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<ul><li>The Indian government has called it a historic move. </li><li>State-owned <keyword id="71137" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Diesel-Locomotive-Works">Diesel Locomotive Works</keyword> has converted two WDG3A Diesel Locos into a twin electric WAGC3 locomotive of 10,000 horsepower. </li><li>The launch of the <keyword id="930179" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="electric-locomotive">electric locomotive</keyword> comes just days after PM Modi unveiled the Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat express. </li></ul>India Prime Minister Narendra Modi today flagged off the first electric engine converted from diesel locomotive in Varanasi today, making India the world’s first country to achieve the same. The new electric engine was a project undertaken by Diesel Locomotive Works based out of Varanasi. The DLW converted two WDG3A Diesel Locos into a twin electric WAGC3 locomotive of 10,000 horsepower. According to official statements, the government has called it a ‘complete Make in India’ initiative which will result in less greenhouse gas emissions while also making way for better efficient locomotives. This comes in just days after PM Modi unveiled the Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat express ‘Train 18’, which <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/a-day-after-launch-vande-bharat-express-breaks-down-while-returning-from-varanasi-1457476-2019-02-16">broke down</a> on its first commercial run. The project which started work on December 22, 2017 was <a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/infrastructure/railways/indian-railways-leads-world-by-example-pm-modi-flags-off-1st-ever-diesel-to-electric-conversion-locomotive/1491851/">reportedly </a>completed in a record duration of 69 days. In 2016, the Indian Railways had launched Mission Electrification on November 3, 2016. As part of Mission Electrification, in the recent past 10 different electrification projects covering 2516 route kilometer at a cost of about Rs 2797 crores. have been finalized in a short duration, according to official statements. See Also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/seats-available-in-indian-railways-group-c-and-group-d-jobs-are-down-the-most/articleshow/67619669.cms">In charts: How Indian Railways has cut the number of employees in the last decade</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indian-railways-hooks-up-with-isro-satellites-to-live-track-trains/articleshow/67566131.cms">Indian Railways hooks up with ISRO satellites to live track trains</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indian-railways-comes-up-with-ai-enabled-robot-ustaad-designed-to-boost-safety-in-trains/articleshow/67281709.cms">Indian railways comes up with AI enabled robot ‘USTAAD’ — designed to boost safety in trains</a>

India is the first to convert a diesel locomotive to electric

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/amtrak">Amtrak</a> on Friday released its 2019 annual report for the fiscal year ended September 30. </li><li>The railroad reported its third straight year of record ridership and revenues, as it targets breaking even by 2021. </li><li>But with Congress threatening to slash Amtrak's budget, and badly needed infrastructure upgrades threatening its most important routes, the fight won't be easy. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>Amtrak saw record ridership and revenue in 2019, the railroad said Friday, marking its third straight year of improvements as the railroad attempts to break even for the first time in its five-decade history next year.For the fiscal year ending September 30, unaudited numbers show Amtrak carried 32.5 passengers, helping fuel a 3.6% increase in revenues, which totaled $3.3 billion. On the bottom line, Amtrak lost $29.8 million, an 83% improvement from 2018. "We listened, we invested, we improved, and our customers are noticing a difference," Richard Anderson, Amtrak's president and chief executive said in press release. "And we are not stopping. We have an aggressive plan to continue to advance our safety program, refresh train interiors, improve amenities, and renew stations and infrastructure."In the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak's busiest and most important route from Washington DC, to Boston, ridership increased about 3%, with the premium "Acela" high-speed service seeing a 4.3% jump. Long-distance routes, which have drawn the ire of lawmakers for their cash burn, saw ridership climb just under 1%.Key to the railroad's plans for ending its negative cash flow over the next two years is infrastructure improvements to improve timeliness and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amtrak-delays-costing-railroad-41-million-profit-2019-10">reduce costly delays.</a> Amtrak's inspector general found in October that nearly one-third of all trains were delayed, costing the agency some $42 million in annually."It's really important for this railroad to run on time if we want to have the confidence of our customers and policy makers," Anderson said on a conference call with reporters.For 2019, Amtrak spent $1.6 billion on capital investments, $713 million of which went to infrastructure projects, and another $110 million on technology. This spending included new overhead catenary wire on parts of the railroad Amtrak owns outright, as well as nearly 80,000 new concrete ties, and 283 miles of high-speed surfacing.Amtrak's refreshing its trains, too. $437 million went to the "largest fleet renewal in company history," Amtrak said, including a new Acela fleet and 75 new diesel locomotives. Next on the list is a new fleet of single-level "Amfeet" cars to replace the aging cars in use throughout much of the Eastern US."Bottom line is steady and continued improvement," Anderson said, "whether it's customer service scores, cleanliness of our trains, capital, financial, balance sheet, and engineering. Across the board, the enterprise had a really good year. We're set up well to move into 2020 and do better than break even on an operating basis.

