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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."
on the Reading Railroad. If you pass go, collect $200.
Great Linux Site
They need something mobile to counter the rolling blackouts.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
These devices were not designed to produce electricity, were they?
Seems to me this is a desperate attempt to look like they are doing something about the problem, but in fact are creating additional inefficiencies in the system, which can only come back to bite them in the ass later.
Reality has a liberal bias
Why does it sound like California's energy plan is some crazed mixture of Sim City and an RTS?
:)
"Quick Bob, move those two engines to San Jose quick."
"No, wait, power outage in Anahiem. Undo, undo!"
"I can't move it fast enough!"
"Lasso all the Amtracks and use your hotkeys!!!!"
Look at all of the valuable life skills computer games teach us!
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
That sounds like quite a novel idea, though I don't really see why they can't just run extra cabling between new static power stations to make up a better-connected grid?
I tried searching for extra details and although I didn't find the answer to my query, more details of the project can be found at the company's website here. Specifically, this document details their proposal to the state of California for movable locomotive power sources.
I live in Montreal, and during the 1999 Ice Storm that knocked out power to almost 300,000 people many communities that had access to the railway used diesel train locomotives to produce electricity for there area.
That with Oilmen in the whitehouse that this project won't get underway anytime soon.
On another note, if hydrogen fuel cell cars ever get off the ground, they could be plugged into the power grid when not in use and return electricity to it somehow?
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
Despite the doom and gloom prophecies of the anti-nuke crowd, nuclear power generation has proved itself the least environmentally impacting electricity generating method time and again. Canada and France (while certainly not governmental systems to model) have come up with a system of genericized nuclear breeder facilities that provide clean, cheap power to their respective countries.
It's sad that Germany has made the decision to kill more birds and disrupt weather patterns with their latest misguided policies. And it's sad that the radical left in California has blocked nuclear power plant construction in their state.
A diesel train to generate electricity? Why not just legalize tobacco again and ruin everyone's lungs?
I have been pwned because my
Diesel locomotives are essentially big generators. They generate a large current which drives an electric motor. If I remember correctly they can go in either direction with equal power simply by reversing polarity.
Don't know if this is a great solution but locomotives definitely can produce lots of electric power.
Well said, RTFA Man.
Maybe one day the morons in California can actually use trains to move people around too.
It's only about 100 MW total. A fullblown power station produces at least 10 times that much. The capacity could help in some emergencies but mainly it's an uneconomical way of making electricity turned suddenly profitable by Enron-spawned manipulated price increases.
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
alternative fuels like biodiesel ... but can also be made from other vegetable oils, animal fat and discarded cooking grease.
Cool, so now McDonald's can now change their signs to:
"Over 6 billion served...
And over 100,000 homes fueled"
How's this for irony:
California HAS BEEN HERE BEFORE.
Believe it or not, last year the energy budget crunch in California was blamed for delays in California's proposed bullet train system (LA-SF)
So this time the politicians want trains to solve the energy deficit?!?
Crapdot
News from birds. Stuff that splatters.
Power is lost through line transmission, and one imagines they hope to mitigate the relative inefficency of diesel by moving generation closer to point of use. BTW, using a diesel to get power, while certainly not an ideal source, isn't quite as horrid in efficiency terms as many here imagine. The true cost will be in pollution, which (fittingly) will be proximal to those using the most energy. Perhaps the good here will be in a very visible pollution impact.
Back in 98, we had a good ice storm that blacked out the whole city for a while. CP brought in some locomotives to provide power for the neediest (ie frozen).
Locomotives are big.
Wow, people still believe in solar power. Amazing. Calculate how much solar cells cost. Then calculate how much energy they would produce in 15 years (typical lifetime). At the current rate, it is less than what they cost initially. You have to also factor in the cost of the batteries, inverters, land, and maintenance. Solar power is extremely inefficient. Solar cells are expensive for a reason - it takes a lot of energy to produce them. Given how much land they occupy, the fact that they don't work unless you have direct sunlight, and the fact that a field of solar cells produces 10x less power than one of those locomotives, I seriously don't see how they are more efficient than nuclear power.
unlike the Taliban...and I want it Global!
