effective up to B20, but 'not needed' for properly treated B100. (Grainger has the stuff in 5 gallon size, good for treating up to 5000 gallons, for just under $330)

I am not sure I'd rely on the tribological characteristics of non-transesterified feedstock even in small amounts, lest the source of the 'renewed lubricosity' come from something like unseparated glycerin or FFAs...