Here's an interesting blog post from Alon Levy:
Quick Note: California Gets Electrification Wrong | Pedestrian Observations
Apparently, Caltrans wants to electrify trains using hydrogen fuel cell technology rather than overhead wires. From my experience, it seems that technology is not yet ready for prime time on mainline railroads. Plus, how are they going to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen? (The alternative to using electricity to generate hydrogen is to reform it from natural gas, which sort of eliminates its value as a "decarbonization" strategy.)
I found this paragraph from the post interesting, and kind of meshes with my professional experience:
In a different field, I've been nosing around for consulting jobs since I retired. However, what I mainly offer is the ability to speak about technical details; It seems that the people making decisions about spending money aren't as interested in that, what they seem to want out of someone with EPA experience is internal political gossip so they can anticipate what sort of rules they will have to face. Fortunately, I recently found someone who is interested in the technical details, but we'll have to see what happens if my technical advice goes contrary to the preconceived ideas of the top management.
Quick Note: California Gets Electrification Wrong | Pedestrian Observations
Apparently, Caltrans wants to electrify trains using hydrogen fuel cell technology rather than overhead wires. From my experience, it seems that technology is not yet ready for prime time on mainline railroads. Plus, how are they going to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen? (The alternative to using electricity to generate hydrogen is to reform it from natural gas, which sort of eliminates its value as a "decarbonization" strategy.)
I found this paragraph from the post interesting, and kind of meshes with my professional experience:
It’s a perennial problem in the United States that rail managers and agency heads are allergic to electrification. It’s a foreign concept, literally. They don’t travel – when they do they think of it as a vacation, not as work to see how countries with an order of magnitude more rail ridership per capita do it. None of the people they know knows, either. Nor are they technically apt or curious – they come from a managerial culture in which speaking of technical details is low-prestige, and making excuses and talking about politics are high-prestige. Fresh master’s graduates in Europe know more than they ever will. They are useless, and they know it.
In a different field, I've been nosing around for consulting jobs since I retired. However, what I mainly offer is the ability to speak about technical details; It seems that the people making decisions about spending money aren't as interested in that, what they seem to want out of someone with EPA experience is internal political gossip so they can anticipate what sort of rules they will have to face. Fortunately, I recently found someone who is interested in the technical details, but we'll have to see what happens if my technical advice goes contrary to the preconceived ideas of the top management.