Wabtec's battery powered locomotive.

[AmericanSteam]

As I perceive it: In order to make non-carbon energy feasible, they will need to build gigantic battery farms to charge the grid when wind and solar are not enough to provide the needed power especially in mid-Winter and the peak of Summer. The metals (nickel, cadmium) used in these batteries are extremely toxic and a lot of it comes from 3rd world countries where it is cheaper and pollution control or remediation is not a priority. The theory is one thing but practicality is another.

[AmericanSteam]

As to these locomotives because of the limited range (40 miles), these may be in a consist but only used when needed and put into a regenerative mode when not needed in order to charge the batteries.

[plethaus]

Whatever efforts we make here in North America will go for naught if the rest of the world ignores these issues. At this point renewables is like perpetual motion largely a dream.

News flash, North America is leading the charge in ignoring these issues.

[buzz456]

Whatever efforts we make here in North America will go for naught if the rest of the world ignores these issues. At this point renewables is like perpetual motion largely a dream.

News flash, North America is leading the charge in ignoring these issues.

You are entitled to your opinion but not entitled to your own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/20 ... 3e50613535

"According to the 2017 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, since 2005 annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have declined by 758 million metric tons. That is by far the largest decline of any country in the world over that timespan and is nearly as large as the 770 million metric ton decline for the entire European Union."

[AmericanSteam]

Per Forbs Magazine Oct 2017 "China's carbon dioxide emissions increased by 50%, and India's increased by 88%."

[EngineerJohn]

Per Forbs Magazine Oct 2017 "China's carbon dioxide emissions increased by 50%, and India's increased by 88%."

They are major factors but we aren't exactly innocent either. Good luck trying to get them to change. A big turnoff for renewable energy right now is the startup cost and that nobody wants a giant wind turbine in their backyard to look at all day.

https://www.railjournal.com/locomotives ... e-in-2020/

They plan on testing this machine from Barstow to Stockton California which at about 350 miles is not exactly short. Apparently they are going to build a charging station for it in Stockton so basically that means they are intending to make it all the way from Stockton to Barstow and back on a charge I'm assuming, which would add up to 700 miles on a charge with regenerative braking. It's definitely a start.

[BNSFdude]

“Basically, you get to a point where the nuclear fuel rods are no longer potent enough to make dry steam for the turbines, so the plants can't use them anymore, but they are still plenty radioactive and plenty dangerous... So we bury the stuff in deep mountain caves.”

Let’s put the rods in rockets and launch them outta the universe....or use them to power ships....

There's plenty of reactor designs that can make use of spent fuel or non-enriched fuel though.

[buzz456]

Let's try to stick with the subject of this electric loco. (Yes I know I'm guilty).

[GSkid]

They said hybrid operation..... meaning these units will be lashed up in consists with diesel locos. Now it sounds like they want these battery locos to be as self sufficient as possible as evidenced by the regeneration of it's batteries in dynamic brake mode. I'd be curious as to the discharge and re-charging rate of the system. The ideal routes for this are ones that are as close to a 50/50 uphill/downhill ratio as possible.

What would be more ideal is if the adjoining diesel locomotives were able to bypass some or all of the their regeneration power away from their own dynamic brake grids and into a battery locomotive to speed up it's re-charging process. You could also bleed off a small amount of the diesel's generated power that goes to it's own traction motors and send it to the battery loco. It would have a similar effect to a diesel loco hooked up to yard or road slug. But instead of having it sending power directly to the traction motors as in slugs, it would be pumped directly into the battery that feeds the traction motors.

Another thing they could do is make a long battery tender car that can be attached to add battery capacity and range to these locos. Have the diesels bleed off power and dynamic power to these cars to help charge them too. I'm a bit skeptical about these as the GE hybrid locomotive idea didn't see much use. But using these battery locomotives in hybrid consists with diesels just might work.

I'm curious as to what type of batteries they have. Batteries in general are bad in cold weather as it effectively reduces it's capacity and runtime to 30%-50% of it's normal warm temperature capacity. As the temps get colder, the battery discharge rate must be reduced accordingly. That means a loss in overall horsepower to the traction motors and a reduction in battery runtime. Batteries also can't be charged safely once they hit a certain low or high temperature. The temperature range for safely charging a battery is more narrow and restricted then that of it's discharge temperature range. My guess is they will have some type of battery warming/cooling system to keep it's batteries in their ideal temperature range to combat these detrimental effects on battery performance.

[EngineerJohn]

...

Initial plans are testing in southern California so for now I don't think that's a problem. I posted a second article and it says they are lithium-ion cells, which aren't magical like everyone talks about but are significantly better than the older nickel-cadmium cells.

Assuming the life cycle of the batteries are sufficient (most electric cars fall between 5-10 years before the battery packs go bad) and the range is at least somewhat decent this does have some potential.

[buzz456]

Costs to produce the batteries? We used to have electric fork lifts at the factory where I worked. Changed them out for LP power because the battery cost replacement was so high and the LP powered engines seemed to run forever. Those were ni cads back in those days.

[ironcat60]

Well dern it, when are they going to invent the "Mr. Fusion" like in "Back to the Future"

And this is 2019, we are supposed to be colonizing the moon and going out to Jupiter to look for monoliths. What happened to all this technological wonder I grew up with in the 60's?

[EngineerJohn]

Well dern it, when are they going to invent the "Mr. Fusion" like in "Back to the Future"

And this is 2019, we are supposed to be colonizing the moon and going out to Jupiter to look for monoliths. What happened to all this technological wonder I grew up with in the 60's?

There's a giant wall in the way known as Washington D.C. They are quite good at adding more bricks to it over there.

Energy sources are becoming the main problem now. Computers now can do incredible things and I'm sure this locomotive has some pretty fancy tech under the hood. It appears as though they gave it some sort of "smart automated cruise control" system. I believe that means that the computers are going to be constantly calculating how little energy the locomotive can get away with to maintain its speed.

I don't think this machine is a Saturn 5 type but it might be something more like a Mercury-Atlas?

[buzz456]

The wall right now is not DC it’s battery technology. If you have a stretch of track with mostly 50% up and down you have near perpetual motion minus transmission loss in the system. Hey that was done back in the twenties and thirties of the last century. The only difference is now we don’t need wires. Progress.

[BoostedFridge]

In my work I deal with a lot of non internal combustion powered industrial vehicles. All electric, battery power is great for some industries and applications, but not so much for others. Based on everything I have seen from mining and material handling I would say that a heavy haul freight locomotive will be one of the more challenging applications for a purely battery powered loco.

For a switcher type locomotive, that will start and end its day in the same location, or a commuter type passenger locomotive that would spend hours of each day at its origin or destination terminal, a purely battery powered locomotive could make sense with current technology. They key with both of these applications is that they would be able to discharge the majority of the units battery capacity in a predictable timeline, and then return to its charging station to recharge before its next use.

The best suited batteries for this in my opinion would be of the Lithium-Polymer/Lithium-Ion type. They generate very little heat during discharge/recharge, and accept very high recharge rates. They are NOT good for operation/recharging in near freezing environments though. They also have the highest cost per kWh of capacity.

Conventional lead acid batteries are cost effective and heavy (a benefit for tractive effort), but generate and retain significant heat during high discharge, and moderate charging. They cannot support a continuous duty cycle, and break down quickly when subjected to continuous heat. There are more modern variations of this type that address some of these issues, but are still far from ideal for locomotive use.

The 'hybrid' discussion about using this type of locomotive in combination with conventional diesel electrics makes more sense to me for long haul freight applications, than an independently run electric locomotive.