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Sweden Tests World's First Electric Road For Trucks (inhabitat.com)
Kristine Lofgren writes: Electric vehicles are cool, but for industrial vehicles it can be a challenge to get very far on just electric power. That's why Sweden is testing out an electric road where e-vehicles can jump on, get juiced while they travel, and get back on the road. The country just opened a two kilometer test stretch in Sandviken on the E16 where electric vehicles can connect to an overhead system that is very similar to light rail. It's another exciting step towards a fossil fuel-free Sweden. Trucks can use the electric power while riding on the special electric road system -- on regular roads they operate as hybrid vehicles. The testing is scheduled to take place until 2018, which should give the country enough time to see how the technology functions in the real world. Sweden's energy and sustainable growth agencies will fund the project in addition to the transport administration.
One place you can't drive to on that road ... the UK!
LOL
Congratulations. You have invented the train.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Yes we can
...but where are they getting their electricity?
In 1967, Sweden made the big switch to Right Hand Driving. But for the first week, it only applied to trucks...
Well, that's how the Norwegians tell it...
Hope they don't put the rails that blow you up though.
This would also work for cars and would make electric cars a lot more practical. If you genuinely want to slow atmospheric CO2 buildup electrified highways powered by modern nuclear power plants (fission or fusion when available) is the only practical solution until or unless entirely new science is discovered. Combined with hyperloop vacuum tunnels for some stretches with compatible vehicles and this could be what our ground transportation might look like in 2116. Although I'd like to think that vacuum tunnel trains would be the default mode of long distance transportation in a hundred years in the most advanced countries. A ground level hot rail could also be used. Basically think of some kind of hybrid between electric trains and cars. You could even have lanes that are entirely rail based for compatible vehicles where you enter and exit at special locations. Whether you use rails or overhead cables this is far superior to relying exclusively on batteries and charging stations. Once we get all our highways wired up the next step is to stop trying to push a thick ocean of air out of our way all the time. It's the 21s century already. Aerodynamics should not be a major factor by now. Dealing with friction is another matter. Hopefully maglev will be made practical eventually.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Being tested in sw London. Buses have recharging zones under vehicle at stops and traffic lights. No need to plug anything in.
On a side note isn't an electric road basically a tram line?
In Germany, utilities are obliged by law to buy green energy from the producers. The price depends on the energy source and when the power plant went online.
That price is guaranteed for 20 years after the power plant goes online, but the compensation for new power plants is reduced every year and additional restraints are phased in, such as the utilities having the ability to throttle generation in times of high production.
The historical maximum was around 50 cents/kWh for photovoltaics installed up to 2001. For new plants installed today it is around 10 cents/kWh depending on the size of the plant. But the old plants still get their 50 cents/kWh until the 20 years are up. During the 2020s, we will see the first installations lose their guaranteed compensation.
For the home consumer and small businesses (but not large industry consumers), there is a cost allocation to pay for the green energy. Currently, the home consumer pays around 30 cents/kWh.
And yes, that is a political topic.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Now that sounds like an innovation I can get behind.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because the power on the wire comes from fairies?
You won't be posting at 1 for very long, Harry. Hope you're not particularly attached to the account.
This is far too expensive and involves the construction of too much new infrastructure to work. Sorry. Instead, we need to solve the battery and/or ultracapacitor problems. The vehicles must have insanely long ranges with nearly instant recharge times. Instead of building up this kind of electrical infrastructure for cars, we need to tear down the electrical infrastructure that exists for buses and trains where it is currently used. How else are we going to electrify our aircraft? Again, sorry, and props to Sweden, but this is simply the wrong answer.
The problem is where to put the energy. The amount of energy recovered from a large train is just too large to store. So hybrid locomotives are used for switching, where the amount of energy is smaller.
Trains don't need additional power to climb grades, they just slow down. To go the same speed would requires not just more energy (fuel or electricity input) but more powerful electric motors to turn that energy into torque. And they just don't have those bigger motors. If they did, they'd just bring along a bigger generator and then again still have no need for the electrical input. Because in a freight train a lot of the ability to put down power relates to the weight of the locomotive, as more weight means more friction on the rails. So if you're going to make the locomotive heavier, why not just do it with more fuel, more prime mover and more generator?
Passenger trains usually hail the same cars every day. So those cars can have the motors in them and the locomotive (if present) just converts fuel to electricity. In that case, you have enough grip and power already, so removing the prime mover and generator can make it a lot more efficient. But since freight trains just drag different collections of cars each day, it has to do all the work.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
How do you prevetn people form tampering with the road?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting further away from fossil fuel combustion, I hate do see what's happenning with Global Warming and how everything seems to be so out of control ... but ... I find this kind of oxymoron to go all Electric thinking it's green because it has 0 emission.
It's nice and handy for showing off in the news but there is a whole "ecosystem" behind it that is unfortunately unknown.
It's nice to migrate 95% of your energy consumption toward electrical energy but how are you going to produce that extra energy?
By burning 95% more nuclear rods? Installing 95% more windmill which will use steel and components that perhaps were themselves are made through a bi-product of burning coal in less restrictive countries because they are cheaper to manufacture?
What's the point to switch to Electrical systems if you're going to create more nuclear waste to compensate. Where are you doing to store that waste. Burning more oil? coal? More fracking for natural gaz and then increasing the potential for underground water source pollution? More dams which themselves will lower water flow from rivers increasing farming pollution due to fertilisation concentration, bi-product of irrigation...
The only way out is to reduce consumption and limit transport of goods or means of transportation which will most likely never happen...
There is no way out of the increasing needs for energy...
Hopefully we can find answers before it's too late.
---- If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.