That being said, the "under God" in the pledge reeks due to its nonspecificity.
From Relena Peacecraft's speech on changes in Romefeller:
Why is there always confrontation? It's natural that when more than one person is involved, the second will be a potential source of conflict. In order to eliminate this, we must become unified as one...
that somewhere a big-ass diesel is creating the energy to run my HO gauge layout. It's got a freaky symmetry to it.
Wait did I read this right?
"Sierra Railroad...perhaps best known to steampunk aficionados for providing the time traveling 19th century locomotive to the movie, Back to the Future III."
They have a time traveling train and all they brought back from the future was another train that produces electricity! I expected more...I mean at least the thing could fly.
The problem is that these locomotives will likely be put in areas where "public resistance" is weakest. Industrial areas? Cool. Out in the boonies? Even better.
But someday, I'm going to need power to my local grid and some big ass (yet cool looking) locomotive is going to park by my house running at full steam (heh) for a few days.
That might suck. I frankly won't care (gotta keep my UPS battery charged) but the cranky neighborhood association will.
This whole scheme smells of an "I can therefore I ought" sort of deal. It has got to be one of the worst ways of generating and transporting electricity that I can imagine.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Add a flux capacitor and we can do some time travel! "2.1 megawatts?!?!??!" "no no doc that was 1.21 gigawatts."
keanmarine.com
Don't underestimate the usefulness of being able to move the move the trains around the power grid. There is significant work going on right now with minimising lossed on the power grid from transformer inefficiencies, line resistance, power thieves, metering errors, etc. These losses are hard to quantify in the real world but someone has to pay for them.
Often the power company will figure out the overall losses for the system and then divide that cost up equally among the users of the grid. The problem is that people close to the power plant get hosed because the pay for losses that happen further into the system then they are, so essentially they are paying for power they do not use. Being able to do this will help appease those customers who are close to the power plants because the trains can be moved to the other end of the grid to minimise losses.
On a related note, the only countries that I know of where there are real government-legislated economic incentives to minimise such losses are Australia, Spain, and one of Finland or Norway, I can't remember which. (As a silly north american, I tend to confuse the two.) These places are where much the real work in reducing losses is coming from.
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.
But this was done recently for electric power; in 1998, a disastrous ice storm destroyed a fair portion of the electric distribution system in Québec; in a suburb of Montréal, diesel locomotives were lent to the city to provide emergency power; they even ran the engines on the frozen street without any track at all!!! (other links here and here).
Nuclear waste is as much a problem as air pollution. And with more Nuclear Power Plants in operation it will continue to be a problem. Radioactive byproducts are not something that can be easily overlooked. Ask the people of Nevada about the Yukka Mtn Project.
The key is to conserve energy and to invest in NEW technologies. Learn to use our sources of energy more efficiently with less pollution. The dangers inherent in nuclear energy plus the radiocative waste breeder plants produce make Nuclear Power repellent.
info on
nuclear waste and the Yukka Mountain NWD
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Who wants to place money some Environmentalist has this shut down, or at the very least stages protests about it for the amount of pollution caused by using diesel engines as a mobile power plant. I mean they protest just about every other time California tries to build a power plant in the state, why else would California depend so much on Washington state and others for their power
In my state (not in the USA) the stop-gap measure was old jet engines burning kerosine (or some similarly expensive fuel). Like California there was no excuse for it to happen, just incredibly stupid and short sighted actions on the part of those in control.
At least American's don't smell like cheese.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
is that energy projects like this don't get more funding.
Table of Contents of above site
Diesel engines (and gas engines) have an optimum RPM, where they are the most efficient.
In something that is fuel/electric hybrid, you can use the fuel section at an optimal way to produce power, and then regulate the electric how you want.
Same thing goes on I think in like an M1 tank.. a gas turbine (jet) engine runs at constant speed producing power.
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
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
They cannot be overlooked, or ignored, certainly. But that's a GOOD thing.
