Freighthopping
Sometimes these articles practically write themselves.
“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” – Albert Einstein
For most of the 20th century, Colorado was a right-leaning swing state. It typically voted Republican in presidential elections, but races were generally competitive. Bill Clinton won the state by a tight margin in 1992, Robert Dole was victorious in 1996, and then George W. Bush carried it in 2000 and 2004 with just over 50%. The younger Bush would be the last Republican to win Colorado, which has taken a steady leftward turn ever since. Kamala Harris trounced Donald Trump by 11 points in the most recent race, and current Democratic Governor Jared Polis won reelection in 2022 by nearly 20. In essence, Colorado is quickly becoming the California of flyover country, complete with its own Berkeley variant in Boulder, with equally hippie roots.
Like many governors of solidly blue states, Polis has national ambitions and will likely run for the Democratic nomination in 2028. Adopting policies from his potential future primary opponent Gavin Newsom, Polis has gone “full Germany” with his state’s energy agenda. Wind energy, in particular, has seen explosive growth under his watch and now accounts for approximately 28% of the state’s electricity generation.
One of the challenges in aligning with the progressive environmental brigade for electoral purposes is the occasional need to lend the weight of your name to zany ideas. Well, at least that’s the best explanation we can come up with to justify this:
“Even the founders and an enthusiastic governor admit it sounds crazy: Charge up a train full of massive batteries with clean solar or wind energy out on the plains, then roll the trains to Denver or any other spot that’s low on power without using billion-dollar electrical lines.
The train track becomes the transmission line. ‘Trainsmission,’ by the company’s coinage.
SunTrain, Gov. Jared Polis, Xcel Energy and national clean energy advocates said Monday the idea is ready, and if they land a $10 million federal grant, a demo project charging trains at Pueblo and plugging into the grid at Denver’s Cherokee power station could be ready by 2026.”
Upon watching the well-produced introductory video on SunTrain’s YouTube channel, you could be forgiven for thinking they might actually be on to something. After all, the US routinely ships massive amounts of energy around the country by rail in the form of coal hoppers, and shuttered coal power plants still have the requisite electricity infrastructure to take advantage of the company’s envisioned mobile power plants. Wind and solar facilities often generate more electricity than the grid actually needs—a destructive phenomenon that can cause local electricity prices to go negative for short periods of time—and what better way to flexibly capture, store, and transport that ultra-cheap energy than by leveraging the country’s existing rail infrastructure? New transmission lines, too, are indeed frustratingly hard to permit and construct, and even the most ardent supporters of a clean and shiny new grid would rather not have them passing through their backyards.
While Polis might prefer to enjoy the political benefit of these headlines without submitting himself to questions on the viability of it all, we are under no such constraints. Let’s break out our calculators, crunch the numbers, and begin the new year by having a bit of fun.