The Maglev Mirage | 78 comments (78 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Ok, so you need 30MW nominal power to run a TGV or ICE on wind. That's a windfarm 750m in radius. If you want to have one train in each direction every half hour, you will have one train on every 75Km of track. So a 750m-radius windfarm for each 75Km of track... Doesn't seem that bad.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 08:33:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Or to put it another way, one 3 MW windmill for every 7,5 km of track. Or one EPR for every 12.000 km of track.

Anyway, the bottom line is that trains are incredibly energy efficient and should be used wherever possible.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 08:44:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

If you want to have one train in each direction every half hour, you will have one train on every 75Km of track. So a 750m-radius windfarm for each 75Km of track...

I don't see the logic of this calculation. (And you forgot about acceleration/deceleration.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 08:53:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

I assumed an average speed of 300 Km/h, and one train every 30 minutes. You have one train passing each point every 15 minutes, in either direction. So each 75 Km of track contain one train. So you get 7.5 Km per MW.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 09:31:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 1)

Well, trains travelling in opposite directions don't travel along the same track and don't 'follow' each other in 15 minutes (the time will depend on the location...), you could just have ignored directions. Or said that there are two trains on 150 km of line (= two parallel tracks). But due to acceleration/deceleration, I didn't calculate with top speed but just took 100 km, which is also a reasonable distance between stations.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 10:14:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Sorry, two tracks per line.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 10:16:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

So with 25% capacity factor (more typical on land) and two 10MW trains, you have to place a 2MW turbine every 2.5 kilometres along the high-speed line. If there would be no constraints due to built-up areas, natural reserves, wind potential and non-rail-related wind farms within half a kilometre of the line, you could have five times as much.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 10:22:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

How many passengers can this 10MW TGV carry, and what is the average speed, compared with power, capacity and average speed of a typical airliner?

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 10:06:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 1)

Is this a serious question, or are you prodding me? :-)

10 MW was a theoretical number, all actual TGVs (unless you count the Eurostar as TGV) are a bit less. 400 passengers per modern European high-speed train (standardised 200 m length) could be considered a norm. The newer of the normal TGV derivatives (with their traction heads at both ends taking up place) have 377 seats, the double-deck TGV Duplex has 512.

Average speed depends on the distance travelled, and slow sections (for example connecting line into a major city) encountered. The TGV currently holds the start-to-stop average speed record (some Lyon--Aix-en-Provence schedules) at 263.3 km/h, but a typical average speed between high-speed line stations in Europe would be still somewhat under 200 km/h.

For an airliner, I don't know what's typical, but taking comparable capacity, let's look at an Airbus A340-600: 380-419 seats, and four engines of 249-267 kN maximum thrust each. Assuming a rule-of-the-thumb cruise speed of 900 km/h=250 m/s with a quarter of maximum thrust, I get around 65 MW.

Average speed remains, but I don't know much statistical data about that, I guess you have to ask frequent-flier Jérôme or rely on your experinece (sorry I flew only three times in my life). For the comparison to make sense, you would have to include not just ascent and descent, but time on the taxiway and the check-in, maybe even travel from the city centre (though if you arrive with train in the city centre, often you have to travel too, so the difference is again not clear). But just from the stomach, an example: Frankfurt/M-Paris, an air distance of about 450 km, the time between departure and arrival (is that the time between boarding and exiting the plane?) is 1h10m-1h20m, let's assume 40-50m for check-in resp. check-out, and 30m extra for travel into the cities at both ends, gives an average of about 180 km/h.

BTW, just found this image of an A380 formation flight on the Airbus site:

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 11:20:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

I note the 3-hour radius is usually considered the limit where high-speed rail beats air, so around 600 km.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 11:21:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Are you adding the "arrive at the airport 2h in advance" and "wait for your luggage for 1h" plus the commute time to and from the airport to the "3h radius"?

And yes, that was a serious question. 65MW? You could have 6 TGVs for that "price".

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 11:34:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

The 3-hour radius I mentioned is for trains, I surmise the time additions you list for planes are what make the same distance 3 hours or more for planes. (BTW, there are some relationships of 4 hours or longer where rail's share beats air's.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 02:56:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 1)

I'm reading this to mean that it is possible to (a great extent-80%+) run a (high speed) rail network with one of these every two and a half kilometres.