It's easy to ignore the waste from a coal plant, or a diesel plant. We don't even KNOW the full environmental impact of these things.
The point is, with nuclear, at least we can bottle the waste and keep tabs on it.
A number of gas turbine plants scattered about Manhattan. The plants are small (relatively... only a block in size) and produce maybe 100 megawatts (don't quote me on the exact number). Oh... and they're really loud.
Could see purchasing something like that and becoming a small time electricy provider.
That amount of power could do a few small towns and I could possibly offer cheaper rates than some of the companies existing.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
Because everyone has complained about the current, stationary natural gas powerplants polluting the air, they will take them and put them on flatbed cars and drive them up and down the train tracks. This will have the double benefit of bailing out Amtrak and allowing the deisel generators to continue to belch out known harmful chemicals all day and all night, further allowing the government to completely ignore solar power.
I just don't get why the state that has most of the Mojave Desert can't set up a decent solar energy system, at least for the bottom half of the state.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
"As a German, 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" Please explain this. We have plenty other reasons to be arrogant. This is hardly a strange reason.... "I hate it when you gas-guzzling SUV driving Americans get so patriotic and belittle us. Europe is far superior to America, whether you like it or not." Well I hate it when people use the formal tense of a conjugation when I've known them for more than a year, so... THERE!! Go soak your head...
Carpe Canem - Seize the Dog
But then you look at the energy required to give that waste the proper velocity... is it worth it?
You would think that after the rolling black/brownouts they've experienced in the last year or so that Californians would be more conscientious of the need to conserve energy wherever possible.
/. readers from California reading this who care to offer a first hand perspective? Are you using just as much energy as before the current crisis? Have you taken any measures to cut down on your consumption? What's your local government doing to promote energy efficiency?
But, from what my friends in SF and LA tell me, the average Joe is still getting through as much power as before, if not more, despite the rise in the price of electricity.
Any
Some detailed on the ground information would be appreciated.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
at least diesel is infinetly less polluting than coal and yet coal is the largest source of power in the states (i am not sure about california specificaly).
So it could be worse, they could be making more coal plants.
Hydraulic transmissions, which are variable-displacement pumps driving hydraulic motors, are sometimes used for low-speed switch engines, but there's a vibration problem with hydraulic transmissions that's kept them as slow-speed devices. (I once worked in a hydraulic R&D facility, which built, among other things, prototype locomotive transmissions.)
But electric motors can produce full torque at zero speed. So they're just what you need to start up a freight train. A variable-speed electrical drive in locomotive size was a problem for a long time. Until about 1950, all you could do is switch windings into various combinations of parallel and series. Later, ignitrons (the big mercury-vapor member of the gas-discharge triode tube family) were tried. It took a while for semiconductors to work up to handling megawatts. BART was the first railroad with semiconductor motor drives, and they burned out giant triacs regularly for years.
The latest generation of locomotives finally does it right - the motors are synchronous AC three-phase motors driven by variable-frequency inverters in a closed-loop system. This synchronizes all the motors on all the axles (the motors are down in the trucks, near the wheels), which provides synchronized all-wheel drive. Synching all the wheels nearly doubled drawbar pull (the locomotive spec that matters), and the limits of couplers have now been reached.
Despite this, using spare diesel engines to generate power is a basically dumb idea except in emergencies. The efficiency isn't that good and diesels pollute more than any of the other popular forms of power generation.
Wouldn't it be quicker just to build traditional power plants somewhere in the state and transfer power to needy locations as necessary? Doesn't electricity travel faster than a speeding locomotive? This seems comparable to the Postal Service announcing that you can now print out your emails and mail them to recipients using a special stamp.
A real newsworthy breakthrough would be the announcement that they're going to build a giant solar energy collector in the desert along Interstate 10. It's not like there's any shortage of space... there are approximately 2 towns in the couple hundred miles between Palm Springs and the Arizona border.
And here is an interesting article explaining more in depth about how diesel-electric locomotives work, and once you read this you will understand more of why this isn't nearly as innefficient as it sounds.
