| Many motorists have experienced the convoy of heavy trucks crawling up a steep hill in a cloud of exhaust fumes because the truck diesel engines lack the torque to be able to maintain regular speed.
There is however a technology which has been around for decades which would enable trucks to climb hills with ease without using their diesel engines. That technology is the traction system used in electric trolley buses which are used in some American cities especially those built on hills where electric motors can produce more torque than a diesel engine and temporarily operate overpowered for a short period of time when climbing a hill. Boston for example is using dual-mode buses on its new Silver Line that run on overhead electricity on a fixed right of way and then switches to regular city streets using their diesel engines when overhead power lines are not available. 300+ cities around the world use electric trolley buses so the technology for powering large vehicles using overhead power lines is well proven.
Heavy diesel trucks fitted with an auxiliary electric engine with a back up storage battery and rigid trolley poles spring-loaded to hold them up to two horizontally parallel overhead wires supported by roadside poles along steep hills could transition from diesel to more efficient electric power as they climb hills. In the event that the truck lost contact with the overhead wires the electric engine can run off batteries for several minutes providing ample time to re-engage the diesel engine. In recent years new trolley bus technology enables the driver to engage and disengage the overhead collector arms without alighting from the vehicle (see European Patent EP0693998 titled COLLECTOR FOR TROLLEY BUS).
The proposed Hybrid Diesel Electric Power System for Heavy Trucks would also be ideal for congested truck routes that don't have steep hills such as those around the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports. There are an estimated 70,000 daily truck trips in and out of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles so an electric overhead power system covering the most densely trafficked area for say 20 miles around the port area would greatly reduce pollution in the area and, as cargo volumes are expected to double by 2010 the cost of such an overhead electric power system would be more than justified.
Millions of California residents along the 18-mile route through such cities as Compton, Bell Gardens and South Gate are suffering pollution as thousands of trucks daily carry cargo along the congested Long Beach Freeway from the ports inland to the rail yards of Los Angeles and Commerce and the warehouses of the Inland Empire.
A back of the envelope calculation suggests that providing overhead electric power for trucks along 18 miles of the Long Beach Freeway and extending into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would cost about $500 million to install. Whereas city based electric trolley services often cost more to run than diesel buses it is likely that a heavily patronized overhead electric powered truck lane would be able to offer truckers electric power to their trucks at 50 cents per mile about 50% of what they now pay per mile for diesel power.
Truckers could be incentivized to install auxiliary electric motors with overhead power collectors in their vehicles if the government introduced a tax credit scheme to promote the gas saving and environmental beneficial system. Truck manufacturers would see an upturn in business manufacturing the new electric power system for addition to both new and existing vehicles.
Using centrally-produced power is more efficient, not bound to a specific fuel source and more amenable to pollution control as a single-source supply than are individual vehicles with their own engines that exhaust harmful emissions at street level. If the electric power delivered for the current 70,000 truck trips per day in and out of the twin Californian ports was produced for example by nuclear power this would save the country approximately 3 million barrels of oil a year and that's just from one short stretch of freeway with overhead electric powered lanes.
The potential economic benefits of such a new method of truck transport are substantial however the environmental benefits are far greater. Adopting the proposed new truck overhead electric power system would improve the air quality for a radius of 20 miles around Long Beach and LA Port to a level that would lead to a marked improvement of the general health of residents in the area.
Vince Waterson lives in California. He is VP of business development at a satellite communications company. He can be contacted at email: vwaterson@aol.com |
