How many rail cars of coal does the US burn every day?
October 8th, 2009 | by Michael |
Scott asked:
I’ve been told its about one rail car every second or 86,400/day. If that’s true, and each car is about 50 feet long, then that means the coal we use every day would fill a train 818 miles long even if there were zero space between the cars!
A real train, with several feet between cars and a lot of locomotives would probably be closer to 1000 miles long.
DEAN
I’ve been told its about one rail car every second or 86,400/day. If that’s true, and each car is about 50 feet long, then that means the coal we use every day would fill a train 818 miles long even if there were zero space between the cars!
A real train, with several feet between cars and a lot of locomotives would probably be closer to 1000 miles long.
DEAN
3 Responses to “How many rail cars of coal does the US burn every day?”
By redbeardthegiant on Oct 10, 2009 | Reply
The standard rail coal car is [or at least used to be] 100 tons capacity.
Your numbers would then work out to 315 million tons per year, which I think is somewhat high, like maybe 10 or 15 times too high.
If you look on the DOE’s website you can probably find US coal consumption.
To put the numbers in perspective, divide by 275 million people…..
By Growl on Oct 12, 2009 | Reply
Total US coal consumption is about 1 billion tons per year. A large coal car holds about 100 tons. Thus 10 million cars per year or 27,000 cars per day.
By BLT on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
My answer for 2001 coal consumption for electricity in the US is
24,034 coal cars per day
I couldn’t find figures for “all” uses of coal - such as heating, etc - but all my figuring and sources is shown below.
states
U.S. Demand
America’s coal is used primarily for the production of electricity. According to the EIA, in 2001 –
There were 315,000 Megawatts (net) of coal-based electrical generating capacity in the United States.
This represented approximately 37% of the total installed capacity.
However, coal plants accounted for 52% of the electricity generated since these facilities and nuclear plants are normally operated as “baseload” generators (the generating equipment normally operates on an around-the-clock basis).
Some 965 million tons of coal were consumed for the generation of electricity. This amounted to 86% of total U.S. coal production.
The EIA also makes energy production and consumption estimates for future years. Under these projections, domestic coal consumption is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 1.1% - 1.5% through 2025.
The additional 828,000 tons of coal were carried using 4,870 fewer carloads than 12 months earlier, owing to the drops in Utah and Illinois loadings, which average fewer tons per carload, while loadings increased in Colorado and, especially, Wyoming, which account for more tons per carload. Wyoming-originated coal averaged 117.0 tons per carload, up by 0.8 tons year over year. By contrast, Illinois-origin coal averaged 106.7 and Utah 108.4 tons per carload.
SO LET’S USE THE ABOVE
965,000,000 tons of coal burned for electricity - in 2001
965,000,000 tons / 365 days per year = 2,643,835 tons per day
Let’s day a train car carries 110 tons of coal - a number between the Wyoming 117 tons per car and the 106 of Illinois and 108 of Utah.
2,643,835 tons per day/ 110 tons per car = 24,034 coal cars per day
COAL CARS RANGE IN LENGTH FROM 48 to 65 ft long. - let’s say our train has only 48 ft long cars - if all the coal is being moved by only one train today, which we know is most likely not possible in reality - how long is the train in miles
24,034 cars x 48 ft per car / 5280 ft per mile = 218 miles for the length of the train.