Amtrak had another record ridership year as it works toward its first-ever profit

Just on the outskirts of the old city limits of the megapolis of Kolkata stands the semi-urban hamlet of Boral, where a young art director with the advertisement agency D J Keymer shot his classic debut film '<keyword id="106892" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="pather-panchali" source="Orion">Pather Panchali</keyword>' (Song of the Road), some 70 years ago, to metamorphose into the celebrated movie maestro Satyajit <keyword id="6561" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="ray" source="Orion">Ray</keyword>. Ray or Manick-da as his close associates called him, whose 102nd birthday is being celebrated Tuesday with aplomb across the globe, chose the village as it "was only four miles from the city limits and this meant that we could make daily trips" as also because with his shoe-string budget to shoot the movie, he could hardly afford on-location shoots in faraway rural idles. "He used to come to this field between our house and the ancient twin Shiva temple and stand for hours under a tree staring and chewing a handkerchief. "My father asked him what was he really doing. Ray told him that this was his way of composing shots in his head," said <keyword id="5748880" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="tushar-kanti-ghosh" source="Orion">Tushar Kanti Ghosh</keyword>, 80, a scion of the <keyword id="701424" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="zamindar" source="Orion">Zamindar</keyword> family which used to own most of the land in this village turned part of the city at one time, adding with a wrinkled grin: "He told dad he wasted around a dozen handkerchiefs a day thinking about shots!" Ghosh met Ray at age eight, and played a small part as a student at the village school in 'Pather Panchali', shot over from 1952 to 1955. "He (Ray) asked my father if he could borrow some young boys for the movie ... I had two small parts in the film and naturally at that age I was thrilled," chuckled the octogenarian, who along with other fellow villagers never realised that their non-descript village would be thrust into international fame once the movie was released and showcased at Cannes as India's official entry. Opposite the pond where Ray had shot some of his scenes for 'Pather Panchali' lives Abhishek Paul, 31, a young artist who said he heard stories of the film's shooting from his grandmother. "The entire village was agog with excitement through the period the movie was shot ... today we feel a kind of pride that he chose our 'para' (locality)," said Paul. A small bust of Satyajit Ray stands at the turn of the road from the house he had rented for the shooting. Locals have garlanded it and put-up festoons to celebrate the renowned filmmaker's birth anniversary Tuesday. Satyajit Ray cast mostly amateur actors in his movie for which he raised money by pawning his wife's jewellery and taking a subsidy sanctioned by the then chief minister of West Bengal Late Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, a fellow Brahmo Samaji. New York's Museum of Modern Art too chipped in with some support after noted American film director John Huston saw some of Ray's unfinished raw reels and declared it as the work of a "great filmmaker". "His first movie marked him out as being born into a different league ... 'Pather Panchali' was a far more realistic and yet stunningly beautiful presentation of rural India's life than we had ever seen before ... it touched the heart, not just the other senses," said <keyword id="466542" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="shoma-a-chatterji" source="Orion">Shoma A Chatterji</keyword>, veteran film critic and author of books on Satyajit Ray. No script was ever written for the movie as Ray believed the novel written by noted Bengali writer Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay was far too lucidly written to require a script. Instead, "Satyajit Ray drew a storyboard for the entire movie - picturising every scene that he shot with the dialogues scribbled on the margins in a strong, neat hand ... this was typically Ray, a very meticulous director who planned every single shot long before executing it," explained Chatterji. The music for the movie was composed by the famous sitarist Ravi Shankar and was considered an epochal score by the film fraternity, but Chatterji said the two geniuses had their intellectual differences and "in later films, Ray started composing his own music". After initial hesitation, the movie which depicts a family's struggle to live in their rural ancestral village as the hero - a child named Apu - grows up, did surprisingly well with both the critics and in the box office. Times of India in a piece in 1956 said: "It is banal to compare it with any other Indian picture...Pather Panchali is pure cinema. There is no trace of theatre in it." In Cannes, his debut film was nominated for the Palme d'Or for the best film and won the Prix du document humain (best human