'Dramatically more powerful': world's first battery-electric freight train unveiled:
The world's first battery-electric freight train was unveiled at an event in Pittsburgh on Friday, amid a fresh attempt by some US lawmakers to slash carbon emissions from rail transport in order to address the climate crisis.
Wabtec, the Pittsburgh-based rail freight company, showed off its locomotive at Carnegie Mellon University as part of a new venture between the two organizations to develop zero emissions technology to help move the 1.7bn tons of goods that are shipped on American railroads each year.
Perched upon a strip of rail at Carnegie Mellon's technology campus on the banks of the Monongahela River, the cherry red, 75ft-long train provided a striking background to politicians, rail executives and academics who urged a swifter industry transition away from fossil fuels. Dignitaries were allowed to clamber up a vertiginous ladder on to the train to inspect its confines, which included a small driver's cabin in front of 500 lithium-ion battery modules, arrayed in stacks in the heart of the vehicle.
The new train, known as the FLXdrive battery-electric locomotive, underwent successful trials in California earlier this year where it was found to have cut fuel consumption by 11%, which meant reducing the amount of diesel used by 6,200 gallons. Wabtec said that the next iteration of the locomotive, to be rolled out within two years, will be able to cut the consumption of diesel, the fossil fuel traditionally used in freight rail, by nearly a third.
The company also said emissions will be entirely eliminated through the development of accompanying hydrogen fuel cells. If the technology is used worldwide, Wabtec estimates planet-heating emissions could be cut by 300m tons a year, with nearly half of those saved emissions occurring in the US.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:11PM (3 children)
The now defunct Railpower had an early technology demonstration of battery fires 14 years ago:
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/mechanical/news/Railpower-recalls-Green-Goat-Series-switchers-after-locomotive-fire--2186 [progressiverailroading.com]
... though 500 lithium-ion batteries should make for a much more impressive fire. Extra points if they spontaneously combust while politicians and rail executives are on board.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:16PM (2 children)
Pff... Battery-powered is not exciting. I'm not impressed if it's not also pseudo self-driving and a video doesn't crop up on Youtube showing the train driver sleeping or reading his newspaper, and the manufacturer doesn't send a loco in orbit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:51PM (1 child)
The self-driving tech is practically there for railways, in the form of smart tracks that provide information which can control things such as locomotive maximum speed and provide advance switching notice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @02:10AM
That much has been in service for over a century in subway systems. The big holdup for surface rail is detecting obstacles on the track. Railroad unions have been fighting it tooth and nail every step of the way.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:18PM (33 children)
I've lived in the Netherlands in the 1970's.
Trains ran on electricity then, connecting to overhead wires.
No batteries required on the train.
It's a mature technology.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:24PM (5 children)
That is a good way to run a train. It essentially moves the problem of where the power comes from to somewhere else. An electricity generation facility. Which could, in principle, be nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric or waves.
Right now the future of hydroelectric might not be looking so good if there is no water to turn the generators. People might also find it inconvenient to not have water.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:51PM (4 children)
Unfortunately, places like New Orleans, which seem to be getting lots of water, don't have the elevation needed for getting lots of useful energy from that water. The energy is there -- it just ends up ripping roofs off buildings.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Friday September 17 2021, @12:45AM (3 children)
Yeah, for some reason, we can pipe anything across the continent, except water... must be really hazardous, not worth the risk, what happens if there's a leak?!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @01:34AM
Water, known to cause cancer in California. This is the reasons for which they are staying away from it for the last couple of years.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 17 2021, @05:44PM (1 child)
The things we pipe across the continent and across international borders are things that are immensely profitable to corporations.
Water is of little use except to humans.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 17 2021, @05:58PM
Yes, it is this corruption that is the direct cause of all floods and droughts, and lack of train service
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:02PM (11 children)
I'm thinking of the US, where freight trains run through hundreds of miles (kilometers if you prefer) of nothingness. Retrofitting power lines would be a terrible expense.
