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

My question

[rjamestaylor]

Why does Sierra Railroad have such excess capacity that it can provide 48 diesel engines for the power grid?

Re:Or they could build nuclear plants

[qubit64]

Canada and France (while certainly not governmental systems to model)

Whadya mean not governmental systems to model? At least we have more than 2 political parties. (right of centre and further right of centre) Cue the Kang and Kodos quote...

Re:Too bad americans aren't energy efficient

[Beliskner]

I am somewhat offended by the continual arrogant attitude of Americans toward the rest of the world. It's strange that a country with a higher infant mortality rate than Thailand has such an attitude. First of all, American arrogance is what caused the 9/11 attacks.

Shrek-class troll. You Germans and your damn efficiency. In WW2 Germany was like, "We can drop bombs very efficiently"... So they did.

I find it impossible to rebutt "Human beings are a virus, you don't live in symbiosis with your surroundings, you use up all resources then move on." that the agent said in Matrix. Us Europeans know that if you truly want to make America energy efficient, you must put sub-surface nukes in the oilfields of Saudi, Russia and Alaska to collapse the oil pockets. Then the "markets" will increase the price of gas to European levels, and all SUVs will become abandoned overnight. Don't try to change American culture - binLaden tried and failed. Work *with* their system, same as decreasing the food supply in a bacterial Petri dish. This is all that Joe sixpack KFC-suckin' American will understand.