Will Hydrail Locomotives Make Diesel Obsolete?

UPI recently reported on success by a group of chemists in developing new materials that can be used to purify hydrogen by separating it from complex gas mixtures. 

This is encouraging news for the Bering Strait Project. Although feasibility studies still need to be done, it seems almost certain that the connection between the continents at the Bering Strait will be a tunnel, probably some 100 km (about 65 miles) in length from entrance to exit. That's a very long distance to have to ventilate. 

Development of hydrogen trains is now focusing on the commuter rail and transit markets. The fifth International Hydrail Conference will be held in Charlotte, N.C. June 11 to 16, sponsored by the Appalachian State University Energy Center. The conference is expected to feature innovative hydrogen technology for commuter rail applications. 

There would seem to be no reason that the applications could not be expanded in the future to include long-distance railroads, even those that run on transcontinental lines. Indeed, the Hydrail Conference website suggests as much with its motto: "Hydrail is to diesel as diesel was to steam." 

The Bering Strait Project could be used as a opportunity for developing technologies such as clean burning engines. 

Presidential Directive on U.S. Arctic Policy

The United States expects increased human activity in the Arctic region, including tourism, and is making preparations to better safeguard U.S. interests in the region. 

Shortly before his term ended, former U.S. President George W. Bush signed a National Security Presidential Directive setting out new policy guidelines for the United States in the Arctic region. 

The directive, known as NSPD-66, states: 

Human activity in the Arctic region is increasing and is projected to increase further in coming years.  

It goes on to say: 

This requires the United States to assert a more active and influential national presence to protect its Arctic interests and to project sea power throughout the region.

It then directs the Secretary of State to 

Consider, as appropriate, new or enhanced international arrangements for the Arctic to address issues likely to arise from expected increases in human activity in that region, including shipping, local development and subsistence, exploitation of living marine resources, development of energy and other resources, and tourism;

Meanwhile, Adm. Thad Allen, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, commented in a statement, saying, "This directive will guide our current operational activities in the region and guide the allocation of current and future resources to meet mission demands."

The Obama administration does not appear to have followed up on this new policy directive. It will be interesting to see what develops along these lines. 

In particular, it will be interesting to see what role will be assigned to surface transportation infrastructure in the Arctic and sub Arctic regions. The Bering Strait, the 53-mile (85-km) stretch of water between Alaska and Russia's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, lies just below the Arctic Circle. 

Marshall Plan for Remote Alaskan Communities

Recent stories on CNN.com and in the LA Times paint heart wrenching scenes on the plight of many families in rural Alaska this winter. 

The coldest winter in five years brought an early freeze to rivers used to ship fuel and other supplies to remote areas. More fuel than usual had to be shipped by air, making it even more expensive than usual. Some Alaskans are paying $1,500 a month just to keep their homes warm. 

For communities that live on what they can gather or hunt, the scarcity of fuel hits hard because it limits their ability to use snowmobiles to go to where they can get food. One family with children reported that there had been no food in the house for three days. The children were surviving on their school's lunch program. 

CNN reporter Mallory Simon quoted one rural resident as saying, "The life out here has always been hard, it's just that its a lot harder now."

A major goal of the Bering Strait Project is to provide a way for  native communities in remote areas of Alaska, Canada and eastern Siberia to access affordable energy, health care and job training. Building surface transportation infrastructure that connects New York and Chicago to Moscow and Beijing across the Bering Strait would easily bring these benefits and more to the people living along the route. 

David M. Rubenstein, a co-founder of the private equity firm Carlyle Group, recently advised Native Americans, including Native Alaskans, that they should lobby the Congress for a program in the pattern of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Western Europe following World War II. 

Speaking to a meeting of Native American leaders on the day before President Obama's inauguration, Mr. Rubenstein said that the economic stimulus, which was then in its formative stage, represented a unique opportunity to receive federal assistance. 