The good thing is, it might be a drop-in replacement. To avoid the engineering problems of a gearbox that could drive a train, it's already designs where the diesel engine runs a generator and electric motors drive the wheels.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:46PM (10 children)
The Problem is, a lot of those lines do a lot of mountain climbing. So lots of power is needed. (Three engines on a train is not unusual.) But Hydrogen is a bad idea. There is no good way to generate it currently. The electric approaches are very inefficient, and the natural gas based methods ... Well, none of the methods are very good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production [wikipedia.org]
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @02:21AM (2 children)
That really only applies in the Rockies. Most of North America is flat prairie. Overhead lines also prevent hauling oversized freight, which is common enough occurrence. A lot of heavy machinery is moved by rail that is too large and heavy for the roads.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday September 17 2021, @03:20PM (1 child)
Prairie is not near as flat as you think, once you get past the Mississippi bench. Lot of up hill and down dale and rivers running in deep little valleys like an axe slash through the landscape. Rail makes lots of cuts and long swings around rough patches, because trains can only climb a very limited slope (something like 2% max, or 1.4% typical). There's an interesting structure near Tehachapi CA, on the main route between Los Angeles and points north, where the track makes a full loop to create a grade a train can climb, and it's still pretty slow going up and a lot of braking coming down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehachapi_Loop [wikipedia.org]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @10:32PM
California is part of the Rocky Mountains, not the Great Plains.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday September 17 2021, @02:38AM (6 children)
I live just off the BNSF tracks, an hour north of Beartooth Pass.... train goes a better route but that's still a serious climb, tho not the only one; this is the main drag from Seattle to Denver. An average freight train is 3 locomotives, 110 cars. Loaded weight (per the stencils) usually between 120k and 220k pounds each. Being lazy, I'll let someone else do the math...
https://trainconductorhq.com/how-much-does-a-train-weigh/ [trainconductorhq.com]
...so up to 45 million pounds per train. How much electricity would that take if they weren't generating it on the fly with those diesel-electric locomotives? How often would they need to swap engines (couldn't sit around waiting for a recharge)? Since they'd probably have to double their engine fleet (since half would be sitting at the charging dock all the time) and since diesel locomotives last 50+ years but batteries only about 10 years, how much would this refit cost and what would it do to freight rates? BNSF could doubtless pull it off, but there are a lot of short lines that run on razor-thin margins as it is.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @04:04AM (2 children)
Not to say that this is actually feasible, but trains are the perfect example of where a battery-swap system could work. They company owns all the locomotives, has centralized maintenance systems, and have a large amount of long-term asset depreciation. To "charge" a train, they would just need to open up the top, pull the old battery out, and put the new one in. All the downsides that usually come up in reference to swap systems don't really apply when you have the one company using their own infrastructure with their own equipment.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @09:22AM
Why would you need to swap batteries in a train? Just have the batteries in a car and swap the cars.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday September 17 2021, @03:11PM
I think you're underestimating the mass of those batteries. We're probably talking 200,000 pounds or more, and a freightyard crane system. As someone below says, better to swap the entire car (and incidentally build the cars to maximally contain any fires that start, since just as with automobiles, there will be occasional fires).
Side thought: how many cell phones, laptops, or Teslas worth of the relatively limited supply of lithium would it take to move one train? One loaded freight train is approximately 15,000 Teslas.... one Tesla is probably around 10,000 cell phones... freight trains are already around 20x more fuel-efficient per ton moved than road vehicles, so is there really any net gain in energy savings?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Friday September 17 2021, @08:18AM (2 children)
You could go back to tenders.
A battery car right behind the engine, just like coal/water tenders behind steam trains could work.
I can't say it's makes this a good idea, but it's at least a possibility to test feasibility on.
If they're not doing it, I wonder what the problem is - it's so obvious they must have considered it... But, who is deciding? The railroad or loco maker? It could be the Apple syndrome - the loco maker wants to make cash on battery replacements/more engines required?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday September 17 2021, @03:34PM
Yeah, it's not so much that the engines need converting (to my understanding, they're already mostly electric motors run by diesel generators, but external connectors are a hazard that needs to be designed for), it's the feasibility of dragging that much battery behind (since as someone else mentions, swappable tender car is really the only practical solution), and of the cost of building charging stations and electric bills and availability compared to burning diesel. There's also a lot of liability in rail -- frex, if you want to build a new rural rail crossing here in Montana, even out in the middle of nowhere that requires you to put up $1 MILLION in liability insurance (I've asked), and I'm sure it's even higher going the other way, so new facilities are not lightly built -- the cost isn't just in that new siding and charging station.
You also have to figure in that if they're swapping out battery cars, freight is going to take significantly longer to get where it's going, because it takes several miles for a train to accelerate to or brake from full operating speed, and every stop and start adds time to the transit. Perishables and livestock suddenly become a more difficult load to plan for.
And if they're just hauling along enough battery cars, it's that many fewer freight cars because of the extra weight, and less profit per trip.
