SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A group of California state legislators are asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to reconsider a requirement for catenary electrification for the state’s high speed rail system, seeking the option to use battery or fuel-cell power to avoid the expense of stringing overhead power lines.
The Los Angeles Times reports state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and 17 other Democrats made the request to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in a June letter. It comes when Rendon and others are seeking to redirect funding to complete the under-construction segment of the high speed system in California’s Central Valley to segments in Southern California and the Bay Area. The newspaper says supports of that plan fear the cost of electrification would prevent that move.
Recent restoration of a federal grant to help fund the project specified electrification, as did the bond passed in 2008 to provide $9 billion for the project. The state’s high speed rail authority agrees, saying electrification is the only way to meet the speeds required in the act approved by voters.
A U.S. DOT representative told the Times in an email that the agency would respond “shortly.”
Well, it was shaping up to be another dull Friday at work, but I can always count on the Sideshow that is California to liven up my day. Physicists should start researching the apparently unseen forces that cause government stupidity (but i repeat myself) to concentrate in California. If harnessed, it could provide all the green power needed to run all forms of transportation in this country.
Although I agree with overhead in principal, where do they plan to get the power from? CA is already at the limit of their grid’s capacity, and suffering frequent brown- and blackouts in many areas.
The same place they will get the power from when they switch to all-electric cars and all-electric home heating and cooking.
Its the usual Ca. bull crap. The answer is simple stupid, build dams in record drought dry rivers and turn the air conditioners up. Glad I live where the fresh water is plentiful and our worry is high water in upstate New York and we maintain our nuclear plants
Let’s ignore the latest and ridiculous idiocy about alternative energy supplies and focus on the more pertinent proposal to move funding from the central valley to the metro areas at the south and north end. Given the total fiasco that CsHASR has become (and I’m a stronger supporter of passenger rail in CAN and want to see a real meaningful HSR line between the bat area and SoCal) I’m leaning to towards folding on the central valley and using the money to upgrade the rail network at each end. A lot more Californians will get a lot more benefit form that as opposed to isolated HSR segment between Merced and Bakersfield.
Politicians should not be monkeying around with matters that require an engineering degree.
OK, I’ve been a supporter of this project since it was new (and I still lived in CA) but this is stupid legislative micromanagement.
Neither of those technologies are ready for prime time yet. And likely won’t be for decades. Source the power from renewable sources and be done with it.
You want legislative stupidity? The Massachusetts legislature has mandated that the Stoughton – Taunton branch (if restored) would need to be electrified. What’s wrong with this picture? MBTA runs diesels even where there now are wires and which is a main line, not a branch. That is Boston – Providence – T. F. Green PVD Airport, and on to Wickford Junction.
This would be all fine and dandy if fuel-cell or battery was a proven source for high speed rail. String the wires and ignore the side show.
This is what happens when a state legislature legalizes marijuana for non-medical use!