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Anon likes trains
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Still cleaner than even the cleanest electric car, just by physics.
Copilot’s deep think says it would take a 2K passenger train to be more environmentally friendly than 2K electric cars, given a coal-steam train and electric cars recharged by a coal fired power plant.
But that’s irrelevant, electric cars lose the coolness factor against steam trains. Choo-choo electric drivers!
I cannot express the depth of disappointment i feel here.
Suffice to say that this is not an answer, and if you think it is; you're going to get a lot of people hurt very badly someday. I sincerely hope you are never responsible for so much as brunch.
In theory, you could make a carbon-neutral coal-burning steam locomotive. You would need to make synthetic coal out of atmospherically-captured CO2. But in theory it would be possible...
Nope. Thermodynamics.
You'd just be making batteries at that point
And the making wouldn't be free
And what's wrong with that? Who says the coal has to be a net source of power?
Synthetic fuels are actually a pretty viable method of decarbonizing, especially for hard-to-decarbonize applications like aviation. Sure, you don't get net energy out of them, but who cares? Thanks to dirt cheap solar, our civilization has stupidly abundant access to energy. It's only portable energy or energy when we want it that costs a lot. But people have seriously proposed making even gasoline from atmospherically derived carbon. Sure, it's just a fancy battery. But the Joules/dollar you get from the grid is so much cheaper than what you get from gasoline that it may be worth it.
Wouldn't be carbon neutral.
/dollar is a fantasy bullshit metric. Joules portable per joule in, joules per weight, joules per area, chemical byproducts per joule, fancy gear and maintenance required. those are what actually matter in the real world. We cannot afford to keep fucking around with childish LARP shit like money.
And the best tool we have for carbon capture is still just trees. No process is perfectly efficient, can't be, and all have collateral costs.
It could be carbon neutral. It's all about how you do it.
In some convoluted process where you output a bunch of other stuff; sure.