European Railroad Discussion > Audi's new plug-in hybrid... locomotive?

Found this article on line today:  http://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/03/audis-new-1000-hp-hybrid-pulls-like-a-freight-train/?ncid=edlinkusauto00000016

Looks like the future is here and now!

Looking at what is happening in the news in energy sector of U.S., which is often leading the rest of the World, it appears that electricity from renevables is taking incredibly big role and oils and coal are in small but steady decline. Or is this really happening? Is it just another media bluff?

McKey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like the future is here and now!
>
> Looking at what is happening in the news in energy
> sector of U.S., which is often leading the rest of
> the World, it appears that electricity from
> renevables is taking incredibly big role and oils
> and coal are in small but steady decline. Or is
> this really happening? Is it just another media
> bluff?

Coal is in decline, but so far the coal-fired powerplants being closed or converted to Natural Gas are mainly the smaller and obsolete plants. The US really isn't leading the conversion, Europe is ahead of the US.

I see lots of mixed signals around, which I interpret as first marks of some kind of a change. Hamburgh, Germany has been said to had a huge coal power plant just opened, while Sweden and Finland seem to have been running down or converting to wood majority of aging coal power plants and heat stations. Heat station is a power plant or just a boiler. They either act as a backup for others, just prowiding hot water, or run in double mode with power generated first and the remaining heat used for heating buildings. Nordic seems to be to built pretty much around huge pipes transferring this heat for consumption in the cities nearby. This used to be the way, now I see more and more geothermal systems being built instead. 

An example of fibers being used for energy today:
1) A very typical Swedish road with a typical truck. In the old days train track may have been built near or inside woods, but now the trucks have taken over. In addtion to this 109 metric ton monsters with double the axle count of this run into woods too. As the World is hungry for Northern long fibers (making paper and carboard super strong), the beginning of the wood industry chain is prowiding more work for people each year. With people leaving to retirement years accounted for, it has been estimated that around 50'000 more workers are needed for the next ten years in Sweden and Finland alone.

2) The truck was on the way to Slottbron (Castle Bridge) on the North coast of Vänern, the huge lake in the middle of Sweden. Slottbron also is a location for a Billerudkorsnäs fiber factory, producing mainly cellulose for various uses. As not all the fibers from woods can be used, some of it is ground to woodchips, which are shipped to several power stations. 

3) One of these power stations just 100 kilometers from Slottbron is an EON plant in the middle of Örebro, providing both heat and power for the city in the mix that is needed. Driving on the highway it was summer, so everything seemed quiet here. Half a year before dyuring my previous visit this place was swarming with activity, dozens of railroad cars with woodchip containers being emptied. Chips are then burned instead of coal. While this may seem logical, I think it still must be an intermediate phase for power generation. A new interesting way for power generation is emerging in this area, where winds can't be predicted, very little sun can be seen in the winter and no tides exist. I'm talking about geothermal energy: you simply make two bores 7 kilometers (~4 miles) deep to Earth, and pump water through this arrangement. Voila! 30 Megawatts of power can be generated for each pair of holes! Once installed, this system will provide clean can cargon neutral energy in the long term. Challenge: drilling takes _time_ and money, so this is not availble here and today for wide scale use.  
 

---

---

---