document). Part of Ray's 'Apu Trilogy, Boral's debut on the big screen remains one of the most influential movies that the world has seen. Twenty years after it was released, another film maestro Akira Kurosawa said the movie continues "to stir up deep passions." However, the village itself no longer stirs any great artistic passions. The forest patches and farmland have been gobbled up by an ever-hungry city as the megapolis's realtors built middle-class 'dream' high-rises. The fields of 'Kash' flowers or kans grass which at one time ran parallel to the single line railway track where 'Pather Panchali's' main characters - Apu and Durga - ran around, have been replaced by more railway tracks and ugly warehouses while the plaintive whistle of the steam engine has given way to brash honking by diesel locomotives. "But some things still remain the same ... everyone still loves a good story and someday another Ray will discover another Boral to produce yet another compelling movie," said Ghosh. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/7-out-of-10-indians-are-unable-to-identify-ai-voice-call-scams-and-half-fall-for-scams-with-monetary-losses/articleshow/99924644.cms">7 out of 10 Indians are unable to identify AI voice call scams, and half fall for scams with monetary losses</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/several-twitter-users-logged-out-from-desktop-accounts-globally/articleshow/99925101.cms">Several Twitter users logged out from desktop accounts globally</a>

The urban hamlet where Satyajit Ray met 'Pather Panchali'

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">APHigh-tech!</div></div></div><ul><li>Union Pacific is using a Big Data technology to ensure that its trains operate safety and efficiently.</li><li>The system is called Machine Vision.</li><li>It's one of several high-tech innovations the western freight carrier is undertaking.</li></ul> Someday soon, all our cars will be powered by electricity and drive themselves. Except not yet. Someday soon, airplanes will run on electricity and fly themselves. Except not yet.We're making widespread assumptions about how technology will transform road and air travel, but for the most part, cars run on gas and have humans behind the wheel. Planes continue to require pilots.But what about railroads? A system that was around when planes were a figment of the imagination and cars were called "horses" has arguably taken greater advantage of laser-radar, sensors, big data, and sophisticated programming that all other forms of modern transport.OK, we're not necessarily talking about Amtrak or the New York City Subway, both of which are in serious need of upgrades. We're dealing here with freight rail: the movement of massive amounts of goods via railcars that are pulled by huge diesel locomotives through some of America's most empty and picturesque landscapes.The dominant freight rail company in the US West is Union Pacific. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, the firm dates to 1862. But its venerable age doesn't mean it isn't relentlessly innovating.<h2>Railroads are the opposite of Rustbelt</h2>"We're the opposite of the rustbelt industry," said the company's Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer, Lynden Tennison. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Union PacificA Machine Vision image.</div></div></div>Tennison has been with Union Pacific since 2005, so he's executive tenure has coincided with the advent of the Internet of Things - and there aren't many things that are thingier than a 4,400-horsepower diesel-electric locomotive pulling a long train of cars through Colorado or Utah.In an interview with Business Insider, Tennison discussed one of Union Pacific's more ambitious forays into using the latest tech to improve service, safety, and business.It's called Machine Vision, and Union Pacific developed the system in its own research-and-development lab. In a nutshell, at three locations - North Platte, Nebraska; Loveland, Iowa; and Stuttgart, Arkansas - using what Tennison described as a portal, the company can remotely scan a mile-long train moving at 70 mph. "The system's robotic eyesight captures 50,000 photos per second, which are then strung together to form uninterrupted 3D images of the train," Union Pacific said in a statement. Lasers, radars, and sensors are also involved, and each portal site has its own trackside data center."We capture a massive amount of information," Tennison said. "On a 100-car train, a few secs yields 30 gigabytes of data and 15 billion."<h2>Riding the rails to big data</h2>All of that information is then crunched so that in near-real time Union Pacific staffers can look for defects. If they find any, they can flag them for future, scheduled inspections that are required by regulators, or prepare a repair for a stop down the line, saving valuable downtime that would otherwise be spent waiting for parts to arrive.The result is that rail operations are safer and Union Pacific's rolling stock keeps rolling, keeping the business on track and making sure that customers are served.Machine Vision is just one example of how the freight company, with its expertise in logistics and ability to apply innovations at scale, is leveraging big data-technology in ways that airlines and car companies can only dream of. According to Tennison, Union Pacific plans to expand Machine Vision to 13 portals in total.