Last coal train to power plant on the remains of the Saluda line

[Ed Kapuscinski]

News from Asheville:
http://ashvegas.com/last-coal-delivery-made-to-duke-energy-power-plant-south-asheville

This plant was on the remains of the Saluda Grade line, served on the Asheville side.

While it's somewhat sad that there will be less rail traffic in the area, it's also probably a good thing to have less coal ash disposal and less air pollution in an area that derives a good bit of its income from tourism related to its natural beauty.

https://imgur.com/nS3dWFb

[jagged ben]

Also a good thing to have less carbon in the atmosphere.

[learmoia]

[Maletrain]

(Sigh)  I remember when we moved from coal to oil because it was "cleaner", only to move back to coal when the "Arab oil embargo" made coal a "national security" blanket in the 1970s.  And, there was that side trip into nuclear.

I guess we need to start modelling cars carrying batches of solar panels as well as those wind turbines.  Neither lasts forever, so there should always be some traffic.

[nkalanaga]

Modern modelers probably already have cars carrying solar panels, as I suspect that most are shipped in containers.

[Mark5]

At a minimum, coke is used in making steel.

[learmoia]

Well until they get a production vehicle to run on Solar/Wind... Your vehicle is going to run on Oil, LNG, or Coal (electric) plus a bit of wind and solar depending on where you live...

It seems like an Gas/Solar/Hybrid combination would be an ideal all around solution.

~Ian

[Lenny53]

Your vehicle is going to run on Oil, LNG, or Coal (electric) plus a bit of wind and solar depending on where you live...

~Ian

Where I live most of the electricity is hydro generated.

[Lenny53]

At a minimum, coke is used in making steel.

Carbon fibre, polycarbonate eye lenses and roof panels, and carbon filters also use coal as a raw material but the major use of coal is still as an energy source.

[wm3798]

And as an energy source, it's economically viable to go and get.  Without that use, there's no way all those by-products can be done affordably.  Same with oil.

We all dream of a day when we're no longer relying on dinosaur juice to run our cars, but without that, how readily available will your sterile, one use medical supplies be?  Or something really important, N scale model railway shells!

I'm all for emissions standards, a clean environment, and the advancement of new technologies, don't get me wrong, but damn near every aspect of our economy has at least one toe in fossil fuels.  It's a much more complex problem than either the far left or the far right want to admit.

Lee

[Iain]

News from Asheville:
http://ashvegas.com/last-coal-delivery-made-to-duke-energy-power-plant-south-asheville

This plant was on the remains of the Saluda Grade line, served on the Asheville side.

While it's somewhat sad that there will be less rail traffic in the area, it's also probably a good thing to have less coal ash disposal and less air pollution in an area that derives a good bit of its income from tourism related to its natural beauty.

https://imgur.com/nS3dWFb

Also, North Carolina actively bans using coal ash for anything productive.  So, in other states, it's used to make cinder blocks, in NC it has to go to a landfill.

[learmoia]

NC it has to go to a landfill.

It seems ironic but since it contains the chemicals that dont get burned in the process.. it makes sense to dispose of it safely.

[wm3798]

Or not dispose of it at all, and put it to useful purpose.  There's some pretty cool synthetic building products that have fly ash as part of their composition.

And in the process, create lots of jobs and factories and products to ship by rail...  There.  We brought it back around.

Lee

[Iain]

That's the thing, pretty much everywhere else, it gets shipped out by the gondola load to be used in building products.

It seems ironic but since it contains the chemicals that dont get burned in the process.. it makes sense to dispose of it safely.

Didn't you read where I said it is useful for making things, rather than just disposing of it?

[nkalanaga]

Does NC actually ban removing it from the state, or just reusing it within the state?