IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i4p1200-d208703.html

Contested Power: American Long-Distance Passenger Rail and the Ambiguities of Energy Intensity Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Minn

    (Department of History, Politics, and Geography, Farmingdale State College, Farmingdale, NY 11735-1021, USA)

Abstract

This paper is a critical review of research on long-distance passenger rail energy consumption that examines the factors that affect the energy intensity of rail, the comparative energy intensity of alternative modes (auto, air and bus), and the sources of discrepancies between different published energy intensity figures. The ambiguities underlying those discrepancies point to a fundamental question about what phenomenon is being quantified in energy intensity analysis, and whether any transport mode can be said to universally have an energy intensity advantage over other modes at all times, places and scales. This ontological question may be as significant as the epistemic conflicts dominating discourses over competing studies and analytical approaches.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Minn, 2019. "Contested Power: American Long-Distance Passenger Rail and the Ambiguities of Energy Intensity Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1200-:d:208703
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1200/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1200/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alain Bonnafous & Charles Raux, 2003. "Transport Energy and Emissions: Rail," Post-Print halshs-00080523, HAL.
    2. Bullard, Clark W. & Herendeen, Robert A., 1975. "The energy cost of goods and services," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 268-278, December.
    3. Levinson, David & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2009. "The minimum circuity frontier and the journey to work," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 732-738, November.
    4. Chester, Mikhail V, 2008. "Life-cycle Environmental Inventory of Passenger Transportation in the United States," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt7n29n303, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    5. Fels, Margaret Fulton, 1978. "Breakdown of rapid rail energy costs: A study of three systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 507-522.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Branden M. Deiss & Mallori Herishko & Lauren Wright & Michelle Maliborska & J. Patrick Abulencia, 2021. "Analysis of Energy Consumption in Commercial and Residential Buildings in New York City before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-14, October.
    2. Loo Yew Liang & Li Kuo, 2025. "The Factors Influencing Rail Transit Ridership: A Case Study of Klang Valley Malaysia," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(5), pages 4846-4862, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Yilin & Chen, Bin & Li, Chaohui & Li, Zhi & Chen, Guoqian, 2020. "Energy perspective of Sino-US trade imbalance in global supply chains," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Cao, Zhejing & Zhang, Xiaohu & Chua, Kelman & Yu, Honghai & Zhao, Jinhua, 2021. "E-scooter sharing to serve short-distance transit trips: A Singapore case," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 177-196.
    3. Wu, X.D. & Guo, J.L. & Chen, G.Q., 2018. "The striking amount of carbon emissions by the construction stage of coal-fired power generation system in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 358-369.
    4. Lixiao Zhang & Qiuhong Hu & Fan Zhang, 2014. "Input-Output Modeling for Urban Energy Consumption in Beijing: Dynamics and Comparison," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-11, March.
    5. Jariyasunant, Jerald & Carrel, Andre & Ekambaram, Venkatesan & Gaker, DJ & Kote, Thejovardhana & Sengupta, Raja & Walker, Joan L., 2011. "The Quantified Traveler: Using personal travel data to promote sustainable transport behavior," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt9jg0p1rj, University of California Transportation Center.
    6. Sun, Xiaoqi & Liu, Xiaojia, 2020. "Decomposition analysis of debt’s impact on China’s energy consumption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. Dixit, Manish K. & Culp, Charles H. & Fernández-Solís, Jose L., 2013. "System boundary for embodied energy in buildings: A conceptual model for definition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 153-164.
    8. Freire-González, Jaume, 2017. "Evidence of direct and indirect rebound effect in households in EU-27 countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 270-276.
    9. Papathanasopoulou, Eleni & Jackson, Tim, 2008. "Fossil resource trade balances: Emerging trends for the UK," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 492-505, June.
    10. Wojciech SZYMALSKI, 2021. "Energy And Co 2 Emission Intensities Of Various Modes Of Passenger Transport In Warsaw," Transport Problems, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, vol. 16(2), pages 131-140, June.
    11. Cui, Mengying & Yu, Lijie & Nie, Shaoyu & Dai, Zhe & Ge, Ying-en & Levinson, David, 2025. "How do access and spatial dependency shape metro passenger flows," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    12. Katrien Ramaekers & Sofie Reumers & Geert Wets & Mario Cools, 2013. "Modelling Route Choice Decisions of Car Travellers Using Combined GPS and Diary Data," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 351-372, September.
    13. Xiaoshu Cao & Feiwen Liang & Huiling Chen & Yongwei Liu, 2017. "Circuity Characteristics of Urban Travel Based on GPS Data: A Case Study of Guangzhou," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-21, November.
    14. Lina I. Brand-Correa & Paul E. Brockway & Claire L. Copeland & Timothy J. Foxon & Anne Owen & Peter G. Taylor, 2017. "Developing an Input-Output Based Method to Estimate a National-Level Energy Return on Investment (EROI)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-21, April.
    15. Rutger Hoekstra & Marco Janssen, 2006. "Environmental responsibility and policy in a two-country dynamic input-output model," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 61-84.
    16. Rocco, M.V. & Colombo, E. & Sciubba, E., 2014. "Advances in exergy analysis: a novel assessment of the Extended Exergy Accounting method," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1405-1420.
    17. Bahman Lahoorpoor & David M Levinson, 2024. "An agent-based simulation model for the growth of the Sydney Trains network," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 51(8), pages 1873-1894, October.
    18. Wu, X.D. & Ji, Xi & Li, Chaohui & Xia, X.H. & Chen, G.Q., 2019. "Water footprint of thermal power in China: Implications from the high amount of industrial water use by plant infrastructure of coal-fired generation system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 452-461.
    19. Legrain, Alexander & Buliung, Ron & El-Geneidy, Ahmed M., 2016. "Travelling fair: Targeting equitable transit by understanding job location, sectorial concentration, and transit use among low-wage workers," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-11.
    20. Carey W. King, 2021. "Interdependence of Growth, Structure, Size and Resource Consumption During an Economic Growth Cycle," Papers 2106.02512, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1200-:d:208703. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.