Using trains to store surplus renewable energy

[Reorte]

There aren't really contradictions - they just apply at different scales of space and time.

A particle based approach to gravitation, the model of which demonstratably works well for other forces, is quite different from model of gravity used in relativity, it's hard to not view that as a contradiction. The difficulty of trying to join the two is of course the radically different scales on which they have noticable effects.

[Mike Buckner]

Perhaps we should move this discussion (or the hijacked part of it) away from "UK Prototype Discussions (not questions!)"

[locoholic]

A particle based approach to gravitation, the model of which demonstratably works well for other forces, is quite different from model of gravity used in relativity, it's hard to not view that as a contradiction. The difficulty of trying to join the two is of course the radically different scales on which they have noticable effects.

If you regard the models as simply predictive tools for a set of circumstances then there is no contradiction. If they did contradict, then for a given set of conditions you would get two possible outcomes, and it would be possible to conduct an experiment to determine which theory was incorrect.

 

It is when people start to confuse theoretical models with "truth" and "reality" that the problems start.

[Pacific231G]

Actually not quite correct. The speed of light is constant in a particular medium, but not the same for all media. It is for example slower in water than in a vacuum and particles traveling faster than the speed of light in that medium give rise to Cherenkov radiation. Such behaviour is consistent with the special theory of relativity. It follows that light traveling out of water into a vacuum must accelerate.

As I understand it, the speed of light in vacuum ( C ) is the fundamental speed of wave propagation in the universe. A single photon of light always moves at that speed but when light passes through any other transparent medium individual photons interact with its atoms and molecules, are absorbed and then re-emitted, That slows down the overall propagation (to about 0.75C in water) When light leaves the medium and returns  to vacuum the photons that were finally emitted at C continue and, with no further matter interactions to slow the overall speed of that light (made up of billions of photons) that returns to C but there are no individual photon accelerations.  

 

Since photons have no mass and acceleration is a function of force and mass then there couldn't be an acceleration as such at the individual photon level. What I don't know is whether the absorption and re-emission of photons takes time and that's what slows down their overall progress or whether it's the increased path length as individual photons move between atoms in a "drunken walk" even though their overall flow is a straight line.

 

Different wavelengths of the light are made up of photons with different energies so their average speed reduction when encountering matter is different and that's why white light gets split into spectra. 

 

That's my understanding and the qualified particile physicists here can correct any misunderstanding.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Pacific231G

[Joseph_Pestell]

I can't do all this physics stuff (bare scrape pass at GCE O level - and I think even that was a pleasant surprise to the teachers). Quantum physics is a black hole to me.

 

So back to railways. Can anyone think of a closed UK rail line close to power lines that could be used in this way? Woodhead?

 

I don't think the rail infrastructure needs to be anything like as complex as the marshalling yard shown in those pics.

 

I am familiar with a local 50MW battery storage facility to be built this year. It only needs a few acres of land and, even with the price of the batteries, it looks a more sensible (but much less interesting) option than this rail-based solution.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell

[Reorte]

 

So back to railways. Can anyone think of a closed UK rail line close to power lines that could be used in this way? Woodhead?

Woodhead did when it was still going, in a way. The 76s had regenerative braking so descending trains contributed towards ascending ones. Perhaps more conceptually akin to a gravity tramway than an energy storage mechanism though.

[Pacific231G]

I can't do all this physics stuff (bare scrape pass at GCE O level - and I think even that was a pleasant surprise to the teachers). Quantum physics is a black hole to me.

 

So back to railways. Can anyone think of a closed UK rail line close to power lines that could be used in this way? Woodhead?

 

I don't think the rail infrastructure needs to be anything like as complex as the marshalling yard shown in those pics.

 

I am familiar with a local 50MW battery storage facility to be built this year. It only needs a few acres of land and, even with the price of the batteries, it looks a more sensible (but much less interesting) option than this rail-based solution.

There are any number of closed tramways that used to service mines and quarries in the more mountainous parts of Britain. A lot of them were pretty steep and being in fairly wild country, their routes tend not to have been built over. For example, the Lochaber Railway built to construct and then service a water tunnel for  the Lochaber hydro-electric scheme near Ft. William had a gradient of 1in 30 to 1 in 25 for its first seven kilometres. It was three foot gauge and was originally going to be electrically powered.