So it's a complicated balance of costs, not just a simple matter of switching to battery-powered engines. That alone would probably be feasible, if you didn't mind paying 3-4x as much for the batteries in your phone and Tesla (locomotives would suck up a big chunk of the available supply, being somewhere around 15,000 Teslas per train).
Passenger trains are only a fraction of the weight and are not really a factor in North America, outside of local lines.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @10:40PM
Electric motors aren't very big and the battery is heavy enough for traction. They are also using dynamotors for regenerative breaking, which standard engines don't have. A high current flexible link would also be dangerous and a reliability issue, never mind the cost of retrofitting their existing engines. Doing it the way they are is simpler, safer, easier, and cheaper, with no downside.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:11PM (3 children)
In the USA the railroad has to pay property tax on those nice overhead lines, and its brutal, so on average we don't do that. There are limited electrified lines in the USA mostly passenger.
We can't generally electrify in the USA, its a tax policy problem.
Really the most intelligent way to "work around it" would be to take COTS electric locomotives from euro-land or whereever, then run a single large power cable to the boxcar right behind the loco, a boxcar full of batteries...
You could do other cool things with those boxcars full of batteries like run small villages and cities for awhile during outages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:54PM
Never heard of this tax. Anyway, isn't the intelligent thing to get rid of the property tax on overhead lines?
Someone should calculate what works out to be more efficient: building overhead electric lines over umpteen miles of track or going with the battery option.
Most of China's high speed rail is electric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday September 17 2021, @02:52AM (1 child)
I don't know how it is in other states (it's state or local, not a national policy) but I had cause to inquire in California, and was told by SoCalEd that 1) overhead lines are not taxed, but are mostly no longer allowed, and 2) buried cable is taxed at real property rates, which is around $500 per mile per year (based on known tax rates per acre for unimproved land in L.A. County).
Every county and municipality has their own real property tax rates; the accounting nightmare would be right up there with local sales tax.
It takes a trunkful of batteries to move a 3000 pound car 200 miles. How much volume of batteries would it take to move a 45 million pound freight train, considering it's usually 500 miles or more between rail yards?? (they can't stop any damn place like a car; has to at least be on a siding so they don't block traffic)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:57AM
Probably not as many batteries as you'd think. A train can move 1 ton roughly 480 miles on 1 gallon of gas. So, a fair number of batteries, but they could probably load a car or two with them and swap out at certain points along the route.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @10:58PM (3 children)
The Netherlands spans 200km from the eastern border to its western coast, and there's hardly any land in between that's not inhabited. Electrifying the whole network is easy when there's people living within 1km of the entire track and it's cheap if you have high-frequency passenger service everywhere. Both conditions don't really apply to the US.
Although it would be interesting to consider if a large electrified rail network could double as a national power grid. The maintenance and infrastructure costs could be shared between both systems.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @02:15AM (2 children)
That wouldn't work at all. Rail power is typically 600VDC which is completely unsuitable for long distance transmission, both due to line losses and proximity to the ground. There are reasons that Edison's power grid failed while Telsa's succeeded.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Friday September 17 2021, @05:20AM (1 child)
Third rail systems are below 1 kV. Overhead systems go up to 25 kV. Still too low for optimum long distance power transmission.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @07:02AM
But how often is power injected into an electrified line? At 20 kV an interval of 30 km sounds workable.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 17 2021, @06:44AM (3 children)
Pure electric trains may be a mature technology but putting up that overhead line above the thousands of miles of track in the USA would be both costly and problematic. The voltage/current needed to power a train would need transformer/stepdown stations at intervals to boost the power in the rail system, and each of those would need its own connection to the US energy Grid.
Look at a map sometime and compare the size of the Netherlands and the USA. It would be great if it could be done but it's just not practical over an area the size of North America The trains have to carry their own power supply, there just isn't' any other practical method available.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @07:04AM (2 children)
I think China is of comparable size, and most of their tracks are electrified.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @10:46PM (1 child)
China's railroad system is not of comparable size or complexity to the US, and their electric rail is limited to highly developed coastal areas. The US also has electric lines along the urbanized coasts for the same reason. Anything crossing the interior of either country is strictly diesel.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:38PM
Including highly developed coastal areas like Tibet.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday September 17 2021, @02:16PM
Batteries would still improve efficiency, specifically with regenerative braking. Batteries could also be used for larger transient draw: your lines have an upper limit to the amps they can deliver, and discharging from the batteries would allow you to exceed the capacity during acceleration.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 17 2021, @05:08PM (1 child)
Trains have run on electricity ever since steam locomotives became obsolete. The "diesel" trains have a diesel generator to supply electricity to electric motors, because internal combustion engines don't have near enough torque to start a stopped train moving.
