Why don’t renewables provide inertia and reactive support? Technical? Political? Economics? Or no pun intended inertia (in people)?
The rest of the story.
The CARB plan was $800 mil per year each for the purpose of buying electric locomotives. The plan was scrapped this January.
Once again, your earlier post contained exaggerations.
800 million when there’s no heavy haul electric locomotive in design for fright service that would meet US requirements. Amtrak paid 466 million dollars for their last 70 that’s just over 6.5 million dollars each for the ACS64. So with what California was offering woulg get maybe 100 engines a year spilt between the BNSF and UP for all their operations in the state of California.
That’s not even enogh locomotives to cover the needs of Donner pass for the UP let alone Cajon for the BNSF.
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The inertia referred to is the mass of rotating machines connected to the grid (think flywheels). The operation of an electric power system depends on maintaining a balance between generation (supply) and demand - generation exceeding demand will cause and increase in frequency and demand exceeding generation will cause a decrease in frequency. Inertia slows down the system response to changes in that balance, which then gives the system time to respond. What happened in Spain and Portugal was the lack of inertia led to rapid changes in frequency which then exceeded what the solar plant inverters could handle resulting in a wide area blackout.
Another thing to keep in mind is that transmission lines have a hard limit on power transfer in which synchronism will be lost between the endpoints of the transmission line.
“Reactive Power” is the difference between the volt-ampere product and the “real power” output - sourcing reactive power is equivalent to connecting a capacitor and sinking reactive power is equivalent to connecting an inductor. Control of reactive power is needed for voltage control - and this is provided inherently with a rotating generator. This could be supplied by inverters, but at a cost in money and efficiency.
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Renewable energy and climate change were politicized well before the Heartland Foundation became involved.
The problem with solar dropping out before peak demand was a known problem 50 years ago. The claim that solar provides cheap electricity ignores the problem of what to do when the sun isn’t shining, the all-up cost for a battery back-up system is substantially more than the ~$100/kwhr that’s been bandied about and there hasn’t been much talk about de-commissioning costs.
California missed an opportunity to promote installation of chargers in areas where cars would be parked in the middle of the day to soak up the excess solar electricity. This is similar to the CAHSR mess, where there was a grand proposal to do something but not much effort was put into finding out what was needed to implement the proposal.
Take a diesel electric freight locomotive through the diesel engine out and put the necessary electrical equipment including pantograph in and you have a straight electric freight locomotive.
Siemens is doing this for Metro North with a new dual mode Charger locomotive: straight electric + battery electric. This Charger won’t have a diesel engine.
Regards, Volker
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Commuter locomotives are an entire world apart from freight locomotives. Commuter engines you need maximum acceleration and braking multiple times. Heavy haul freight you need maximum tractive effort which means more weight and you also need to allow for higher speeds when you get to the flatter terrain.
Tesla has a battery powered semi truck. It literally can’t make it over Donner pass loaded without needing a recharge due to the battery drain climbing that pass. Even running the valley run for Pepsi and Frito Lay the best range they found from it was less than half of the claimed 750 miles.
Batteries don’t have the range to even get over the passes.
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First it should be $100/MWhr I think, I pay about $0.35/kWhr.
Are de-commisioning and demolition costs really factored in? In Biden’s infrastructure bill were $16 billion to seal and re-landscape abandoned oil and gas wells.
You need back-up for renewable energies. This can be storage of any kind, from batteries, heat storage, hydrogen production to pumped-storage power plants or gas-fired power plants.
New gas-fired power plants are being built in Germany in such a way that they can also use hydrogen and thus become climate-neutral.
Regarding the blackout in Spain and Portugal: According to Spain’s Environment Minister Sara Aagesen, the blackout was preceded by three sudden outages in the south of Spain on Monday afternoon before last: first in a substation near Granada, a few seconds later in Seville and in Badajoz in Extremadura.
Source FAZ May 14th, 2025: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/blackout-in-spanien-und-portugal-ursache-steht-fest-110476280.html
European countries are usually strongly interconnected, so that shortfalls in electricity production can be easily compensated for by neighboring countries. However, due to the Pyrenees, the line capacity between Spain and France is not sufficient.
Regards, Volker
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Take a diesel-electric freight locomotive and DON’T throw the diesel engine out, but put in the necessary electrical equipment including pantograph in, and you have the correct answer: dual-mode-lite for punctuated OHLE and/or smart third rail.
It made sense in the late '70s (with converted SD40-2s with S.580 cabs) and it makes dramatically more sense with AC drive and the ability to use FLXdrive battery units for hybrid operation.
Electrification can proceed as desired… or pause, or even be politically delayed… and none of the work will be wasted; conversely there is no need to arrange for 25/50 kV under bridges or in confined areas or where NIMBYs cause concerns.
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Pretty bold to assume the straight electrical components would be maintained if not being used daily.