I'm guessing it's his ham radio call sign.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
They bought up a bunch of GE locomotives that had been on the BNSF. I think they had come off of lease. I believe most of them are "B Units" that don't have cabs.
First of all, it's "Sacramento." If you're going to talk about it, spell it right. Second off, I don't know where you're getting the idea that electricity is cheap in Sacramento. My SMUD bill (yes, I live here. I'm 2 blocks from the Capitol building.) is most certainly not cheap. Have you noticed all of the idiot protesters outside that vote DOWN power plants? How about the Sierra Club? The "NIMBY" folks? Deregulation has ceased to exist. It's over.
Also, there have been quite a few power plants built. In fact, SMUD has one on McClellan Air Force Base that just opened up about a year ago. Where the hell did you get the idea that not a single new power plant has been built?
Insulated from the state problems.. hardly. I walk downtown every single day and see our state problems right in front of me. The politicians walk around and see the same exact problems. Whether they do anything about it is another story.
My father is retired from the Railroad and I remember him telling me one year that for one reason or another (don't recall those details, but if you like I could make them up), the office building in the yard had to cut back on it's electrical use. So they pulled two engines off of some side tracks, pulled them right up next to the building and had the electricians wire them up to the office. They ran them that way for several months.
Instead of having the trains stand still and just make electricty when needed, add an electromagnetic clutch for brakes!
Like the new cars that repower themselves when breaking via electomagnetic clutch resistance...
You could get a ton of energy from trains this way.
God spoke to me
befor the gen sets appear as an add-on in MS Train Sim..
YOUR MISSION: Supply 2.5 MW to the neigbouring state.....
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Burma?
Power Plants On Rails for California
This sort of reminds me of the plans to put missle launchers on hundreds of miles of track circling the midwest during the cold war so the Soviets couldn't take out our defense systems.
Maybe these plants will miss the rolling blackouts.
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
There are two ways to look at cost. The first one, which I think is the one you refer to, is the $$$ cost to produce a solar panel. When you compare this to how much you end up being able to sell the electricity produced by this panel you end up loosing money.
The second would be to total the amount of energy needed to produce a solar panel and compare that to the amount of energy it can produce. I doubt that this number would be negative.
What is needed is to take into account the impact on the environment that a particular energy source has and charge the producer for the clean up. i.e. scrubers for coal plants, etc... If you do this, you'll quickly notice how comparatively cheap solar panel are.
What is not okay is to keep ignoring the fact that we are mismanaging our planet. There are better ways to produce electricity and more importantly there are very good ways to use less of it, we just need to take the issue out of the hands of short sighted (4 year plans...) politicians...
Just my $0.02 worth of a rant...
That's the funniest part about the article. On the second page it says there is an energy glut in California because the idiots in the White House convinced everyone there was a huge energy shortage and built all these new gas turbine plants which quickly resulted in overcapacity because . . . wait for it --there was no real electricity shortage to begin with. Electricity technology is ancient, prices change every day especially with hucksters in positions of power.
The fundamentals of physics and 19th century engineering didn't suddenly get upended two years ago in California. No, it seems a certain set of individuals in Texas that had so much cash they put one of their boys in the Oval Office were fucking with energy prices. Duh.
This locomotive outfit is missing the point. They never will be called into action because the game has been played out. See, you got to keep your eye on the ball son. Now tell me, which shell is the nut under? Oh, lookie there, it's the big white dome in DC. Well, thanks for all ya'lls IRAs and 401ks we gots to go now.