"There is never going to be another opportunity where you can get so much money so relatively easily as you are going to have in this stimulus package," Mr. Rubenstein said. His advice was for members of his audience to go to Congress and lobby hard to see that their communities benefited from the legislation being crafted at that time. 

The stimulus bill, now called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is meant to stimulate the economy of the entire country. Lobbying for spending in remote communities on the basis that this is going to help stimulate the national economy may be a hard sell. Yet, it is clear that these communities urgently need the attention of the nation at large. 

In addition to meeting urgent immediate needs, a more long term impact in serving rural Alaska communities would be for the United States to set a national goal that, working together with Canada and Russia, it will build surface transportation infrastructure connecting metropolitan areas of North America to those in Asia and Europe. This would be a project to benefit local communities, the countries involved, and the global community at large. 

Arctic Route Not Suitable for Major Shipping ... Yet

A recent article by the Associated Press makes clear that using the Arctic route as a short cut for shipping between Asia and Europe has risen above the "improbable" stage but still has a ways to go before it becomes reality. 

The image is Fairway Rock, located in the Bering Strait. (source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Connecting Alaska by Railroad

I asked Mr. George Koumal, chairman of the Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group, to comment on my post regarding President Obama's trip to Canada and the Alaska-Canada Rail Link. Here is what he sent me by email. The image below is of the car carrier Cougar Ace, after it overturned off the Aleutian Islands on July 26, 2006, spilling its cargo of nearly 5,000 vehicles into the sea. (source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Tim:

My comment would be as follows:

The Canada-Alaska rail connection was indeed analyzed in 2007*, and the result of this analysis showed that it would make enough money to pay the operating cost but not enough by far to pay for the cost of capital. If anything, the situation with regard to financing is even more unfavorable today than it was in 2007.

There are two other factor involved: the development of oil in Alaska, whether on-shore or off-shore, does not involve railroad. Oil companies are quite comfortable with establishing cheap roads for trucks driven by Kamikaze drivers. A railroad would be a permanent feature of transport, and the oil companies have no interest in permanency. After the oil deposit is depleted, they just move on.

As far as the lure of mineral development is concerned, modern advances in sea shipping make it possible to ship a ton of metal concentrate for about a nickel to the US from anywhere in the world. "Anywhere" in the world the mineral deposits may be of higher grade, there is much cheaper labor and one does not have to deal with endless environmental questions and law suits. 

The development of the Kensington gold mine near Juneau is a sad example of both: Coeur d'Alene mining company spent nearly 300 millions of dollars at Kensington, completed the mine and concentrator development only to see the mine production held up by environmentalists in the 9th District Court.

With today's depressed commodities prices, the future of Alaska-Canada rail connection is more than bleak.

The picture changes considerably, if you look on Alaska-Canada connection as part of the intercontinental railway connecting Asia, Europe and the North American continents. You enter transport function for the railroad in northern Pacific basin, perhaps the largest freight shipping market in the World today. 

More than 6,000 super container freighters ply the so called Northern Circle Route, a shipping lane that follows the Aleutian Chain of islands. The railroad to Asia would supplement and replace this sea shipping and avoid frequent shipwrecks** in perhaps the most violent waters in the World known to a sailor. Railroad is safe, fast, door to door, all year transport mode. The fact that this railroad will also open up for development the resource hidden in the nearly 7 million square miles of the Arctic. Nowhere is the frosting on the cake!

 

Tim, all the Best, George Koumal

 

p.s Did we find the mode of cooperation between IBSTRG and the Foundation for Peace? It seems like that we did.

 

* I have done such analysis in 1998 with identical results

** several per year. A ship load of Mazdas landed on Kodiak island beaches not too long ago, washed up from a shipwrecked cargo vessel.

Obama to Canada: A Rail Link to Alaska?

President Obama visits Canada on Thursday, Feb. 19, for a few hours of summiteering with Canadian leaders. Despite the brief affair -- in by 10:30, out by 5:30 -- Canadians are meeting him with "celebrity fever" not seen since the time of Ronald Reagan. 

