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Light rail busted

By George Baumler

Light rail supporters cling to an antiquated idea that people still live and work in small areas, like plastic figures on a scale model choo-choo-train layout.  In reality, the population of Jefferson County lives and works over a huge landscape, covering approximately 385 square miles.  The largest portion, over 80% of all employment, is located outside of the traditional downtown locations and would be ill served by a trolley that runs to and from points that account for less than 20% of employment in the greater metro area.  The supporters of light rail also claim that light rail operates pollution-free, but this pollution-free mythology doesn't bear honest scrutiny.  In fact, the notion that the modern incarnation of 19^th century technology operates pollution-free is pure fantasy and could not be farther from the truth. 

The first law of thermodynamics states:  "The algebraic sum of all energy changes in an isolated system is zero."  Simply stated, energy is conserved, or total energy equals energy used plus energy wasted.  As potent as our legislators see themselves, they have not been able to overturn the laws of physics.  The energy to operate the trams must come from somewhere, and pollution is created in the process of extracting and using that energy as well as in creating and using the energy that is wasted in the process.  In Greater Louisville, the electricity to operate the proposed trolley system would be produced by burning mountains of coal, which means pollution and waste.  The process is as follows:

1.    Burning coal releases heat.

2.    Heat is transferred to water to produce steam.

3.    Steam drives a turbine connected to a dynamo, which produces electricity.

4.     Electric current is transported and adjusted through transformers and transmission lines.

5.    The tram picks up electricity at the catenary (overhead conductor) via an arcing and sparking carbon connector.  (Direct ozone production)

6.    The electrical energy is then reconverted to mechanical energy to drive the trolley car and provide heat and air conditioning for the comfort of the occupants.

Each of the above steps involves a loss of energy, since no process is 100% efficient and losses occur each time energy is transformed from one form to another.  Some of this loss can be observed at the power plant in the form of wasted heat, observable as steam and smoke billowing from the plant's smokestacks.  The "clean" tram hides most of its dirty business at the power plant, out of sight of most riders.  The power plants are our area's largest producers of CO2s and NOXs.  Burning mounds of coal, to feed these nearly empty trolleys as they shuttle back and forth to nowhere, will not improve the Ohio River valley's air quality.

One overlooked form of pollution by trolleys is at the site ground level ozone production.  It has been known for decades that electric arcs produce ozone, and plenty of it.  Indoor air purifiers have used the principle of electrical discharge to produce ozone for decades.  The large high amperage arcs of trolleys at the catenary are no exception to this well-known phenomenon; the trolleys produce ozone along their entire routes, but especially at the start and stop points. 

Rebecca Stutsman of the Jefferson County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) stated in a letter to Stop The VET; " Ozone is the primary ingredient in smog which affects the respiratory health of the more than 100,000 people in our metro area alone who suffer from chronic health conditions like asthma.  Also, unhealthy ozone levels can affect the lungs of otherwise healthy children and adults who spend extended periods of time outdoors playing, working and exercising."  

The text below has been excerpted from comments made before a Southern California air quality board by a local PE, Les Berriman back in 1992:

"Recently I found data on power loss estimates of power transfer at the catenary.  The loss is about one percent.  Using this to compute power and further reducing the loss by the efficiency of commercial electric ozone producing systems, I was able to calculate a reasonable estimate of direct ozone production.  Peak hour ozone can then be quantified using the data on projected train volumes and loading from the OCTA rail study." 

  "I used data from the SCAQMD plan, Report V-B, Ozone Modeling, to back calculate the equivalent amounts of NOx and ROG that would produce the same quantity of ozone as electric rail and then determined the number of automobiles that would produce this amount of pollutants assuming 1993 and 1997 emission standards (California?).

  The result is a real shocker, the train will produce the equivalent amount of NOx and ROG as if all the riders drove alone, and this at peak ridership! “

"Using the estimate from the OCTA report, of three commuter trains in the peak hour, the directly generated ozone levels will approximate twelve pphm in the negatively impacted area of the rail line during the peak period, so the state and federal ozone standards can not ever be met."

The motives of the well educated people, who state that trolleys are pollution-free transportation and who knowingly ignore the air pollution associated with the coal burned to generate the electricity used to power the trams, should be investigated, since ignorance cannot be cited as an excuse.  The inexcusable total omission of the on site production of ozone and NOXs via the high amperage arcs at the catenary would be grounds for huge fines and possibly criminal proceedings if it were a private industry that submitted such flawed pollution data.  In the interest of reducing ozone, the primary ingredient in smog, the ozone and NOX production by the high amperage electrical arcs associated with trolleys must be investigated and included in any SIP (State Implementation Plans) pertaining to pollution reduction.  Those educated individuals who knowingly have omitted such data should be asked to resign immediately.  (Knowingly: Those who have taken high school chemistry or hired as a consultant anyone with any knowledge of basic chemistry.)  

Both of these sites mention ozone production as a result of electrical discharges.  (Arcs):

http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/CAMPAIGN_DOCS/ATM_CHEM/under

standing_ozone.html

http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/ozone.htm

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