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Union PacfiicA UP train passing through a Machine Vision portal.</div></div></div>Other initiatives include putting the type of track-inspection technology that usually requires specialized locomotives on trains that are plying freight routes every day, greatly increasing the company's ability to monitor its rail network for trouble.This all obviously requires software and engineering talent - something that Union Pacific isn't content to leave to Silicon Valley. "We're aggressive about recruiting top-tier talent," Tennison said. The company looks to colleges such as Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon to tempt science and engineering graduates to take a look at working in the rail industry. "They're surprised at the complexity of the problems," Tennison said, adding that Union Pacific's tech-trained employees will be well compensated. Not incidentally, they'll enjoy the lower cost of living in places like Omaha.But perhaps most importantly, they won't vanish into a tech colossus. "You're not a little cog in a big wheel," Tennison said. "You're part of the wheel." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-semi-truck-electric-18-wheeler-rig-tech-driving-road-2017-11">Watch Elon Musk show off Tesla's first electric semi - which can go from 0-60 mph in five seconds</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

A Union Pacific exec told us why railroads are more high-tech than cars or planes

Sierra EnergySierra Energy founder and chief executive, Mike Hart, is trying to commercialize a technology to turn municipal waste into energy<ul class="summary-list"><li>The world has a titanic trash problem. On average, each person on Earth produces about 1.5 pounds of waste every day, which generates potent greenhouse gas emissions when it decays in a landfill. </li><li>One startup sees opportunity in our garbage. California-based Sierra Energy is commercializing a gasification technology that can turn municipal waste into valuable products like diesel and hydrogen gas. Recently, a coalition of investors led by Bill Gates has latched on. </li><li>Bringing this technology to market faces steep barriers. There are "hundreds of single points of failure" along the way, which increase the costs, said Mike Hart, founder, and CEO of Sierra Energy. </li><li>Experts say the science of gasification is sound, but they question the economics of commercial gasification plants. These facilities are more effective when the stream of trash is homogeneous, they say, but sorting trash makes "the economics fall down." </li><li>This story is part of Business Insider's reporting on the clean energy industry. Please share any feedback and tips with this reporter at <a href="mailto:bjones@businessinsider.com">bjones@businessinsider.com</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here for more BI Prime articles</a>.</li></ul>Carving through California's Noyo River Canyon under the canopy of ancient redwood forests is a heritage railway that looks like it was plucked out of the 1800s. It's one of the many trains owned by Mike Hart, who might be the only man on Earth who owns both a railroad and a startup company. In fact, the railroad is exactly what led Hart to his new venture: turning trash into fuel.Lacy Atkins/APThe Skunk Train is one of the many railways owned by Sierra Energy founder, Mike Hart<h2 style="text-align: left;">From trains to trash</h2>In the early 2000s, Hart, an ardent environmentalist, was in search of cleaner fuel for his locomotives. So he opted for biodiesel, a type of fuel made by refining vegetable oil. His railroad became the first in the world to run on 100% biodiesel, and for that, Hart was awarded the title of "Environmental Hero" by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But not everyone was happy with biodiesel, Hart said in an interview with Business Insider."The problem was that it was coming from food crops," he said.Biofuels derived from corn and soybean require inputs like fertilizer and land. And around that time, food riots ignited by the rising costs of corn and other staples spread across Mexico, Hart says. "A lot of people were tying the two together and saying that biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel weren't sustainable because you're taking away food," he said. That's why when Hart came across a technology at the University of California Davis in 2002, it caught his attention. The technology, known as gasification, was essentially a converted blast furnace that could turn garbage into carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas - which, in turn, could be converted into low-emissions diesel. Hart saw an opportunity for his trains, so he acquired the technology. But instead of using it to make fuel for his trains, Hart used it as the bedrock for a new company: Sierra Energy. Now, a decade and a half later, Hart is working to bring his gasification technology, FastOx, to market. And investors are latching on, excited by the prospect of a double-punch technology that could reduce both garbage - and potent greenhouse gases. AP/Nick UtThe world produces more than 4.4 trillion pounds of methane-emitting trash each year. Only a fraction of that gets recycled.