China plans high speed network

sunsetcc333 wrote:Yes most of France's electric trains are powered by electricity coming from their nuclear plants. But in our children or grandchildren's generation it will come from fusion generation, same type of energy that you see from the sun. Many countries are banding together to try to harnass this type of power--USA, Russia, India, France, Germany,Japan, South Korea,England and China. The sky is the limit once we master this.

There is something like 60 years of work on fusion power. For the whole of that time we have been told "it's 20 years off". No-one has any idea about whether it will be achieved or not. I don't think it will, unless some completely new method is tried.

Meanwhile, I am already using fusion power in my home for heating water and for the electric pump that powers the heater. We could use a great deal more of that and should do.

There is now enough experience of high speed rail to know that overhead electric power is the method to use. How the electricity is generated is another matter entirely. As the US has so little experience there is no need to design it from scratch. Buy one of the existing systems off the shelf.

Can you imagine in about thirty years when we can successfully master the power of fusion. 10,000 gallons of sea water can power all the electric trains in France for one year. This is definitely the way to green.

Good for you George, fusion power is one of the ways to go in liberating us from fossil fuel. This time fusion power is for real because all these major countries are banding together in trying to harness it. They are going to be spending billions of dollars in doing this in a grand scale. they are already starting to build the reactor I believed somewhere in France.

Controlled nuclear fusion? I'll believe it when I see it.

It's just plain difficult -- MUCH more difficult than nuclear fission. That's because one has to ram the nuclei together with very high temperature, very high compression, or both. And it's difficult to do that without a particle accelerator or a nuclear-fission bomb, the two most feasible ways so far. However, fusion-reactor makers are gradually approaching that goal, with the likes of the ITER tokamak and the LLNL National Ignition Facility possibly getting close.

It must be noted that most alternatives to fossil fuels are best adapted for producing electricity. Wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, ocean thermal, tides, ... That is even true of nuclear-fission reactors and hydroelectric facilities. So the energy economics favors electric trains.

sunsetcc333 wrote:Good for you George, fusion power is one of the ways to go in liberating us from fossil fuel. This time fusion power is for real because all these major countries are banding together in trying to harness it. They are going to be spending billions of dollars in doing this in a grand scale. they are already starting to build the reactor I believed somewhere in France.

This is pure fantasy. I think you are confusing it with Fast Breeder reactors whose intention is take spent nuclear fuel to make Plutonium. Britain abandoned a project like this some decades ago. France abandoned the Superfenix also.

There is a Joint European Fusion project but this is no more than continuing experimentation. They have made no progress towards commercial power. If they make any power it is for fractions of a second. I feel that if the money had been spent on buying photovoltaics we should now have a very large solar sector.

I doubt if fusion will ever be viable. meanwhile we know that photovoltaics do work and the cost comes down steadily.

George there are nine major countries working on this project in France now, billions have already been spent. I repeat the countries are ----Japan, USA, France, Germany, Britain, South Korea, India, Russia and China. This time it is for and it is serious. If we succeed there will be cheap energy. We can run those meglevs all day long all over the world.

sunsetcc333 wrote:George there are nine major countries working on this project in France now, billions have already been spent. I repeat the countries are ----Japan, USA, France, Germany, Britain, South Korea, India, Russia and China. This time it is for and it is serious. If we succeed there will be cheap energy. We can run those meglevs all day long all over the world.

I remain sceptical. It is true they have spent vast amounts of money for many years. There has been no useful output.

It is foolish to assume that they will succeed. It is best to plan for a future in which there is no magic supplies of energy but to use what we know we have. In fact there is plenty of energy available.

BTW I don't believe fusion power would be "safe" even if it is possible. The methods they are trying (without any result) make the machinery radioactive.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews ... index.html

China is investing rather heavily in wind energy:
Energy in China: 'We call it the Three Gorges of the sky. The dam there taps water, we tap wind'
Wind energy output is trumping targets, and competition between operators is fierce, but coal still reigns supreme (Guardian, Jul 25, 2008)

In the vast natural wind tunnel that is Dabancheng, the gales that roar between the snow-capped mountain ridges get so strong that trains have been gusted off railway tracks and lorries overturned.

Such is the ferocity of the elements that police sometimes have to stop the traffic that passes through this arid, six-mile-wide plain on what was once part of the Silk Road. That used to be bad for business in Xinjiang, the most westerly region of China, which formerly depended on the trade route between central Asia and the densely populated cities in the far east.

Today, however, the gales themselves have become big business in Dabancheng. The area is home to one of Asia's biggest wind farms and a pioneer in a Chinese industry that is forecast to lead the world by the end of next year.

From the road, 118 giant turbines are visible miles before you reach them. Tourists stop for pictures, hair blowing as they pose near the whirring towers.

It is a spectacular sight: fields of spinning blades harvesting energy and transforming it into electricity for the nearby city of Urumqi. A few years ago, this was the only wind farm of such a size in China. But now, bigger facilities have been built or are under construction in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Jiangsu. Since 2005, the country's wind generation capacity has increased by more than 100% a year. The government's renewable energy policy aims to procure 15% of the country's energy from non-carbon sources by 2020, twice the proportion of 2005.

Wind power has taken off faster than the government planned. This year, policymakers had to double their wind power prediction for 2010, having reached the old goal of 5 gigawatts three years ahead of schedule. On current trends, it will almost definitely have to be doubled again

So China will have plenty of electricity to power its trains.

I was just at the CR4 forum, several posters just told me that China has achieved plasma state for 1,000 secs which is a tremendous accomplishment considering that 2 1/2 yrs ago they could only do it for 3 seconds. 1,000 secs they can use this heat to drive steam turbines, even though it is a small amount of heat but the intensity is 100 million degrees. With more advancement perhaps they can keep this plasma state for a much longer period of time. Can you imagine 100,000 gallons of sea water can produce enough electricity to drive by then thirty years from now all the electric trains of China and its 250,000 miles rail for a whole year. That is what I call greening, I hope they succeed. I like seeing China doing this rather than abusing human rights. I know a lot of you are skeptics, but I truly believe in our sons or grandson's time it will be done.
Greening the world is a lot better than to depend on fossil fuel , trading blood for oil.

I truly believe in our sons or grandson's time it will be done.

I don't believe in belief.

George, this time it is for real. There is much effort, time, money and commitment to this. As several posters had posted the ingredients above are all that is lacking in producing fusion power. I hope that the USA will jump on this and be the first now that we are changing course with a new prez.

lets get back to chinese high speed rail . there must be other places to discuss nuclear power , its use in high speed trains is highly unlikely .

Well David, France is already using their nuclear plants to supply electricity to the electric trains. Thirty to forty years down the line it will be fusion reactors. You people have read it here, I am the first one to say that in the future our electric trains will be run by electricity supply by our fusion reactors.

yes they are , but thats a different subject to having reactors aboard the trains themselves .
the title of the thread is that China plans high speed network , so we should get back to talking about that .

the title of the thread is that China plans high speed network , so we should get back to talking about that .

I hope the new government in the US, composed as it seems of intelligent people for a change, will notice that modern states need high speed trains. China is going to be the world's largest economy before long (various estimates are available).
Electrification for frequent services is the method chosen in most areas. Oil is not likely to remain at its present low price for long. That has implications for the use of private cars and also of disel powered transport. One reason for introducing High Speed rail is to free space on the conventional lines for freight displaced by high diesel costs from the road.

I will say no more about fusion power.