Recently I've seen an ad promoting the efficiency of trains. The ad show
a freight train and the voice-over claims that it can run 400 miles on a
gallon of fuel. this just doesn't sound possible to me. This seems like a
group that could clear up the confusion. Any takers? -lm

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:00:39 -0300, Len McLaughlin wrote:

Recently I've seen an ad promoting the efficiency of trains. The ad show
a freight train and the voice-over claims that it can run 400 miles on a
gallon of fuel. this just doesn't sound possible to me. This seems like a
group that could clear up the confusion. Any takers? -lm

Don't use this as a cite... just a few thoughts I had.

Probably under ideal conditions, which would be with one ton being
compact enough to load the train car to capacity it could transport 1
ton - 400 miles with 1 gallon of fuel on a fully loaded train. I think
transporting vehicles typically "under loads" a train car... so I'm
guessing that they don't really get that "literally".

But for heavy/fully loaded train cars, the steel wheels and easy grade
of the rails and no weight limits, with the diesel electric power
plant... they get pretty good economics, I believe that's why coal that
is heavy, generally still goes by rail.

Poetic Justice wrote:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:00:39 -0300, Len McLaughlin wrote:

Recently I've seen an ad promoting the efficiency of trains. The ad show
a freight train and the voice-over claims that it can run 400 miles on a
gallon of fuel. this just doesn't sound possible to me. This seems like a
group that could clear up the confusion. Any takers? -lm

Don't use this as a cite... just a few thoughts I had.

Probably under ideal conditions, which would be with one ton being
compact enough to load the train car to capacity it could transport 1
ton - 400 miles with 1 gallon of fuel on a fully loaded train. I think
transporting vehicles typically "under loads" a train car... so I'm
guessing that they don't really get that "literally".

But for heavy/fully loaded train cars, the steel wheels and easy grade
of the rails and no weight limits, with the diesel electric power
plant... they get pretty good economics, I believe that's why coal that
is heavy, generally still goes by rail.

Actually most of the efficiency comes from the "shadow" effect one
car has on another.....most of the air resistance comes from the
cross sectional area of the engine...adding extra cars does not
increase the air resistance that much.....

have fun.....sno

Landy wrote:
"Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:13uj85b3j9bqa21@corp.supernews.com...
Nuclear power is around $2 /watt...

Surely you mean watt hours, or kilowatt hours. Watts are a rate of use, not
an amount of electricity.

Production cost is most often measured in dollars/watt. At that, last I
read, even France's next generation plants will run $4/watt. But that's
not bad as coal two years ago was $1/watt installed and $3-$5/watt over
the lifetime. The last nuclear plant we decommissioned ran $8/watt.

On Mar 26, 7:03 am, Dan Bloomquist <publi...@lakeweb.com> wrote:

Landy wrote:
"Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:13uj85b3j9bqa21@corp.supernews.com...
Nuclear power is around $2 /watt...

Surely you mean watt hours, or kilowatt hours. Watts are a rate of use, not
an amount of electricity.

Production cost is most often measured in dollars/watt. At that, last I
read, even France's next generation plants will run $4/watt. But that's
not bad as coal two years ago was $1/watt installed and $3-$5/watt over
the lifetime. The last nuclear plant we decommissioned ran $8/watt.

Those are not hardly their all-inclusive birth to grave cost, are
they.
. - Brad Guth

On Mar 28, 11:47 am, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Mar 26, 7:03 am, Dan Bloomquist <publi...@lakeweb.com> wrote:

Landy wrote:
"Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:13uj85b3j9bqa21@corp.supernews.com...
Nuclear power is around $2 /watt...

Surely you mean watt hours, or kilowatt hours. Watts are a rate of use, not
an amount of electricity.

Production cost is most often measured in dollars/watt. At that, last I
read, even France's next generation plants will run $4/watt. But that's
not bad as coal two years ago was $1/watt installed and $3-$5/watt over
the lifetime. The last nuclear plant we decommissioned ran $8/watt.

Those are not hardly their all-inclusive birth to grave cost, are
they.
. - Brad Guth

Well, include 5 cents per watt for eventual decommissioning.

On Mar 28, 7:57 am, bill <ford_prefec...@hotmail.com> wrote:



On Mar 28, 11:47 am, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mar 26, 7:03 am, Dan Bloomquist <publi...@lakeweb.com> wrote:

Landy wrote:
"Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:13uj85b3j9bqa21@corp.supernews.com...
Nuclear power is around $2 /watt...

Surely you mean watt hours, or kilowatt hours. Watts are a rate of use, not
an amount of electricity.

Production cost is most often measured in dollars/watt. At that, last I
read, even France's next generation plants will run $4/watt. But that's
not bad as coal two years ago was $1/watt installed and $3-$5/watt over
the lifetime. The last nuclear plant we decommissioned ran $8/watt.

Those are not hardly their all-inclusive birth to grave cost, are
they.
. - Brad Guth

Well, include 5 cents per watt for eventual decommissioning.

Make that true energy cost of $5/watt and you've got your self an all-
inclusive birth to grave deal, especially since you're not speaking of
ever using thorium.
. - Brad Guth

On Mar 27, 6:07 pm, sno <s...@opelc.com> wrote:
Poetic Justice wrote:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:00:39 -0300, Len McLaughlin wrote:

Recently I've seen an ad promoting the efficiency of trains. The ad show
a freight train and the voice-over claims that it can run 400 miles on a
gallon of fuel. this just doesn't sound possible to me. This seems like a
group that could clear up the confusion. Any takers? -lm

Don't use this as a cite... just a few thoughts I had.