You could also of course close the Snowdon Mountain Railway to passengers and use that. I'm sure visitors to the area would find other things with which to amuse themselves and if not he hotels and guesthouses would have plenty of contractors to accomodate for a year or so while they sought other opportunities.

 

Whilst I quite like the idea of a network of narrow gauge railways, with 300 tonne trains moving automatically up and down they would have to be completely fenced off so wouldn't be great for walkers, sheep or anything else using the moors. The alternative would be to build them on trestles but those would have to be pretty substantial to handle the weight of trains and would make pylons and wind turbines positively beautiful features of the countryside in comparison.  

Edited July 4, 2018 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

Or, have a more exciting variant, using the old mineshafts as drop-shafts for enormous tanks of water, filled from natural streams or the like, which would then be discharged at the bottom into run-off adits, reducing the mass by c95% for the up-haul.

 

I've got a feeling that there might be a baby version of this sort of generation system at CAT near Machynlleth.

[locoholic]

Of course, the alternative to all these desperate measures is to reduce the human population to a sensible level.

 

Either that, or invent a way of harnessing the power of darkness...

 

Whatever happens, I predict we will not be seeing trains used to store energy in the UK.

[Reorte]

Or, have a more exciting variant, using the old mineshafts as drop-shafts for enormous tanks of water, filled from natural streams or the like, which would then be discharged at the bottom into run-off adits, reducing the mass by c95% for the up-haul.

 

I've got a feeling that there might be a baby version of this sort of generation system at CAT near Machynlleth.

That sounds like fairly standard hydroelectric, albeit in a roundabout way. Then again the concept of water in a high part of a mine and out of a lower one, providing power in between, is very old indeed. There's a nice Elizabethan example in the Lakes I know of (Goldscope mine, and the space dug out to accommodate the waterwheel, in solid rock, is impressive when you think that it was entirely done by hand) but I wouldn't be surprised if the Romans had done similar things somewhere.

[Nearholmer]

The 'roundabout way' gives storage and thereby the ability to deliver high output at short-response ......... the same thing could be achieved with a reservoir at the top, so one wouldn't implement what I suggest unless there is no way of accommodating a reservoir, because what I suggest includes mechanical losses.

 

I was really only suggesting it as a form of entertainment!

[DavidBird]

This (not the gravity train, the other thing...) sounds very much like "if you cannot actually understand what is written, then it's simply that you are just not clever enough".  The Skotal affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair, tested this and actually managed to publish a complete load of nonsense in a supposedly respected academic journal.

[DCB]

This reminds me of a plan to provide electrical power to our village from an old water wheel in the pub garden.  After thousands had been spent on tarting it up we calculated the maximum power output, it was about 200 watts.   About enough for the Christmas lights in the Beer garden.

[Reorte]

This reminds me of a plan to provide electrical power to our village from an old water wheel in the pub garden.  After thousands had been spent on tarting it up we calculated the maximum power output, it was about 200 watts.   About enough for the Christmas lights in the Beer garden.

Makes the wheel sound quite impressive for what it managed to originally do with 200 W. Still, thought someone would've worked that out beforehand, the power of a waterwheel is easy enough to work out, at least approximately. An overshot waterwheel is a surprisingly efficient source of power (much more so than an undershot one).

Edited July 4, 2018 by Reorte

[letterspider]

As I understand it, the speed of light in vacuum ( C ) is the fundamental speed of wave propagation in the universe. A single photon of light always moves at that speed but when light passes through any other transparent medium individual photons interact with its atoms and molecules, are absorbed and then re-emitted, That slows down the overall propagation (to about 0.75C in water) When light leaves the medium and returns  to vacuum the photons that were finally emitted at C continue and, with no further matter interactions to slow the overall speed of that light (made up of billions of photons) that returns to C but there are no individual photon accelerations.  

 

Since photons have no mass and acceleration is a function of force and mass then there couldn't be an acceleration as such at the individual photon level. What I don't know is whether the absorption and re-emission of photons takes time and that's what slows down their overall progress or whether it's the increased path length as individual photons move between atoms in a "drunken walk" even though their overall flow is a straight line.

 

Different wavelengths of the light are made up of photons with different energies so their average speed reduction when encountering matter is different and that's why white light gets split into spectra. 