<h2 style="text-align: left;">The world is drowning in methane-emitting garbage</h2>The world is facing a titanic trash problem. We produce a lot of it - more than <a href="http://datatopics.worldbank.org/what-a-waste/trends_in_solid_waste_management.html">4.4 trillion pounds</a> a year - and we're not very good at getting rid of it. In 2017, only about a third of municipal waste was recycled or composted in the US, according to the EPA, while more than half of it ended up in a landfill. There are a couple of drawbacks to dumping trash in a pit. For one, it releases a hefty amount of the greenhouse gas methane, which is about <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/new-methane-signs-underline-urgency-to-reverse-emissions">34 times more potent</a> than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, according to the United Nations. Burying municipal waste also costs money - an average of about <a href="https://www.wastetodaymagazine.com/article/eref-releases-analysis-national-msw-landfill-tipping-fees/">$55 per ton</a>, in 2019 - and costs have been rising.So, why not just burn it?Well, we do; nearly <a href="https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials">13% of what we trashed in 2017</a> was combusted. But this process, too, comes with drawbacks: Burning trash produces carbon dioxide and other harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides. That leaves a few other options, including gasification - the very technology that Sierra Energy is hoping to deploy.Kevin Cederstrom/APA coal gasification plant in Beulah, ND that produces natural gas<h2 style="text-align: left;">How do you turn trash into fuel? </h2>Have you ever seen a burning pile of trash? That's combustion. Once you have a fire going, air reacts with carbon in the garbage (found in food, paper products, and plastics) to produce heat, water, and carbon dioxide (CO2). Like combustion, gasification uses heat to break down garbage. But instead of using air as an input - which is comprised of mostly nitrogen and oxygen - Sierra's gasification plant uses only pure oxygen and steam.The oxygen and water in the steam react with carbon to make carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, collectively referred to as syngas, without producing CO2. All the while, the plant gets so hot that metals inside begin to melt. Sierra claims that it can turn pretty much any kind of trash, including medical waste and batteries, into syngas, metals, and inert stone. That matters because syngas has commercial value. It can power generators to produce low-emissions electricity, Sierra says. It can also be turned into hydrogen or diesel fuel, which Sierra claims is "20 times cleaner than California's ultra-low sulfur diesel standards." In theory, cities, developers, and other customers could make money off their trash, instead of paying to dump it. It's a win-win. So then, why isn't this technology already flourishing on the market? <h2 style="text-align: left;">The long, pricey path to commercialization </h2>Over the last decade, Hart has learned why so many tech startups fail. It's not because their technology doesn't work, he says. It's because they underestimate the cost of building something - and end up running out of money. When you're building anything from scratch, he says, there are "hundreds of single points of failure." "I know so many really good technologies that had nothing wrong with them," he said. "The companies go out of business. What happened was a gadget broke and then a second one broke and they ran out of money."Sierra hasn't failed, but Hart knows this problem well. Since he founded the company in 2004, Sierra has proven that its core technology works; currently, it has a demonstration facility at an army base in Monterey, California, that processes 20 tons of garbage a day, per the company website. Yet the startup still hasn't reached commercialization - largely because of small, but ultimately significant, points of failure, Hart says. Just waiting for a new nozzle to arrive, for example, can morph into a major setback. "Every one of those months it costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars because you're delayed," he said. "You can't just turn a whole team on and off because you don't need them for a few months while you're waiting for the right component to be delivered." This is what entrepreneurs often miss, he says. "Most people don't