nice…..

The rest of the commuting is within 10 miles, so you could either look at all-electric cars with charging stations at work locations, or extensive LRT. Subways won’t work here.

Also, as far as trucking goes, most of the trucking is medium-haul supplying and shipping between the wood/fiber/paper mills, logging trucks, and fuel. There are existing railbeds that have served those mills and many large businesses in the past. They would need to be reactivated to be used, but there is no reason why that couldn’t happen given the proper incentives.

Do Vancouver island residents need to drive a lot to get to shopping, schools, etc.? With all of that electric power, one option for total daily driving of less than 50 miles might be to use fully electric cars that can recharge overnight. But that wouldn’t be practical if cars need to drive longer distances, and I’m not sure the savings with hybrid cars yet would offset their higher purchase price.

One other question is whether shifting to electricity would bring a saving in energy costs per household.

All you have to know is the number of locomotives on the system and their maximum rated horsepower and convert it to kilowatts.

In our case, the E&N system is quite small. When it last operated as a viable freight hauler there were 2-3 locomotives on the Alberni sub, and 2-3 on the Victoria-Courtney sub.

Rail America used the EMD GP38 which are rated at 2000 horsepower, or 1.5MW.

The Via Rail ‘Budd’ RDC cars are rated at about 280hp*2 for each car. So lets say 600hp per car. Via has 3 cars on the Island.

so… 3 * 600… 1,800HP maximum power from Via
6 * 2000hp… 12,000hp from RailAmerica

13,800hp total… which translates to:

10200KW

or 10.2MW.

So the Franklin River Project alone would not be able to handle the peak-immediate load of the E&N… but, say, if you combined it’s “sister” facility at China Creek (which has the same capacity) the two together would easily produce enough electricity assuming the head is sufficient through the generators… and again, given the abudance of run-of-river possiblities on the Island, sufficient power for future expansion is readily available.

“I must say that I’m curious what the plan is for all that extra power that’s proposed.”

What plan is needed? Just sell it. The IPPs generally sell it to BC Hydro, which can then do with the extra capacity what it pleases… which is generally sell it on the open market.