 | NARP blogTRAINS: A travel choice Americans want |
Trains Already Using “Smart Grid”
Monday, July 26, 2010
A feature in E Magazine’s July/August 2010 cover story takes a look at the potential for plug-in electric cars to be part of a remodeled grid that gives consumers more control over how much energy they use and when, and would even allow people to reduce their power bills by giving electricity back to the grid. Electric cars would store the energy produced through braking and give it back to the grid when plugged in.
Federal grants from the Department of Energy, totaling $100 million, are going to develop pilot programs for this technology in five states. Meanwhile, electrified railroads like Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor have been regenerating electricity through dynamic braking for several years.
Even when both cars and trains are fueled by electricity and not by gasoline or diesel, there’s no escaping trains’ superior efficiency—or their unique capacity to foster less energy-intensive, land-consuming development patterns. Investing in the expansion of passenger train service on electrified railroads (along with green energy sources) would deliver a much greater bang for the public’s buck.
—Malcolm Kenton