I’m not the type of guy that gets excited about new locomotives, but this is something cool that I caught while browsing through inhabitat.com.
The folks at General Electric have recently put together a series of informative, compelling, and visually stunning videos as part of their Ecomagination “commitment.” Here’s a video about their Evolution Series Locomotive, a lean mean high-performing machine which truly “defies the perception that greater efficiency means less power,” using 189,000 fewer gallons of fuel in its lifetime than its predecessors….
The coolest thing was the numbers on the GE site (located from the video page at ‘Behind the Story’ > Facts):
- If every locomotive in North America were as clean as GE’s Evolution…[it] would be like removing 48 million cars from the road each year.
- If the largest railroad in North America switch half its locomotive fleet to the GE Evolution, annual carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by an amount equal to planting more than 31,000 acres of trees.
- Compared to locomotives built in 2004, a single Evolution locomotive will consume 315,000 fewer gallons of fuel in its lifetime…
I always love seeing innovations like these. We wont stop, or reverse, global warming with a single solution but many smaller steps until we reach the tipping point.