The relationship between the U.S. and Canada is a key factor in planning surface transportation infrastructure connecting North America and Eurasia across the Bering Strait. Currently, there is no railroad connecting the U.S. lower 48 states to Alaska. The U.S. rail system connects to Canada's, but the closest that system gets to Alaska is Prince Rupert and Fort Nelson, BC. 

In 2007, a feasibility study for an Alaska Canada Rail Link by the governments of Alaska and Yukon was released. 

Here's the official website: 

The Alaska Canada Rail Link (ACRL) Phase 1 Feasibility Study considers a rail connection through Alaska, Yukon and Northern B.C. linking North Pacific Rim markets in the shortest trade corridor between North Asia and North America via a U.S. port.

Mutually dependent economics of large-scale northern resource and railway development are compelling.

Drastic changes in global demand - driven by Asian markets - have sharply raised the value of mineral resources in north western Canada and Alaska and rail infrastructure investment would dramatically increase economic productivity, development and sustainability in this region.

A new North Pacific Rim Trade Corridor may be well positioned to complement bulk mineral resource traffic for export to Asia with container import traffic from Asia.

A rail connection through Canada would improve the economic security of Alaska and the lower 48 United States by providing both essential supply route redundancy, as well as West Coast container congestion relief with a new Alaska sea/rail port gateway on U.S. soil.

The feasibility study was released on June 19, 2007, and favors models where ports in either Alaska, Yukon or British Columbia handle sea-going shipping between East Asia and the U.S. lower 48 states. 

High Speed Intercontinental Rail? "Not Likely"

I shared an article about the $8 billion for high speed railroad included in the U.S. stimulus bill with Mr. George Koumal, chairman of the Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group. The IBSTRG has been advocating a railroad link across the Bering Strait for more than 20 years. George didn't seem to think it was all that relevant to the Project.

Here is his email to me, published with permission: 

Dear Tim: Thanks for the information. I have been aware of this. However, high speed railroad is completely unsuitable for freight movements. And it is the freight movements over long overland distance where the railroad has no competition. Also, railroad not only transports but it also develops commerce and industry. Arctic is suitable for all kinds of development. Including agriculture, as strange as it may sound. Greenhouse farming in the Arctic would take advantage of the long summer sunlight hours, as well as the fact that there would be cheaper energy available that in more moderate climate. I am not sure if I mentioned this to you before. If you take a city hopper flight from Paris to Amsterdam, you would see below square miles of greenhouses. Similarly, on the train ride (courtesy of Mr. Lee) from Pusan to Seoul, you can also see whole square miles of greenhouse farms. It is a highly profitable business. Rail/ship transport from Arctic can supply vegetables and flowers all around the World. High speed trains cannot do it.

    North Korea does need a carrot-threat of long range rockets! Please write an article to Korea Times about the Inter-Korean Consortium. It is a newspaper read in Pyongyang, I believe.

 

                                         All the Best to all of you, George Koumal  

For a Sustainable Global Human Community

I'm starting this blog as a part of my effort to create an online network of people interested in -- or just curious about -- the Bering Strait project. There are two types of people in the world: those who can't see why anyone would want to attempt such a project and those who find themselves inexplicably enamoured by it. I was once in the former group. Then one day I had a glass of Kool-Aid and -- POW! -- I found myself in the latter. 

It would be like someone in the days of Abraham Lincoln dreaming of a network of highways crisscrossing the United States, with people traveling in speeds up to 65 (hey, we obey the law here!) miles per hour. 

It is an ambitious project. It is certain to happen sooner or later. The more people dream about it, talk about, and figure out how to solve the problems associated with it, the sooner it will happen. Let's hope this blog can play a role in that process. 

It nees to happen for the sake of creating a sustainable global human community. 

Check out the press release on the Bering Strait ideas competition.