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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."
Yes, they were designed to produce electricity. Modern diesel locomotives do not couple the diesel engines directly to the drive wheels, but rather use them to turn generators. The electricity produced is then used to run electric motors that power the drive wheels.
It may seem inefficient, but you've got to remember how powerful a locomotive is. Starting a train moving from a dead stop is just not practical using a conventional clutch and transmission. The motor and generator combination provides the same ability to start from a dead stop smoothly and transform torque/speed ratios with fewer moving parts, and much less wear on parts.
And in fact, the motor and generator are not much worse efficiency-wise than the friction losses in the transmission would be. These things are designed for efficiency.
Of course, they don't natively produce power compatable with the power grid, but as the article says, that's easy (and also pretty efficient) to convert with interters.
These trains were built to produce electricity. In fact, all modern locomotives are. the engines are designed to do one thing and one thing only: generate electricity. there are electric motors that do the pushing.
My father was an engineer for Burlington Northern before Santa Fe merged with them, and i remember as a child, going to the engine plant, and actually being INSIDE an engine cylinder - they're massive!
When i asked my dad why they were so big, he said "they need to be, they run all the time and it takes a lot of electricity to pull a train." being a smart lad of 8, i asked "don't the engines push the wheels?" through a lengthy discussion that i repeated with him over the years to get more detail, i learned that the engines produce electricity and the wheels are driven by electric motors.
It turns out that this is more efficient, in money, fuel effeciency, and repair time (imagine replacing the drive train if it were not electrically driven). all you do is replace a motor, instead of a drive shaft and/or transmission. (simplified explanation, of course)
It makes perfect sense for them to do this. Resourcefullness demonstrated brilliantly!
Naikrovek
Some people bash California as being a bunch of ignorant liberal fucks. This is only partially true. There's a magical land in this very state where the water runs pure and the electricity comes cheap and the migrant workers, well, they are neither heard nor seen. This magical land is called Sacremento. From this shining beacon of cockjockery shines the shiny light of dumbfuckery. See up in Sac Town where all the tough choices are made they're insulated from the rest of the state's problems.
Using diesel electric locomotive engines to boost a local power station has cool geek factor to it but it is a stupid and short term fix for a very serious long term problem. The descision to deregulate power is a failed experiment yet our plucky leadership in Sac Town don't see it that way, they're rather spend billions dollars bailing out these failed and failing utility companies and their shit management. It is sad watching this all happen. It doesn't matter how you vote locally either, the State Assembly doesn't do anything to curb the jackassery coming from the Governor's office.
What the state needs is regulated and less externally dependant electrical power. The state has been growing temendously in the past 20 years but hasn't seen the construction of a single new power plant, nuclear or otherwise. The population in the bay area has boomed as well as the populations of San Diego and Orange counties. A lot of people are moving into Riverside and San Bernadino counties out towards the deserts where they run their air conditioner 24/7 and water their lawns in the middle of the day because they don't know how to live in a desert. These sort of people are a huge strain on the power grid in Southern California and makes the boards of SoCal Edision cream their pants. Running a couple trains down there during the summer to give some extra go juice to people does not solve the problem. Nevada has its own burgeoning population in and around Las Vegas they've got to provide power and water for, they aren't going to able to export power to California for too much longer.
The state needs more eletrical plants. There are plenty of clean-ish power plant designs in common use around the world that the state could use for a basis for new plants. It is getting ridiculous that these retarded stopgap measures are being suggested and implimented when the real solution is so clear cut. There's plenty of plants that can be upgraded to use cleaner technology while at the same time increasing their output. It'd be a much better use than billion dollar bonds being spent to cover the cost of crooked deregulated utility companies.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.