Because energy efficieny is an important concept.
diesel engines have terrible power bands -- whilst a average automobile engine can produce useable torque between 500-6000 RPM; big diesel engines only do so between ~100 - 600? (the numbers escape me -- but the spirit is the same) -- hence to be able to produce reasonable torque between rest and cruising speed, you need something like around 80 different gear ratios. for everyone who does not drive stick and have NO idea what gear ratios are... erm... cars usually have ~3-6 different ratios. the transmission would be HUGE! and the loss phemomenal
m
furthermore -- when the train is at rest -- remember that the engine only produce torque around 100 rpm -- this means you need some serious clutch plate to be able to handle that much torque. in the end motors are much better because they have a flat (pretty much) torque band (until drop off at high RPMs -- but that's above cruising speed anyhow).
the other great they they can do easily with a motor is braking -- when you applies the brakes the electricity flows from the motor(s) and through a large resistor mesh (generally a couple ohms), this mesh will heat up and there is a fan on top of the train spcifically used to cool this mesh. realld neat stuff.
for a lot more info check out here: sorry it's late and i don't want to deal with tags -- so copy and paste: http://www.howstuffworks.com/diesel-locomotive.ht
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I am not authoratative on this -- but if i still remember the EE theories -- usually inverters are not that efficient -- so you are dropping some efficiency right there that you may not have accounted for. also to transmit power, they need to bump up the voltage to ~100-150K volts -- so the transformers will drain some more juice (granted transformers usually do near-ideal coupling). but i suspect it will be hard to haul around a transformer -- more importantly it's hard to tap into the high voltage lines -- so it will probabbly transmit at lower voltages -- lower voltage transmission loses much more power in the lines, so again not efficient. hence, while an interesting plan, i see it as a *very* temporary solution... not something you would want to keep around for too long.
i mean... i know it's expensive -- but build a f** nuke plant... nevada dump site is a couple hours away now ANYHOW... sigh...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
or dou you just go about calling everything you don't understand fake?
I am really surprised that no-one has mentioned this so I'll do it. The Californian deregulation was based almost directly on the UK model. A lot of politicians and civil servants were sent here to study the way we broke down the old monopolies. Problem was, almost immediately after deregulation in the UK, the major flaws were noticed and so a second round of legislation was pushed through (with pretty much everyone's approval as the energy companies really didn't want things to get out of hand - Britain still has a habit of nationalising and destroying anything that gets in the electorate's way).
What surprised me and The Economist (I can't find the article on economist.com) was that California didn't follow suit - but tried to stick with the original scheme. Adding all kinds of silly schemes won't fix the structural problems California has - only legislative changes can restore a "level playing field" for producers, distributors and consumers.
If not? Well, enjoy those brownouts (and being the laughing stock of the entire planet...). You'll find it's just playing with the deckchairs while the Titanic carries on slurping in the water...
Pimping my Karma Whore since 1847.
Multi-use urban areas. Cool! Uh.. as long as it's only in new, "planned communities". I paid too much for my house with a white picket fence. Don't want my property value to go down.
Desegregation. Uh... except when our school's SAT scores plummet the first few years after bussing starts.
It's the way of things. We all want freedom, independence, and somehow we also want social cohesion, all without any sacrifice. There's always more in the horn of plenty, just keep diggin' around and you'll find it somehow. ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
This is the state that the world (as in "outside of America") applauds for its crackdown on car emissions and its harsh CO2 regulations?
:-/
And the same state is now using DIESEL TRAINS to produce ELECTRICITY?
Jeez. You'd think the place was run by politicians or something.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
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.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
way to go america. add some more polution. damn kyoto.
What the state needs is regulated and less externally dependant electrical power. It also needs honest utilities that don't ship all of their profits to out of state branches o their web and then try to claim they are going bankrupt unless you give them a lot of money to keep them from making the whole state go dark.
Here's a homework assignment, Heinrich: look up "Marshall Plan" on Google, then "Berlin Airlift", then try "Fulda Gap".
Then get back to me about how terrible Americans are. Talk to me about how America spent 7% of our GDP to put our soldiers in decrepit World War II-era barracks so that they could defend Hausfrauen like you from your "fraternal brothers" in the DDR.
Tell me about how much the Wessies complained about NATO manuevers and grubby Amerikanische soldiers getting in the way of their BMWs, and how it drove up taxes to spend all of 2% of German GDP on your own German defense.
