Technowraiths Tidbits and Trivia: Environmental Edition

[Technowraith]

This thread came about due to my boredom and insomnia. So here goes.

Basic premise: this thread is designed to showcase anything interesting, trivia, did-you-k now facts or any interesting information or ideas that have been discovered or found in all the wide corners of the internet. The topic is about the environment.

To kick things off, working for Norfolk Southern, I've learned quite a few interesting facts about the rail freight and how it impacts the environment in many ways:

-5000 gallons of diesel fuel can move a locomotive 2500 miles. You're thinking 2 miles per gallon? are you freaking nuts!? Look at it this way: that same locomotive can move 3500 tons of freight 2500 miles. On one tank of gas. 3 locomotives can move upwards of 17000 tons.

-An intermodal shipping container is a sea freight container that can be carried on a ship, a truck and on a train. It is the most efficient mode of freight transport, ton for ton.

-A stack train is a train comprised entirely of intermodal shipping containers. It generally consists of 100 cars, each containing up to 200 containers (two 40 or 53-foot containers stacked on top of each other) or 300 containers (one 40 or 53-foot container stacked on top of two 20-foot containers). A Z-train is train comprised of trailers placed on special cars designed to carry regular trailers. A "Road-railer" is a train that uses specially designed wheel sets that attach directly to regular trailers, with the trailers themselves forming the actual train. These trains can remove up to 250 trucks off the highways.

-Ton for ton, freight trains are the cheapest method of moving freight.

-Your average locomotive can move one ton of freight 440 miles on one gallon of gas.

-Your average freight car can carry up to 100 tons. That is 3 times the maximum gross weight capacity of a truck.

-If you were to take a 17000 ton freight train and load it onto to 40 ton capacity trucks, it would require 425 trucks.

-An autorack can transport 36 cars. And auto-train consists of 40 autoracks. That's 1440 cars. Assuming each car held 12 gallons of gas, that's 17280 gallons of gas being saved.

-Newer diesel electric locomotives are 30% more efficient than they were just 5 years ago. This translates into an added fuel savings of roughly 150 gallons per 5000 gallon fill-up.

-Newer locomotives sport an electric slow drive where an electric motor drive powers the locomotive at operating speeds of 5-15 miles per hour. The diesel power plant starts the locomotive moving, and cuts at 5mph then resumes at speeds above 16mph. This means that during all yard movement (which is done at 5-15mph - with the exception of dead starts) is done entirely on electric power, saving fuel and emissions.

-The newest locomotives sport a small solar array built into the roof of the operating cab to help power the cab's interior electronics and equipment.

On the recycling front, some stats from the local recycling hauler:

-An average week's tonnage roughly equals bout 32000 tons for 8 local collection routes. This is equal to 800 forty ton trucks.

-65% of collected recyclables are paper products.

-Approximately 35000 tons of aluminun and steel have been collected so far in 2010.

-The recycle trucks are diesel hybrids that use electric power to save fuel during stop and go runs.

-The processing center where the recyclables are sorted, baled and transferred can handle roughly 10 tons per hour. It is also solar-paneled to provide power to support buildings and basic power needs.

-Norfolk Southern moves approximately 15000 tons of recyclables from the processing center each week to east coast regional suppliers who accept the materials for further recycling.

-Enough paper gets recycled in a year at the processing plant to re-grow a mature forest that is approximately 50 square miles. Or enough paper every 6 months to fill the volume of the Great Pyramid of Gaza. Or create a stack of 8.5 by 11 inch paper that is 5000 miles tall.

-The processing plant estimates it recycles over 34,000 12-ounce soda cans a week. That's 5667 six packs of soda!

-The average weight of recycling containers picked up on the streets is roughly 45 pounds, an increase of 10% over last year. Recycling has been increasing in the region over the last years.

If you have any interesting stats or facts or points of interest, and they're environmentally related, feel free to add. Would love to see all sorts of info here.

[Puvomun]

A few facts about the plastic recycling scheme we have over here in the Netherlands:

55 recycled PET bottles make a sleeping bag.
4 recycled PET bottles make a lunchbox.

So, recycle.