The future of trains
Nature News: Rail travel produces more than a third less emissions than road transport — even though trains carry 7% of traffic, they emit just 0.2% of the carbon monoxide, 2% of nitrogen oxides and 1% of the volatile organic compounds. Although electric passenger trains are relatively green, most of the world's trains are used for haulage and run on diesel. Nature's Duncan Graham-Rowe sees how trains are switching to a greener track.
Comments
Greener Trains! I am all for it.
In fact with the latest train technology, wheel driven trains are capable of 250 MPH. While Maglev trains are capable of 350 MPH plus.
Such high speed trains are less limited in the number of passengers they can carry since the limiting values of jet aircraft fuselage length do not apply to trains. Moreover, trains can utilize regenerative breaking and maglev trains can utilize magnetic linear induction breaking to convert their kinetic energy back into electrical potential energy which can be stored in capacitors and/or galvanic cells.
Roughly a couple of decades ago, a team of physicists/engineers contemplated an underground transcontinental maglev train that would travel in a largely evacuated tube and reach velocities as high as 3600 MPH wherein magnetic induction breaking would be used to recycle much of the trains terminal kinetic energy. Although this is an extreme example of what might be possible with trains, at the very least, near airliner speeds are currently possible with current technologies.
Trains are potentially a great way to travel since they can be powered by electricity in the case of electrical motor powered locomotives. Thus, the energy supply to power them can come from nuclear powered utility stations, solar PV stations, photothermal- turboelectric power stations, and wind, ocean wave, and hydroelectric stations.
Posted by: James M. Essig | September 1, 2008 8:49 PM