Explain to me how much worse Germany, and Germans, were treated in the American Sector. Oh, I forgot: after winning the war, we returned power to the Germans by 23 May 1949. Yeah, if Germany had won the war, the Gestapo planned to be out of Poland by... when was it? Once all the Poles had ben deported to slave labor camps? Shortly after the Louvre was fully looted?
Then go crawl back into your hole.
You are either an ungrateful son of a bitch or woefully ignorant of you own country's history. I'm not sure which, in a German, is scarier.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
At last, a solution that may make the AMTRAK bailout economically viable. And don't worry folks, you won't notice any difference in service since the people at AMTRAK never knew what that was anyway. ;)
WindMills produces 1.5Mw with a moderate wind while producing no pollution at all? But US govt is too close to the oil industry to understand that
Of course you support the Arabs because they are an oppressed people and not because they're trying to finish the genocidal job you civilized and obiously supperior Arians^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z^ZGermans started about 50 years ago.
No, it isn't. Nuclear waste sits there and does nothing. Air pollution affect the whole world. The "dangerous for millenia" contingent is spreading pure FUD. After a couple of hundred years the waste is no more radioactive than the ore from which it came.
Uranium mine waste is rather nasty stuff. Whilst it was rock it was not especially dangerous, but mine tailings tend to be dust, slurry, etc.
What physical form in the waste from a reactor in? Especially if fuel is reprocessed. Some of it make not be left alone for a couple of hundred years. e.g depleated uranium munitions which contain U236...
I'll stop pledging "Under God" when they pry it from my cold, dead lips.
Remove "Under God" and I rescind my pledge
So, you are an advocate of oppressive non-secular states?
PLease, I invite you to join the rest of us here in modern reality. Cast away your boogie-men and think for yourself.
And not so bright a geek at that:
"Soandso takes your gay lover's rocket up the behind!" rather than the sanguine "his gay lover's".
Anyhoo, the subject of trains providing power to save a state from a severe economic problem caused by government intervention would be too unbelievable as a plot in an Ayn Rand novel. Congrats, California!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
<Krusty the Clown>Bwa ha ha haaaaa, ha ha, ha, huhhhhh</Krusty the Clown>
But seriously for their own good Bush should have 200% import tarriff on crude oil and petrolum (gas). Chicken and egg - don't need fuel efficient cars until gas is expensive, gas is cheap because everybody has gas guzzlers (and forces the politians to let them keep them - drilling in Alaska, etc.).
I'm not convinced that the US Govt proper knew about WTC in advance. It's pretty obvious that a trashed economy leads to disillusionment and a Government change, and since the Government controls the military, why not use it if it makes the voters happy - what they hay!However I believe binLaden has outsmarted everybody, historically the only way to collapse a democracy is by spreading fear, causing a counter-effect of inducing blind patriotism, which in turn leads to a totalitarian Government, and in the following consolidation of power voila - a dictatorship. Remember Germany was a democracy until late in WW2. BinLaden is a very very clever man.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
until we can have a surface-to-orbit transport safe/effective/cheap enough to lift the waste to orbit, then, presto, send the whole kit and kaboodle into the Sun.
The problem is that if *any* of your waste rockets explodes, you get a fallout plume worse than just about any conceivable nuclear reactor accident.
Encasing nuclear waste to survive a train wreck is one thing. Encasing it to survive a thousand tonnes of rocket fuel exploding, or re-entry if your rocket fails just the wrong way, is quite another.
While the chance of any given rocket failing is quite low, you're not going to get it below about 1% or so. If you're dealing with *all* waste by launching it into space, you're going to have accidents.
I say bury it in the continental shield, which has been geologically stable for the past 3 billion years or so.
someone pls mod the parent up...
in the universe. In some sense, God, as can all beings, can be reduced to a set of rules for conduct. He happens to be the set that leads to ultimate success. God 'helps' those who take him into theirselves. That seems to be the only way that God can help. Such a limitation should not strip him of the title of God, though.
Trains are another way to do this and frankly is not the most efficent method of transportation. Companies such as Cummins, Catapillar, and Show Power have been doing large megawatt portable generation for years and are already in California.
