U.S. inland barge interests measure emissions
A fuel-use study based on comparisons of inland freight transportation modes now includes greenhouse gas emissions.
Acting for the National Waterways Foundation, the Texas Transportation Institute's Center for Ports and Waterways at Texas A&M University has amended its 2007 study, A Modal Comparison of Freight Transportation Effects on the General Public, to include the carbon dioxide output between inland river barge transport and highway and rail transport.
The center used Environmental Protection Agency parameters to calculate how much carbon dioxide is emitted per ton-mile for each mode. Emissions per ton-mile are those emissions experienced in moving one ton of cargo one mile.
The center determined that the emissions of carbon dioxide per gallon of fuel burned are about the same for each mode, so the comparison focused on how much cargo gets moved for that gallon of fuel. The center determined that compared to inland barge transport, rail transport generates 39 percent more carbon dioxide and trucking generates 371 percent more of the greenhouse gas.
More specifically:
' Trucks can only produce 155 ton-miles of cargo movement per gallon of fuel and can deliver only 13,964 ton-miles of cargo movement for each ton of carbon dioxide produced.
' Railroads produce 413 ton-miles of cargo movement per gallon of fuel, allowing them to move 37,207.2 ton-miles of cargo for each ton of carbon dioxide produced.
' Inland towboats move the most cargo per gallon of fuel — 576 ton-miles per gallon — and thus produce the least amount of carbon dioxide emissions per ton-mile, about 51,891 ton-miles of cargo movement for each ton of carbon dioxide emitted.
'To put these numbers in perspective, the research team calculated that if all the cargo that moved by barge in 2005, the year of the study, were instead moved by rail, it would have resulted in an additional 2.1 million tons of CO2 in the atmosphere,' the National Waterways Foundation said. 'If that same cargo hard moved by truck, it would have generated an additional 14.2 million tons.'