Or we should be making rail more attractive through cost, efficiency and integration so that more people use it, which in turn will generate more revenue that can be put towards making traction more energy efficient (because new traction types cost more money). Most people don't choose a method of transport based on its emission levels...
Any clue as to how the carbon intensity is going to reduce by the end of the decade, given the majority of our nuclear generation will have finished, new wind is effectively stalled (although there is some in the pipeline)?
Obviously we need to use all available tools to make rail more attractive. I'm fully aware the vast majority of people don't pick transport options based on emission levels.
The report includes both passenger km (Fig 2.1) and vehicle km (Fig 2.2).
Not entirely, airlines are commercial businesses and will cancel flights if there are insufficient passengers.
Quite frankly most passengers couldn't care less about most of that. All they want to know is how much is it, what time is it, will it get there on time, will I get a seat? Sort those out and more people will consider rail.
There's a lot of wind in the pipeline, Hinkley point C should open before the end of the decade (due in 2027 and 2028 at present), the government should be doing a new, more succesful, wind auction next year, there's solar being installed across the country, National Grid is moving grid stabilising services to zero carbon (aim is to finish by the end of 2025)
I don't totally agree, when choosing a method of transport it's cost, journey time, comfort and reliability. Everyone accepts there maybe a delay occasionally but as long as the train runs and isn't cancelled most people are happy.
Reliability matters (is the train on time?) - Electric trains are more reliable as I stated above
Is it?
Assuming Hinkley Point finishes approximately on time the nuclear fleet in megawatts will be little smaller than it is today.
No I am pointing out that people don't generally care if their train is electric, diesel, steam or powered by marmite. Getting there on time and for a decent price is all they care about.
And my point (which you keep ignoring) is that people do care about the consequences of how their train is powered - consequences such as reliability (likelihood of getting there on time), journey times (via acceleration), and ambience at stations like (example: new street) do matter. Similarly for network benefits like path availability and operating costs, if those feed through to the timetable or ticket prices respectively. Electric trains beat diesel on all of those.
Your point was that de-carbonising rail would attract more passengers. My point was to bring in revenue and demonstrate demand for alternative traction you first need to make transport affordable and reliable, you know making a business case to spend money on increasing capacity, improving energy efficiency etc etc.
Cruising, or indeed coasting, at line speed for dozens of miles uses less energy than stopping and starting every few miles.
Your point was that de-carbonising rail would attract more passengers. My point was to bring in revenue and demonstrate demand for alternative traction you first need to make transport affordable and reliable, you know making a business case to spend money on increasing capacity, improving energy efficiency etc etc.
I suspect you are right.
Hinkley Point is 2 x 1.6 GW generators, unit 1 is now scheduled to start generation in Summer 2027, full commercial generation likely a year after that if no faults are found so Summer 2028. Unit 2 is supposed to start 12months after that with commercial full power about 6 to 12 months after that so sometime in 2030. When that is achieved unit 1 is shutdown for 6 months for its statutory stoppage.
Do you think the dozens or hundreds of passengers on an average British train all making their journeys by other individual means might be less damaging to the environment? Maybe the idiots targeting “SUVs” and slashing tyres etc should in fact be targeting rail depots!
"Full commercial operation" is not the first time that a plant generates at full power, nor is there a fixed time between first power generation and commercial operation being achieved. In British units it is more typically closer to six months than a year.
There are currently eight nominally operational AGRs, however none of them achieve particularly good capacity factors, and as previously noted Hartlepool is permanently derated due to the ONR not permitting a boiler replacement in a design specifically designed to allow boiler replacement.
I despair…
If this is the case, unless battery or hydrogen trains are in widespread use in 20 years time, there are going to be a lot of closures of minor branch lines in the middle of the century.
Why are they doomed? Its likely that in 20 years there will still be plenty of fossil fuel driven engines around the place, unless of course someone finds a magic money tree and funds alternatives for all the areas diesel is used at the moment.
Will there?
By 2043 the DfT assume that two-thirds of car mileage and one-third of bus mileage will be by electric vehicles.
If this were to become so (I don’t believe it will) then it will demonstrate just how much the country will have become hostage to the loony eco-mentalists who put their cause above all else. For a start, units like the 195s won’t be much older than half life by then and throwing them away would be utterly wasteful and ecologically unsound. Equally there isn’t enough money to electrify all the branch lines - and the enviro-loonies don’t want them all electrified anyway because it spoils the view - so notwithstanding battery technology we will need to keep the newer diesel units well beyond the next 20 years. And in any case the country simply cannot sustain a road building programme that would be sufficient to soak up all the road journeys that would be generated if branch line rail ceased.
If branch line rail services ceased no one would notice the additional road traffic.
The embodied carbon in those trains is nothing compared to the amount of diesel they chew through every year!
Battery technology is already good enough for the majority of diesel operations to be made into battery electric ones.