 

That's my understanding and the qualified particile physicists here can correct any misunderstanding.

 

AFAIK the problem here (apart from we are not pulling up the actual math) is that we view time linearly and so we think of the photon being emitted and absorbed. As far as the photon is concerned there is no time lag and no distance involved. The only record of anything would be a transfer of information and energy.

PS I am no Quantum Physicist either

 

Note to editor - should this thread be hived off under Prototype Discussions - Quantum 'Tunneling'

Edited July 4, 2018 by letterspider

[locoholic]

AFAIK the problem here (apart from we are not pulling up the actual math) is that we view time linearly and so we think of the photon being emitted and absorbed. As far as the photon is concerned there is no time lag and no distance involved. The only record of anything would be a transfer of information and energy.

PS I am no Quantum Physicist either

 

Note to editor - should this thread be hived off under Prototype Discussions - Quantum 'Tunneling'

 

The probability that this thread will collapse under its own mass to form a singularity of infinite density is increasing exponentially. The event will be triggered when a Moderator tries to return it to the original topic.

[Reorte]

The probability that this thread will collapse under its own mass to form a singularity of infinite density is increasing exponentially. The event will be triggered when a Moderator tries to return it to the original topic.

Just need to fine-tune it to not collapsing quite that much, just enough to trigger fusion, and then we've rendered the topic moot anyway.

[Joseph_Pestell]

This reminds me of a plan to provide electrical power to our village from an old water wheel in the pub garden.  After thousands had been spent on tarting it up we calculated the maximum power output, it was about 200 watts.   About enough for the Christmas lights in the Beer garden.

 

Something not right there. Even a tiny turbine in a slow stream would be able to produce that. I think that you may have had the wrong gearing/alternator linked to the water wheel.

 

Not that I am suggesting it could power the whole village.

[Pacific231G]

The probability that this thread will collapse under its own mass to form a singularity of infinite density is increasing exponentially. The event will be triggered when a Moderator tries to return it to the original topic.

Unlike relativiity I don't think quantum mechanics allows you to have a singularity of infinite density. It's the uncertaintly that stops you. "Dr. Heisenberg, do you know just how fast you were driving before I pulled you over?" "No Officer, but I know almost exactly where I was" 

Is it because trains have got faster that TOCs have less idea about where they are?

[Pacific231G]

This (not the gravity train, the other thing...) sounds very much like "if you cannot actually understand what is written, then it's simply that you are just not clever enough".  The Skotal affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair, tested this and actually managed to publish a complete load of nonsense in a supposedly respected academic journal.

Most people think that what they believe is true rather than what is found to be true being what they believe. Getting anyone to actually think - including me- is always hard but  Even Einstein refused to believe some of the main conclusions of quantum mechanics because he couldn't accept a non-deterministic universe where a complete description is inherently unknowable. .

[Titan]

Most people think that what they believe is true rather than what is found to be true being what they believe. Getting anyone to actually think - including me- is always hard but  Even Einstein refused to believe some of the main conclusions of quantum mechanics because he couldn't accept a non-deterministic universe where a complete description is inherently unknowable. .

 

Oh God...

[locoholic]

I can't do all this physics stuff... Quantum physics is a black hole to me.

If you want practical experience of the Quantum World, try travelling on GTR trains at the moment. They are operating a quantum service - at any point in time there is a probability that a train will run, but if you actually try to catch a specific train, it will disappear from the departure board, owing to the Heisenberg/GTR Uncertainty Principal.

[Nearholmer]

"Oh God..."

 

Which, I think neatly sums up why one of my nephews, who has studied pure physics to Masters level, has decided that he will now embark on a PhD in philosophy.

[Edwin_m]

If you want practical experience of the Quantum World, try travelling on GTR trains at the moment. They are operating a quantum service - at any point in time there is a probability that a train will run, but if you actually try to catch a specific train, it will disappear from the departure board, owing to the Heisenberg/GTR Uncertainty Principal.

I was thinking more of Schroedinger's cat.  The train may or may not be there, you don't find out until you get to the platform.  And if it's there it's probably gone by the time you get down the stairs, as the cat would be (if alive) when you opened the box. 

[Ian J.]

Schroedinger's Train?