Railroad Forums 

  • How wind can power the world's mass transit

  • Discussion about railroad topics everywhere outside of Canada and the United States.
Discussion about railroad topics everywhere outside of Canada and the United States.

Moderators: Komachi, David Benton

 #1449122  by george matthews
 
MCL1981 wrote:Do you even read these things beyond the BS headlines? They put some solar panels on the roof of a building. It powers some of one station at some times of some days. It is not powering the railroad in any way at all. It's a total joke.
Actually, I have been working with these energy problems since the 1960s. I have had some useful influence in two African countries. I don't understand why you are so angry.
 #1449318  by MCL1981
 
george matthews wrote:
MCL1981 wrote:Do you even read these things beyond the BS headlines? They put some solar panels on the roof of a building. It powers some of one station at some times of some days. It is not powering the railroad in any way at all. It's a total joke.
Actually, I have been working with these energy problems since the 1960s. I have had some useful influence in two African countries. I don't understand why you are so angry.
And that has what to do with the topic? Has what to do with what you quoted? I'm not impressed either.
 #1449327  by george matthews
 
MCL1981 wrote:
george matthews wrote:
MCL1981 wrote:Do you even read these things beyond the BS headlines? They put some solar panels on the roof of a building. It powers some of one station at some times of some days. It is not powering the railroad in any way at all. It's a total joke.
Actually, I have been working with these energy problems since the 1960s. I have had some useful influence in two African countries. I don't understand why you are so angry.
And that has what to do with the topic? Has what to do with what you quoted? I'm not impressed either.
You are 'not impressed'? What do you think my impression is of you?

Can wind power rail traffic? Yes, it can, but only by being part of a mixture of power sources fed into a grid system. What more is there to say? Should it? Yes, as we need to develop energy sources that do not add CO2 to the atmosphere. Why do we need that? Because we need to stop climate change by preventing the CO2 from increasing. That's not really a complicated thing to grasp. But possibly it helps to have had a competent science education.
 #1449781  by David Benton
 
Well, we on vacation down south to show the kids snow. Only to find ourselves in a heatwave and no snow.
Then I come back to this childish bickering.
The kids were better behaved travelling 1000 miles in the back of a motorhome.
Anymore and I'll lock the thread.
 #1449794  by george matthews
 
David Benton wrote:Well, we on vacation down south to show the kids snow. Only to find ourselves in a heatwave and no snow.
Then I come back to this childish bickering.
The kids were better behaved travelling 1000 miles in the back of a motorhome.
Anymore and I'll lock the thread.
I will try to ignore the person I was replying to.
 #1449803  by NS3737
 
george matthews wrote:They also have a large nuclear sector.
Not quite so, there only have been two nuclear power plants in the Netherlands, one in Dodewaard with just 58MW capacity and already closed in 1997, and Borsele with just 458MW, still in service. With an installed base of approximately 32 GW, the nuclear part is minute.

The NS claim that their trains need about 1% of all electricity used in the Netherlands.
 #1449836  by David Benton
 
NS3737 wrote: The NS claim that their trains need about 1% of all electricity used in the Netherlands.
Given the size of the electrified railway network, I am surprised it is that low a %.
 #1449843  by NS3737
 
Not only the size but also the freqency, at least two trains per hour both directions from the early morning until late evening.

For the interested, the official site of the NS has a large section on sustainability. http://www.ns.nl.
Also in english, scrol down to about us and then go to sustainability.
 #1452190  by george matthews
 
johnthefireman wrote:Tesla mega-battery in Australia activated

Not directly rail-related, but an interesting development connected with the use of renewble energy.
Yes, this technology has now reached operational maturity. I think it will have a useful role to play.

I think it may well have a place in Kenya energy systems, for example to balance slack wind periods.
 #1452234  by MCL1981
 
When fully charged, the battery can power up to 30,000 homes for an hour. However, it will mostly be used to support and stabilise existing electricity supplies.
In other words, it has no meaningful practical application. How long does the wind need to be ripping with no other power consumption to charge this? Then it will last for an hour??? How much pollution will this battery create when it reaches the end of it's lifespan? A clean burning CNG or LPG generator would be more useful, safer, and probably cleaner.
 #1452261  by David Benton
 
MCL1981 wrote:
When fully charged, the battery can power up to 30,000 homes for an hour. However, it will mostly be used to support and stabilise existing electricity supplies.
In other words, it has no meaningful practical application. How long does the wind need to be ripping with no other power consumption to charge this? Then it will last for an hour??? How much pollution will this battery create when it reaches the end of it's lifespan? A clean burning CNG or LPG generator would be more useful, safer, and probably cleaner.
The use is to stabilise the network . One of the main challenges for a power provider/ network is to keep the supply within tolerances , given varying demand. Voltage and frequency must be kept within 5 % or so . This has always been a problem. The bigger the network , the more users so it averages out , but you still have the problem of local variations , caused by lots of users on a limited supply line. Over a whole city, the sheer number of users means its unlikely everyone switches their electric heater on at the same time. ( there is still peaks at times like Dinner time). Narrow it down to a street , all on one transformer, and it can have quite an effect. I know when I was a welder , you would avoid welding just before meal breaks, because you would get a surge 1/2 way through your weld , when everyone shut their machines down to head for a break.
Solar and wind power add the dimension of sudden variances on the supply side as well as demand. Imagine a street where most houses have solar panels , and a cloud comes across. You have a sudden reduction in power production of maybe 5 k.w per house, just as bad as having every house suddenly turn on 5 k.w of load together. Reverse when the sun comes out form behind the cloud. a battery or capacitor storage system can react way more quickly to this than a gas fired turbine can. And it can be done at a local level , not at a power station many transformers away.
Electric railway power is a good example of this . if you have one heavy train a day , the effect of it accelerating from a station is quite large on the supply network. The network has to be heavy enough to provide that power , even though its once a day. If you have several trains per hour on the same network , the lumps smooth each other out , where you have regenerative braking , a braking train provides power for another train accelerating. The effect on the network is less , more power is been used overall , but spread out a lot more as trains accelerate and brake at different times.
This is not new , i think Swedish light rail lines had super capacitor "batteries "at each transformer, smoothing out the difference s between braking and accelerating trains.
The scale of this one is what is new, and i don't necessarily think it is a good thing. It would be better to have smaller batteries at each house or user, for the reasons mentioned above. Tesla seems to be best at marketing , from what I have seen of their home battery systems, they are no better or cheaper than many of their competitors. Nothing they produce is completely new , most has been developed by other manufacturers, perhaps the packaging the biggest difference.