Power Plants On Rails for California

SoCalChris writes "According to this article on Wired.com, the Sierra Railroad is planning to use diesel train locomotives to produce power for California. Each of the 48 engines are expected to produce 2.1 megawatts of power for a thousand hours each year. Another key advantage to this plan is that since the "PowerTrains" are mobile, they can be taken to the areas that need power the most, so it doesn't have to be routed across the state through our power grid."

Comments

Re:This has to be inefficient

[rjamestaylor]

Even my 2 year-old-son knows that these engines are called "Diesel Electrics" (well, he calls them 'dieselectrics', but you get the idea). Those diesel engines are running an electrical generator that provides electrical power to motor the train.