I assume this only applies in non-built up areas, but have I got this about right--Europe (or anywhere) could plant these windmills every two or three km along its rail tracks and have a large part of its rail infastructure powered by wind?

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 05:32:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (4.00 / 2)

Tecnically I guess the answer is yes, but it would be a much better idea to build the wind machines where the wind conditions are optimal and not along the rail track.

Or build an EPR. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 07:09:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 1)

With weather what it is, there seem to be few sites where huge wind farms can guarantee wind (tell me I've got this wrong); but if a grid of windwills was laid out along railway lines (motorways, canals, etc), snaking across Europe (and beyond), whither the wind blew would hit enough of 'em, no?....at times of reduced (train) activity power could be fed back into the grid.

A high speed international rail network run on nothing more offensive, polluting, or dangerous than windmills.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 07:42:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Also (and please tell me where I'm going wrong), it would be a HUGE project employing many many engineers, companies, construction workers, etc...--helping them leap out of the oil business--not to mention materials design, structural design, and as the project developed new features, better equipment etc. would be brought on line. It's what happened with cars, I think, and so (leaping wildly) would change our social nexuses (nexi?) at the same level.

(Facilities growing up around the windmills...new towns linked to renewable energy...transport to the next windmill guaranteed....)

A european project tying together the various groups in Europe (I think I'm still on topic), reducing emissions, creating better public transport, reducing plane travel, tying us physically to our neighbours (psychological difference between a journey on train and a journey by car or air)...

(So many technical issues to solve. Massive injections of finance to universities, a boom in post-graduate work...)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 08:09:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Moving from the academic to the practical, it makes much more sense to feed the rail network from the grid, and just build the wind farms wherever appropiate, feeding into the grid, which is well organised enough to give balance for local wind intermittance (ideally, using only regulated-power hydro and geothermal, pumped storage including air in abandoned mines, and other renewables with complementary intermittance, that is solar and other wind at a distance).

There are already a lot of wind farms in Spain, Denmark or Northern Germany. Here is the first of about two dozen I encountered en route to Berlin last week (hope it loads, trying out new image hosting site):

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Sep 29th, 2006 at 06:53:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

I thought you were a fan of distributed power production...

How about transmission losses, by the way? And autonomy? And avoiding buying power at the marginal price, and having the possibility of feeding into the grid? Also, having the windmills spaced 2.5Km apart all along the line means the intermittency is largely averaged out.

Are there not practical advantages to such a scheme?

I'm still thinking there should be a windmill at the centre of every roundabout. And don't tell me it's ugly: in the US midwest people don't complain about their town's water towers.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Sep 29th, 2006 at 07:23:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

I thought you were a fan of distributed power production...

Where have I contradicted that?

Also, having the windmills spaced 2.5Km apart all along the line means the intermittency is largely averaged out.

Maybe along the Transsiberian. For any railway within the EU, the distances are too small, thus intermittance will be a factor; though fortunately, it is just railways that have a quite large share of hydropower. Balancing across the entire railway network of the EU has no plus compared to balancing with the rest of the grid.

The advantage of putting turbines along the railway may be that they could be erected on railway right-of-way, sparing land purchase costs.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Sep 29th, 2006 at 07:49:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

We say "let's put windmills along railway tracks" and you say "it's more practical to build large wind farms".

In any case, the factor of at least 6 in energy consumption per passenger-km between planes and trains boggles the mind.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Sep 29th, 2006 at 08:09:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Maglev Mirage (none / 0)

Windmills along railway lines is one large wind farm - and one along a line long enough for weather differences to balance each other is larger than any in existence. On my part I haven't specified the size of the wind farms. And anyway, distributed production and minigrids are two different things not necessarily bound to each other..

To recapitulate: because you have to consider territories affected in a half kilometre radius anyway, and because the site of the best wind is not necessarily along the railway, and because you have long transmission distances along the railway line anyway, railway-feeding wind farms might as well be built as normal wind farms somewhere near the line. Railways might opt to build wind farms, and use as much electricity as their wind farms produce, thus not having to spend on buying net electricity elsewhere, but that net zero would cover having to get electricity from the grid and sending surplus to the grid depending on intermittance. It's best if what they buy is regenerative energy too, and it's best anyway if non-rail users have regenerative sources too, so why not cut it short and create a wind-et-al-fed grid which feeds rail too.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Sep 29th, 2006 at 04:12:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The Maglev Mirage | 78 comments (78 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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