understand the relationship between time and cost," he said. "The entire burn rate of the entire company is the multiplier, and that is an absolute unknown for almost any entrepreneur I've ever met." A single point of failure could mean a project takes years instead of months, Hart says. That's one reason why clean-tech hardware costs so much - and why VCs are so hesitant to back them. Fortunately for Sierra, it's one of the exceptions. <h2 style="text-align: left;">A Bill Gates-led investing group that includes Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson is now backing Sierra Energy</h2>Sierra EnergyMike Hart is the majority shareholder of Sierra Railroad, the first railroad in the country to run on 100% biodieselSo far, Sierra Energy has been largely self-funded, Hart says, which is "incredibly difficult and painful to do as a very small company."But in 2016, the company received backing (to the tune of $57 million, according to the <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/06/15/davis-company-raises-financing-round.html?ana=e_sac_bn_exclusive&amp;u=eVxTCe8HF%2BCuvy0Y6mGvbw077745d6&amp;t=1466101617&amp;j=74046892">Sacramento Business Journal</a>) from the multibillion-dollar private investment fund SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners. Then, in July 2019, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund spearheaded by Bill Gates that includes investors like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, led a $33 million Series A round."The economics are developing," Jim Cabot, a managing director at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, told Business Insider. "If you're looking at tipping fees across the US, they're going up, and so people are going to be looking for solutions. So when those things begin to happen, that's when you see these opportunities begin to arise."Sierra is hoping to use the injection of capital to build out a "fully integrated," commercialized system, Hart says. The earliest the company would deliver the technology to customers - which will process around 50 metric tons per day - is 2021. "It's a relatively small system, but our belief is that waste should be resolved at the community level," he said. "A community of about 80,000 people could be handled by this."According to Hart, his startup has already received roughly 9,000 requests for FastOx, from cities or towns, developers, and waste-management businesses. Sierra plans to license the gasification technology to manufacturers, Hart says, who would then sell it to customers. <h2 style="text-align: left;">Experts say the science is sound, but some are skeptical about its commercial prospects</h2>Gasification is a proven technology, according to Marco Castaldi, a chemical engineer at the City University of New York (CUNY). In fact, engineers have been using the basic approach for decades, he says."Most gasification technologies are a derivative or have grown up from coal gasification," he said. "Is it a legit technology? The answer is yes because they're following the format, the models, and the technologies of coal gasification." But there's an important distinction, Castaldi says, between coal and municipal waste: Coal is a consistent fuel, whereas "trash" can mean many different things. "Over the years I've seen gasification companies try to process mixed municipal waste," said Castaldi, who runs a research lab focused on combustion at CUNY. "It all comes down to the material that they get is not consistent enough, so, therefore, the syngas product that they yield is not high quality enough. The economics fall down, so I would not bet on it." According to Morton Barlaz, a professor of engineering at North Carolina State University, that's why there aren't many commercially viable gasification facilities today. They've been held back by economics. "I'll certainly be pleased with any technology that reduces net environmental emissions," he said, but, "I think it's going to be expensive and difficult to apply [gasification] to mixed municipal waste." (You can visit <a href="https://www.sierraenergy.com/economics/calculate-your-project-economics/">Sierra's website</a> to see a detailed breakdown of the costs and return on investment.)Homogenizing waste, such as through sorting, costs money, Castaldi says. If gasification facilities could work with purer waste streams, he'd be all in. "Now there are material recovery facilities (MRFs) that, after they do their processing of the recycle, yield a more consistent, homogeneous feedstock," he said."If gasification companies go after that, then I would say they got a real competitive shot." <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-737-max-airplane-crash-incidents-recover-lawsuits-scrutiny-2019-7">Boeing 737 Max production is being halted. Will the aviation giant recover from the 737 Max crisis?</a></h3>

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India is the first to convert a diesel locomotive to electric

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