I want to see solar panels on the roofs and sides of every boxcar.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @10:58PM
That wouldn't generate enough power to move an LRT let alone a freight train. If it worked they'd already be doing it because it would be cheaper than fuel.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:20PM (2 children)
First we see:
Then we see:
And then we see:
So what is going on? Is this a demo of something that still uses fossil fuel? With a goal of eventually not using fossil fuel?
Does it have to make any sense if the purpose is to get money from politicians?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:17PM
I googled around some and its battery can only output 4400 HP for about 30 minutes per charge, so you pretty much have to couple it up to a "real" locomotive that does the heavy work.
Also you're essentially moving from low-ish sulfur diesel on a mobile light engine to low-ish sulfur coal on a fixed platform plus massive charging inefficacies. So instead of blowing 10 tons of sulfur per year out the loco stack, its on average going to blow 9 tons of sulfur out the power company coal burner stack. Or similar numbers for carbon emissions.
In theory, fixed location generators can run at higher more efficient temps and can afford infinitely large and heavy emissions control hardware. In theory...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:25PM
Answering your last question first: No, because No.
It could be a net positive, but that is not a given. It's highly dependent on unproven factors. Such as, how are you sourcing your electricity? What are the long-term effects on the climate/ground water/pollution caused by the batteries they are using? Electric can be better, but some things have to fall into place for it to be better. Switching from Gas to Electric is great, if you're not just shifting where you're polluting. Still, could have a net positive effect with regards to smog in big cities, even if all you're doing is exporting where the pollution is being produced.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:10PM (8 children)
Instead of making locos full of batteries full of nasty heavy metals that need charging, reduce overall efficiency, and need disposing of at the end of their lives, why not invest in ioverhead lines, so the power supply can stay in the form of a big efficient power station, and the loco can be connected to it through a catenary?
Battery-powered trains, hydrogen-powered trains... it never ceases to amaze me how hard designers work to avoid the obvious and rational solution of investing in proper infrastructure once and for all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:10PM (6 children)
The only plausible push-back I can think is if oversized freight is frequently on the line. Does anybody make overhead lines that can be easily de-energized and swung aside?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @12:27AM (2 children)
Nobody puts oversize carriages on a train. They would collect all the signalling gear and then get stuck in the first tunnel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @02:36AM (1 child)
It's common to move heavy equipment that way. There are even special cars for it. The rail lines that handle that stuff have extra height requirements for signals and bridges. There aren't very many tunnels in the prairies, that is a west coast problem.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @04:06AM
Seems like if everything on the track is build for that size already, it isn't really "oversize."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @02:45AM (1 child)
There is also the line length problem. Electric is good for short distances, and workable for medium distances through urban corridors, but it is completely unworkable for long distance lines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @06:31AM
What if you only electrify for a short distance but give it so much power it can go fast enough to coast the rest of the way?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 17 2021, @07:04PM
What about overhead lines that are simply high enough? Given that the railway surely passes under bridges, there certainly is a maximum height that freight can have. Just make the overhead lines higher than that, and design the locomotive connector to go that high to connect to it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 17 2021, @07:04AM
cost and efficiencies.
there are over 130 thousand of miles of rail track in North America. Putting an overhead power line, and the associated infrastructure to power a continent spaning rail system would cost far too much to be practical. And then you would also have upkeep.
Consider that the voltage/current in that over head line isnt' the same as is used in the power lines of the USA's power grid. The electricity a train needs is at a voltage and amperage that has a far more line loss than the interstate power lines and thus would need booster stations at intervals, and those stations would need to be connected to the main power grid in turn.
Just from the electrical and mechanical perspectives its just not practical at the scales we are discussing. Add in the political, commercial, and public concerns and it just gets worse.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1) by HammeredGlass on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:37PM (5 children)
Like trying to squeeze water from a stone.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:00PM
Yup, last I heard it was about 450 ton-miles/gallon equivalent. (Not technically the most efficient. Freight ships are nearer 2000 ton-miles/gallon.)
Road freight is around 100 - 120 ton-miles/gallon, depending on various details. Light trucks that you'd see your typical farmer or contractor use are more like 20-40 ton-miles/gallon.
This is why you often see greenies with a huge hard-on for trains, ignoring the eye-watering, nose-bleeding environmental load (that steel doesn't smelt itself!) of actually installing it on anything like a dense network, as opposed to long, direct main lines. Setting up huge copper networks overhead really doesn't improve it a lot in terms of net efficiency, but costs a hell of a lot more in energy, materials and so on to set up.