Basically, you get a huge diesel engine, strap it to a generator and slam that in the back of a semi truck. These setups can generate over 1mW and can be moved to where the "real" power needs are. Rail just doesn't go all the places you need it to.
And I know what you are thinking, "that's only 1mW!" Well, you can parallel these trucks together for whatever need you have 5mW? 20mW?.
The correlation between energy consumption and GDP has been proven a myth in the last 30 years.
Hint: airconditioning uninsulated garages in California doesn't improve your GDP very much.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
Back in 1998, we had here in the province of Quebec (in Canada) a winter storm that took down a lot of the electric company infrastructure, resulting in the biggest power outage in Quebec's history (about 1,300,000 persons without electricity). In 6 days we received 80mm of freezing rain.
Like I said, this was in winter and the outside temperature was about -30 (Celsius). The temperature inside the house dropped to below freezing in about 24 hours.
In the town that I lived at the time, Boucherville, the mayor decided to do something quick to bring back power. They took a crane, lifted the locomotive from the track, put it down on the road, on it rolled on it's power on the asphalt. Then it was connected and it gave power for a couple of weeks.
Went I moved last year, you could still see the trails that the locomotive's wheels made in the asphalt...
Try it! Library of Babel
> It's pretty obvious that a trashed economy leads to disillusionment and a Government change, and since the Government controls the military, why not use it if it makes the voters happy - what they hay!
After all it's also a good opportunity to get rid of some atomic waste, ie depleted uranium.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
One summer I camped out for 5 weeks (winter rental expired and it was a while before I could find another place.) Being a person who likes quiet, I went all the way to the back of the campground. (Stay with me ... this is relavant.) About 2am, I thought a 747 was landing next to my tent. The ground was shaking and I could hardly think straight. 100 yards away was a switching track where trains waited to pass another. Idling wasn't bad, but when they kicked that diesel into gear.......
NIMBY is right. I would never allow one of these things to be running 24x7 within a mile from where I live.
But I do love trains......no.....really.....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Cause of all the birds that fly into the windmills and get chopped up! Especially the protected/endangered species! It's a environmental disaster!
Seriously, the bird problem may not be that bad, I don't know. Do a search on Google for "wind power birds" to research it. But I do distinctly recall the Audubon Society and/or Sierra Club opposing a new wind farm that was to be built in California, I think in the southern San Joaquin Valley/Southern CA area.
Now they may only have been objecting to the site, but my thinking is this: where ever there is wind strong enough to power windmills, there are going to be birds. (Of course, I Am Not a Wind Power Engineer.)
I think this is an interesting idea. Candidates for mayor and city councils should be forced to compete on Sim City 3000 (on the hardest levels), and then voters can see how well they do managing a city and use this information to help them decide how to vote. After all, if a potential mayor can't run a pretend city, what chance does he have with the real thing?
But at least it's not (gasp!) nuclear!
We could use trains when we are in a crunch, or the Federal Government could actually do their job and look into Enron types that cause false scarcity.
I'm sick of paying for Amtracks poor management...maybe this will take a little of the pressure off the taxpayers.
-bitter traveler
true, there is much waste; and I spend a fair amount of energy complaining about our tax structure, etc. However, I also realize that _somebody_ has to pay for it all, and for what it's worth I've been on both sides of all that, especially regarding health care and gov't services. Short conclusion: My healthcare is not a public service, I pay for it and what I say about it is the final word as far as that goes. IMO the vast majority of the wastage is caused by our gov't, since I tried their services once too. BTW I'm American of German descent, and I don't buy any sorts of superiority. Different, yes. Superior, no. HOWEVER -- I also don't need "papers" to do a damn thing, except possibly to buy a house and a car. A suzuki car at that.
