Will Navigation Stop Global Warming?

Barges loaded with coal and frac sand.

Last week I spent several days with the Great March for Climate Action and, while my feet only lasted something like 25 miles, I got a chance to talk with them about the challenges facing the Mississippi River as the climate shifts.  The barge industry claims that navigation is the transportation solution to global warming.  But it is SOOO not true.  Here’s why.

Fuel Efficiency

The barge industry claims that they are to most fuel efficient mode of transportation.  A study by Texas Transportation Institute – funded by the navigation industry – says barges can move 576 ton-miles per gallon and claim rail only moves 413 ton-miles per gallon.  But two separate, independent studies by the Universities of Illinois and Iowa say that the industries figure for train fuel efficiency is flat out wrong – trains moving bulk goods carry 640 ton-miles per gallon.  Trains are way more efficient than barges.

Circuity

What the heck does “circuity” mean?  It’s the different distance traveled by the different modes of transportation with the same start and end point.  The same three studies I mentioned above all concluded that barges have to travel at least 30% further than rail because rivers are squiggly.  Taking those extra miles into account, barge fuel efficiency drops down to, at best, 443 ton-miles per gallon.

So with barges traveling further than and not as fuel-efficiently as trains, we can conclude that barges are emitting more carbon into the atmosphere than trains.  Two strikes against navigation in the climate debate.  Let’s look at the infrastructure because a colleague said the other day that navigation is the most at risk transportation sector as global temperatures increase.  It made me laugh after reading so many reports written by the barge industry that concluded global warming would be a boon for the industry – making the shipping season longer. 

Infrastructure at Risk

In the Upper Mississippi River basin climate change is causing more droughts punctuated by more intense storm events.  This means navigation is facing more frequent river closures from drought and floods and more weather related accidents on the river, like the barges that broke loose in Marseilles last year after the captain tried to move his tow in extremely high water.  The barges damaged the dam at Marseilles and breached the town’s levee, causing tens of millions of dollars in damages.

Fish and Wildlife

The infrastructure navigation relies on, like the locks and dams on the Mississippi River, by themselves cause significant habitat degradation.  The dams on the Mississippi have turned the upper portion of the river into a series of slack water pools, totally transforming the river’s character.  So the native flora and fauna are already struggling to hang on in this new environment and climate change will be another challenge for to survival of all the native wildlife.

So, that’s four strikes against navigation, one more than is necessary to drop them from the list of climate change solutions.  The industry continues to hang on, but we need to move our transportation plans out of the 19^th century on the Upper Mississippi and look at real solutions.