Rail is great in densely populated areas, for commuters, or for long haul overland freight, but it's a lousy last mile solution for anyone not directly on the tracks already. This is why people who need real, macho bulk deliveries for their factories build right next to rail lines, and have little stubby delivery lines built and you'll see rolling stock parked next to their factories for weeks at a time.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by HiThere on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:51PM
Sorry, but no. It may be the most efficient form of transport, but that doesn't mean that the current implementation doesn't have lots of inefficiencies. Whether *this* is a viable improvement is another question.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @11:53PM
Tesla's factory in Fremont is on a rail line.
The fuckers ship every car out by car-carrier, carrying maybe 8 cars / semi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:09AM
Regenerative breaking capability is one of the few things current rail systems lack. Pairing this with a regular diesel locomotive would do that. It also explains the comments about reducing fuel consumption when discussing an all-electric engine - this isn't a stand-alone system.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 17 2021, @07:24AM
every drop could help.
But Its really not so much about reducing the amount of fuel used as making that fuel carbon neutral. If the trains used carbon neutral fuel then they wouldn't add to the green house gases in the atmosphere. Sometimes it not about stopping something from happening but about keeping that something from being harmful when it happens.
There is a synthetic diesel fuel replacement* that is carbon neutral and can be made using the CO2 in the atmosphere. it just needs a good source of heat and electricity for the process to work.
*can't find it's name atm, it was mentioned in one of the videos on Youtube about Thorium fueld MSRs
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:51PM (6 children)
What an idiot.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:21PM
It would work... provide your tracks go downhill in both directions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:01PM
https://snowpiercer.fandom.com/wiki/The_Engine [fandom.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @12:46AM
Careful now. He gravitated magnum cum loud. What would you expect with a name like Oliver?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:05AM
Actually not. This is just a regenerative booster that is paired with a regular engine. It charges every time the train slows or stops and then discharges when they want to go again. The rest is supplied by the regular engine.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by owl on Friday September 17 2021, @02:03PM
While that is the result, reality is this is the case with nearly every article written by every reporter at every news org. None of the reporters have any specialized knowledge (most of them were simply something like "english majors" in college) and so they simply don't know they are creating these great mistakes, because they lack the knowledge of the subject area necessary to recognize the mistake.
It is a perfect example of the Gell-Mann Amnesia [epsilontheory.com] effect in action. Once you realize the effect, and start paying more attention for it, you'll find every article has at least one "wet streets cause rain" goof on the part of the reporter that wrote the story.
In this case, the locomotive rep. talking to the reporter probably said something like: "And it also features regenerative braking, so it recharges the batteries when going downhill" and the reporter, lacking any science background at all, heard "recharges going downhill" and translated that to "batteries never run out" in their own head.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 17 2021, @05:17PM
Kind of like an old friend of mine. https://soylentnews.org/~mcgrew/journal/5782 [soylentnews.org]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday September 17 2021, @03:07AM
Any claimed emissions reduction from hydrogen fuel cells should be questioned. As it stands today Hydrogen production is at best equivalent to natural gas in CO2 emissions, and that's a generous interpretation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @06:30AM
A battery powered train? I can't but help thinking of Futurama where they trained a lion to be vegetarian.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Friday September 17 2021, @10:16AM (1 child)
What about a hybrid approach?
Electric locomotives with some batteries to power them at full load for; say; ten minutes. Install overhead conductors every; say; kilometre, for the length of the locomotive. (Run conductors continuously on moderate grades and above.) Use supercapacitors to buffer the charge into the batteries.
Since this is a new install with no compatibility problems, run the highest voltage AC possible to minimise distance losses.
I can't say that locomotives are a good fit for battery-power today (except perhaps in switching yards), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't explore the options.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @09:30PM
lentilla wrote:
Batteries can be used to bring down the cost of overhead electrification.
It should be cheapest where it's just a matter of stringing a simple, single conductor such as on plain line so install the wires there. On these sections the overhead wire supplies traction power and recharges the batteries. Where it's more complicated, such as switch and point work, junctions, switch yard and station entrances, omit the overhead wire and let the trains move across on battery power.
Anywhere that the cost of the overhead wires doesn't justify their installation, such as delivering individual railcars to industrial customers, just omit them and use battery power to haul the railcars in and out.
There has been main-line rail electrification in the USA before, even in the mountains of the west. See the Milwaukee Road [wikipedia.org]. The economics should be more favourable now.