Posted on 07/14/2016 3:03:07 PM PDT by bananaman22
There are millions of trucks on the world’s highways at any given time, carrying cargo from one place to another and spewing diesel exhaust fumes. That’s how it’s been since the dawn of trucking, that’s how it still is. But that’s not necessarily how it will be in the future.
Electric trucks are a fact, though not a very popular one, which is undeserved to a certain degree. While short-haul deliveries are perfect for utilizing electric freight carriers, a long-haul electric truck would need a battery weighing 23 tons to be able to make a 500-mile journey in one go. That’s a lot of battery – basically half of the truck’s own weight.
Yet Siemens and Scania have recently unveiled an alternative to these monstrous hypothetical batteries: a truck that uses a pantograph feeding it power from wires running above it. Just like a trolley or an electric train. Unlike trolleys and electric trains, however, these Scania trucks (two test ones for now) can detach from the wires to overtake another vehicle or switch lanes for any other reason, and then smoothly return to the electrified lane because they also have internal combustion engines (that run on biodiesel), as well as battery-powered electric motors. These two motors allow the truck to “hop” from one electrified portion of a highway to another.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
The Milwaukee Road had a long electrified run through W. Montana and Ideeho. Even used regenerative braking. 3000V DC.
Why go through all that trouble? Why not create a hybrid-like setup like diesel-electric locomotives? That’d be much more realistic than stringing live, high-power lines directly above traffic. Lines that could be cut easily, or taken out by a wreck.
Any time you have to build brand new infrastructure to supply power to an industry that’s been doing fine without it, you have to wonder. Like self driving cars, there’s a place for technology and places it’s not going to work. Lots of places.
That's my old employer - the locomotives were referred to as 'Little Joes', and they would schedule their trains so that one would be going downhill whenever one was coming up the incline to regenerate electricity back up into the overhead wire to help power the uphill one.
The locos were wpparentoy originally built for Stalin. Nice tip as to scheduling. Batteries still suck.
Where are they going to get the electricity to poser those trucks? Certainly not solar or wind, and the envirowhackos have made building new nuclear power plants practically impossible. That leaves coal, gas, and hydroelectric and there are only so many places to build dams.
The Stars Trek acme teleporter will...
But electric trucks would be so much better for the environment. They are powered by rainbows and unicorn farts.
But electric trucks would be so much better for the environment. They are powered by rainbows and unicorn farts.
I could see that in limited applications, but to build that much infrastructure across all of the US (~5 million miles of Road, ~50,000 miles of Interstate Highway), would require a long payoff period to recoup the investment.
Technology would probably overtake this solution before you could even get it built.
I remember the trolley buses in Atlanta when I was a child. We liked to watch the sparks fly when they went through an intersection. The poles were long enough that the buses could change lanes to get around traffic, and they had switches so one bus could pass another. Sounds like they are trying to make the new equipment more complex and expensive.
But here’s a better solution - make all long haul use railroad tracks, and take the traffic off the highways.
FedEx is playing with them, as is Coca-Cola, and I think Walmart is (or did), as well. Manufacturers looking at the technology include GM (pre-bankruptcy, at least), Daimler-Benz, and BAE.
ping
Think like a well-connected crony who wants his company to get in on the contract. Then it makes perfect sense.
“as new efficiency tech comes online”
Like what? My thought is that power plant efficiency will be reduced to meet tougher emission standards.
But disregarding that, give an efficiency booster that’s good for more than a percent or two.
I’m a nuke guy.
Yeah, and when the power goes out, traffic comes to a standstill.
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