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They’d be ‘exercised’ regularly by the computer, and of course proofed every 92 days.
I assume you’ve read the technical details (volume 2 and volume 4) of the Garrett study. The additional components are much easier to provide and maintain when all they have to do is support the DC-Link voltage at sufficient amperage (the AC synthesis drive then doing all the load-following ‘agnostic’ of how the DC-Link is excited). While the usual isolation, surge, and lightning protection need to be provided, they are comparatively easy to design, and their failure should not provide a common-mode fault disabling the locomotive from ‘self-powered’ operation or contribution.
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184 now for the newer stuff.
Yes I am familiar with the tech. What I’m wondering is why they don’t use the tech?
Spain also was affected by limited interconnections with France that prevented much excess power from flowing into France. I’ve heard that is political. France has extensive and expensive nuclear power. They don’t want easy access to cheaper Spanish power.
Is something similar happening in California?
The Charger is just an example that it can be done. You can do it as well with a diesel-electric freight locomotive. You loose the diesel engine, fuel tank etc and gain the weight of transformers and electrical equipment. The still missing weight you can replace with ballast or batteries. Something that was done for years when ballasting locomotives to the axle load limits.
It is just a question of battery capacity and its discharge rate. You would most likely need battery tenders.
Regards, Volker
Check your numbers.
Perhaps this dual power locomotive from Stadler?
The issues with batteries
Harold asked for an electric freight locomotive and I showed a way that works.
If you way works I’m not sure. The Amtrak Airo train got an auxiliary power vehicle (AVP) containing all high voltage catenary related equipment as ther wasn’t
enough room in the locomotive, they would have lost of fuel tank capacity to make room for a transformer and they would have exceeded the axle load limits.
Similar could happen with a diesel-electric freight locomotive. Weight reserves might be there but is there enough room for the electrical equipment? And are class 1 railroads prepared to sacrifice tank volume to make room for the transformer.
Regards, Volker
PS: In March 2023 Railway Age had a commentary by Micheal Iden and others titled: Follow the Megawatt-Hours: Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Batteries and Electric Propulsion
https://www.railwayage.com/mechanical/locomotives/follow-the-megawatt-hours-hydrogen-fuel-cells-batteries-and-electric-propulsion/
If it was posted before I apologize
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Or if the US railroads moved into the 21st century. Strange how a developing nation like India can do it.
Siemens Mobility signed a deal with Indian Railways in 2023 year. And this project worth $3.2 billion provides for delivering 1200 freight locomotives.
https://www.railway.supply/en/indiya-zapuskaet-proizvodstvo-elektrovozov-siemens-mobility/
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You ignore that the feasibility has been ‘settled science’ for almost half a century. What was practical for 3000hp and DC transmission in the late '70s is certainly no less practicable with modern materials and equipment, where the whole transversion is from high-voltage AC to steady DC. If there is some perceived issue with ‘road slug’- style interconnect at 1500V, DC-to-DC transversion to 750V or whatever does not require showstopping space or pose showstopping cooling requirements. Volumes 1 (the executive summary), 2 (the technical discussion) and 4 (nominally ‘wayside power’, which itself is an important discussion but was ignored at the time) are all relatively easily found on the Internet.
The idea of crippling general-purpose locomotives so they only operate under continuous energized catenary is cute, but it did not pass common-sense analysis in the late '70s and still does not now. GM had two electric prototypes in the mid-Seventies (the GM10B particularly noteworthy), and GE developed with their own money a ‘perfected’ American straight-electric locomotive in the 1980s – none of these was adopted by anyone. Tumbler Ridge was designed and built electrified – when the mines played out, there was no utility for either the components of the electrification or for the locomotives elsewhere.
A point is that dual-mode-lite power provides operating flexibility that ridiculous battery-only locomotives don’t offer on their own, when operated as Garrett recommended. Any combination of diesel, LNG, or hydrogen fuel-cell prime movers can be accommodated in a consist that runs effectively as well under wire as not, while retaining the ability for snapping or helping on particular grades or operating in ‘pollution abatement districts’ using (probably-subsidized) cat or smart third rail. Connecting a FLXdrive in this consist correctly (which GE isn’t quite doing yet, but isn’t difficult) gives you all the advantages of the proposed GE hybrid of 3008, but without most of the detail-design shortcomings; it gives you ‘cabs-out’ consist flexibility down to 2 units (which a ‘tender’-style unit a la '70s MATE doesn’t) and the ability to use the battery locomotive for switching where politically necessary. The first mile of catenary erected is immediately usable, without expending trillions on end-to-end route availability followed by obligate contracts for assured power distribution and peak; there is no requirement that catenary ever be wired at all in the myriad areas it would be ‘difficult’ to do so.
There is a reason all the battery-electric locomotive people only have pantographs on there for more convenient recharging. Respect their reasons why.
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