Probably under ideal conditions, which would be with one ton being
compact enough to load the train car to capacity it could transport 1
ton - 400 miles with 1 gallon of fuel on a fully loaded train. I think
transporting vehicles typically "under loads" a train car... so I'm
guessing that they don't really get that "literally".

But for heavy/fully loaded train cars, the steel wheels and easy grade
of the rails and no weight limits, with the diesel electric power
plant... they get pretty good economics, I believe that's why coal that
is heavy, generally still goes by rail.

Actually most of the efficiency comes from the "shadow" effect one
car has on another.....most of the air resistance comes from the
cross sectional area of the engine...adding extra cars does not
increase the air resistance that much.....

have fun.....sno

Actually, it's both. Rolling friction is a lot less with steel
wheels, and the lighter wind resistance is a lot less. Also, train
motion is managed better than vehicular, with less acceleration/
deceleration. On top of that, the engine arrangement is more
efficient, series hybrids rock. the biggest single improvement is the
shadow effect, but the rest are not chickenfeed.

On Mar 28, 12:04 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Mar 28, 7:57 am, bill <ford_prefec...@hotmail.com> wrote:

On Mar 28, 11:47 am, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mar 26, 7:03 am, Dan Bloomquist <publi...@lakeweb.com> wrote:

Landy wrote:
"Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:13uj85b3j9bqa21@corp.supernews.com...
Nuclear power is around $2 /watt...

Surely you mean watt hours, or kilowatt hours. Watts are a rate of use, not
an amount of electricity.

Production cost is most often measured in dollars/watt. At that, last I
read, even France's next generation plants will run $4/watt. But that's
not bad as coal two years ago was $1/watt installed and $3-$5/watt over
the lifetime. The last nuclear plant we decommissioned ran $8/watt.

Those are not hardly their all-inclusive birth to grave cost, are
they.
. - Brad Guth

Well, include 5 cents per watt for eventual decommissioning.

Make that true energy cost of $5/watt and you've got your self an all-
inclusive birth to grave deal, especially since you're not speaking of
ever using thorium.
. - Brad Guth

Fine. Even at that slightly unrealistic price, it's still the
cheapest energy out there if we dislike coal.

I am not speaking of thorium mainly because I thought of it as kind of
a given. It has even been shown to breed in conventional LWRs to a
fair degree. Simply put, thorium... there's just no reason not to
use it.

"Eric Gisin" <gisin@uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:13uj85b3j9bqa21@corp.supernews.com...
Nuclear power is around $2 /watt...

Surely you mean watt hours, or kilowatt hours. Watts are a rate of use, not
an amount of electricity.

I mean exactly what I said. Capital costs are per watt, and only solar PV exceeds $15.

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:00:39 -0300, Len McLaughlin wrote:

Recently I've seen an ad promoting the efficiency of trains. The ad show
a freight train and the voice-over claims that it can run 400 miles on a
gallon of fuel. this just doesn't sound possible to me. This seems like a
group that could clear up the confusion. Any takers? -lm

Listen closely. It's 400 ton-miles per gallon.
==================

-- "Bill Ward" <bw...@REMOVETHISix.netcom.com> wrote in messagenews:pan.2008.03.27.21.24.33.902678@REMOVETHISix.netcom.com...> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:00:39 -0300, Len McLaughlin wrote:

Recently I've seen an ad promoting the efficiency of trains. The ad show
a freight train and the voice-over claims that it can run 400 miles on a
gallon of fuel. this just doesn't sound possible to me. This seems like a
group that could clear up the confusion. Any takers? -lm

Listen closely. It's 400 ton-miles per gallon.

==================
I figured I must be missing something but I'll be ready if I see/hear it
again. I knew that steel on steel gave the least friction but never really
though about the shadow effect or never heard the
10/1 ratio. I thank everyone for their thoughts and input.
If we could really clean up coal and re-design the steam engine to increase
efficiency, it would be good-bye energy crisis....... for a while.
-lm

bill wrote:

Solving 2) involves the following steps, 1, build nuclear power plants
in QUANTITY! use the energy to do the following. Remove coal power
generation from the electric grid. use the coal production thus freed
up in ctl plants. While you're doing that, abandon suburbia as a bad
job and start in with the apartment buildings. While this is all
going on, work hard on development and deployment of PHEVs, this will
naturally increase grid load enormously, so you'll need more nuc
plants.

There use to be a guy that posted on sci.hydrogen. He was a good guy. He
had a saying, (yea, someone else's).

"If we only had some eggs we could have bacon and eggs. If we only had
some bacon......"

When I support nuclear, it's not because I think it's perfect or that
all the bugs are worked out, it's because the options are nuclear or
death. The sooner more people accept that everything has risks and
drawbacks the sooner we can start to solve these problems.

And I can only hope Horton hears a Who...

Best, Dan.

Solving 2) involves the following steps, 1, build nuclear power plants
in QUANTITY! use the energy to do the following. Remove coal power
generation from the electric grid. use the coal production thus freed
up in ctl plants. While you're doing that, abandon suburbia as a bad
job and start in with the apartment buildings. While this is all
going on, work hard on development and deployment of PHEVs, this will
naturally increase grid load enormously, so you'll need more nuc
plants.

When I support nuclear, it's not because I think it's perfect or that
all the bugs are worked out, it's because the options are nuclear or
death. The sooner more people accept that everything has risks and
drawbacks the sooner we can start to solve these problems.

Bill Ward <bw...@REMOVETHISix.netcom.com> wrote:
I know Dan and you have been raising the issue at every opportunity, but
the general population has such a poor knowledge of
science it's falling on deaf ears. Cassandra had the same problem.

France may be "electricity independent because it has 70 - 80% nukes, but
over 70% of their unranium is processed and imported from Manitoba Canada and
the rest comes from Mother Russia!