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

Merely a Drop in an Ocean

[Pooua]

Each of 48 trains would produce 2.1 MW of electricity, for a total of 100.8 Megawatts, for 1000 hours a year, amounts to 100.8 Gigawatt-hours a year.

The State of California in 2001 produced 265059 Gigawatt-hours, or almost 3000 times more electric power than these trains are supposed to produce. Even solar energy contributes more to California; 638 GW-hours!

California Gross System Electricity Production for 2001