C|N>K
I still maintain that it was a _huge_ mistake for us to write off the funds from the "Marshall Plan"
C|N>K
Seriously tho -- you'd be amazed at how much politics and corruption is involved in the American energy scene. Example: There are 2 large hydro plants less than 50 km from me, yet I pay 22% more for my electric than my sister (in another state), where she is required to get her electric from an atomic plant aprox. 600 km distant. Trust me, it's not the average working class who is inefficient here; they simply can't afford it. Rather, it's the wealthy (including corporations) or those with political influence. For what it's worth, I drive a very efficient Suzuki which I can barely afford. Also please bear in mind that most of the US seems to view California as an aberration, a strange thing. I can say this from experience; I've either traveled or lived in approximately 38 states, and all seem to think California is strange.
C|N>K
The huge 3(?) story dump trucks used in major quarry operations also use electric motors with diesel generators to supply the electric power. It's actually more efficient to run the generator at a set level, and use the motor to vary the drive level needed.
This is the principle behind consumer-level hybrid electric vehicles (sorta). The main difference is that diesel locos and those dump trucks use a serial system (diesel motor->generator->electric motor) while consumer hybrids use a more complex parallel system (gas motor->drivetrain, electric motor->drivetrain, motor->electric motor as generator->batteries. Costs for hybrids could be cut if auto companies were willing to sacrifice gas engines and embrace the electric motor, rather than keeping gas engines and coupling an oversized starter motor to it...
Launch it with an electromagnetic rail gun. Extreme high speeds, no rockets.
So is coal mine waste, and burning coal puts FAR more radiation into the environment than nuclear power.
Thus radioactive pollution appears to be an argument against both nuclear and coal.
If we were sensible enough to reprocess spent fuel and burn up the plutonium, the waste issue would be even less important.
You'd first need to build reprocessing facilities which don't leak badly.
If wealth distribution is stopped then you'll have to shoot starving women and children for stealing bread. I'm happy to pay my high European taxes, so then when I get mugged I can whine about the guy being an asshole. My friend had his fries stolen by a 8-year old starving Kosovan illegal immigrant, he can't legally work and he's not entitled to welfare, he's just doing what is necessary to survive so I can't complain about that.
The Japanese in Tokyo have far more money than the Europeans, and yet they buy small Nissan cars, not Mercedes. It depends on the culture, and of course a Mercedes is nice and comfotable, even a starving Ethiopean would appreciate the air conditioned cabin, but a Japanese guy driving through Tokyo would experience great inconvenience at having such a big car, he would say, "Take your S-600 and shove it up your big fat American ass, I'm sticking with my Nissan". Assuming that everybody wants to be like you is a mistake many Americans make.People don't mind American stuff, it's the arrogant attitude they can't take. For instance in Japan the rule is bow deeply and be silent, dosile and respectful unless you know someone well. Mentioning the Yakuza is a joke in US chinatown, but NOT in Tokyo, same as shouting "binLaden kicked your ass HA HA HAAAA!" when you're in the Empire State building isn't funny. When America has to backtrack after saying "We're the best" everyone thinks you Americans are stupid, arrogant little children. After years of Americans boasting about having the best corporate governance structure and corporate integrity and productivity, US officials are now in Europe with their heads held low asking us how we audit companies so they can incorporate new accountancy rules into SEC. America tells us they're the best, America gets shafted, then turns to Europe for help. And still you're arrogant and believe you're better than us. Man oh man. OK America, session's over, get off my psychiatrist's couch and ask the secretary for a return appointment, you're going to be coming here a *long* time ;-) ... then again I have no right to tell you how to be, but you don't know how you look till you look in the mirror so I have provided a mirror for you (see above)
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
I am from Quebec, Canada, home of the cheapest electricity in NA. My father spent many years in the sawmill business, and I remember one day driving down to New Hampshire with him to a sawmill he did business with. Sawmills use an enormous amount of electricity. Because electricity was so expensive in New England (about 30 times what it is in Quebec), they had driven a diesel locomotive into the middle of one of their buildings and were using it to generate electricity to power the entire mill. It was actually cheaper for them to keep it fueled with diesel than to buy electricity from the local utility. Imagine. A locomotive. Indoors.
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
Hell, just drive through Donner pass in the winter... black snow.
Were that I say, pancakes?