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Solar Hydrogen Maglev Rail System Conceived
Interstate maglev rail system would include
solar panels along the tracks, which would generate hydrogen to run the
transport vehicles, which would travel at 250 mph, carrying cars and people
between metropolitan areas. 3x excess energy anticipated.
Note: The projections set forth
in the press release, from which this story is adapted, are obviously excessive
in optimism and do not reflect an adequate grasp of what it would really take to
pull off an endeavor of this magnitude. An editorial
following the main story will address some of those.
Adapted by Sterling
D. Allan of Pure Energy Systems News
Solar panels run the length of the elevated
track
Auto transport
Passenger transport
Station, inside
Station, outside
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CRANDFORD, NJ, USA -- American Computer Scientists Association (ACSA)
announced it is assisting in performing a validation, demonstration study to the
Interstate Traveler Project, originated by Justin Sutton, to build a high speed
hydrogen solar rail transportation system with some remarkable side benefits.
The solar power, collected along the proposed 54,000 miles of track, would be
converted to hydrogen for storage, and the craft would run on hydrogen, with
three times as much excess left over to sell for other hydrogen users in the
economy. The proponents calculate this excess energy as being enough to
power 70% of U.S. energy demand.
The new highway, called the Trailblazer would carry cars between major
metropolitan areas. At roughly 250 mph, you could travel from NY to Los
Angeles in 10.5 hours, though most uses would be of shorter distance.
Hydrogen vehicles could refill while being transported on the system.
The burning of hydrogen for fuel results in water as the only emission.
The Traveler network would include continuous conduit, along which successive
hydrolyzers would convert solar energy to hydrogen, which would be stored along
its entire length in safety storage tanks. Hydrogen tanking up stations would be
situated at every major on and off platform. Low overhead hydrogen
pressure driven transfers within the length of the conduit would keep every
station at full capacity nearly all of the time.
 A
primary concept of the system is that it mimics the TCIP protocol of the
Internet's data network design, from the movement of the cars, to the operation
of the switches from one network to another network, comprising an expandable
system. (Audio
statement by Sutton.)
The startup company, Interstate Traveler Company, has been adopted by the
American Computer Science Association. They are hopeful to break ground
within a year. Because of the raised rail system, impact to the
environment from installation will be minimized. In most places, the
system would be installed parallel to existing interstate highway routes and
right-of-ways.
At install cost estimated at $10 million per mile, they say that start up costs
will be recouped quite rapidly because of the efficiencies of the system.
ACSA chairperson, Dr. Jack A. Shulman, a physicist, said: "We hope to
assemble a team to monitor the permit issuance and building of several
demonstration legs of the Traveler, so that a live run test of the new slotted
electrical engines, its intermediate duty MagLev system, and the hydrogen solar
generating conduit (and other facilities) can quickly demonstrate the economic
soundness of the Interstate Traveler concept.
The company projects a build time of little more than 5 years, and they expect
the entire Interstate Traveler Project should pay for each major segment from
its own revenue, within 3 years of each segments completion. Building it is
comparatively easy, aside from the crossing of mountain passes, which has
already been done by the Interstate Highway System: that provides a perfect
egress for the Traveler, according to Sutton. The Project reportedly intends to
use an innovative, heavily automated rate of construction: about 15 miles of
track built per day. Such speed would aid in the repair of damaged
segments as well. Each month, 400 miles of this new rapid transit highway could
be built. Three such projects, in only 1.5 years, could link a northern,
southern and central route producing connections between 75% of the major metro
areas in the United States.
According to the Interstate Traveler website, one of the most appealing aspects
of the design is that it does not rely on older rail concepts that were driven
by large scale, heavy rail engines and cars. The older style rail system design
carries with it an enormous weight penalty not present in the Traveler, whose
rail cars are much lighter and designed to travel at much higher speeds.
To be easily maintained and safe to operate, the entire Interstate Traveler
system was designed to provide only two or three basic types of
"universal" medium duty rail vehicle platforms. One type would
carry one or more automobiles or other vehicles to a specific destination.
The other type would carry commuters. The commuter version is also designed so
that it can be equipped to carry freight and packages. Other types of
"Travelers" are also on the drawing boards.
The states of Oklahoma and Michigan have allegedly expressed interest in the
project.
The company also says they have consulted with the big three automobile
manufacturers and various aerospace companies, who allegedly have expressed
interest in supplying the Travelers light to medium duty MAGLEV rail cars and
it's other components.
According to the press release, the first demonstrative prototype phase to be
accomplished within 6 months to a year would be to break ground on spurs on a
"Boston, MA to Hartford, CT, to NYC, NY to Baltimore, MD to Washington, DC
to Atlanta, GE to Miami, FL Interstate Traveler (to be called the North-to-South
East Coast Trailblazer)."
They would then, in the next few months, tackle another similar size set of
spurs, then another, and by then the country would be pretty well covered.
# # #
SOURCES
CONTACTS:
- ACSA
A. Vanoceur, Chairman,
General Delivery, Los Alamos,
New Mexico 87544-9999 USA
- The Interstate Traveler Company, LLC.
Tel: 734-449-4480
FAX: 734-449-4486
Postal address
9594 Main Street, Whitmore Lake, MI. 48189
Editorial -- A Reality Check
By Sterling
D. Allan
May 26, 2005
Copyright © 2005, PESN
Okay, how about a dose of reality, folks! While
the above concept has merit, their time-frames for implementation approach being
off by nearly an order of magnitude. Make it ten years for every one of
their years, and you will have a proposal that is more feasible.
Think of all the bureaucratic red tape they are not accounting for. Some
mass transit systems are debated in legislative assemblies over several years
before commencing implementation.
Most highway systems are maxed on the given real estate within the cities.
Getting the easements will be no easy task and could take a decade in some
places.
The robotics involved in their 15-miles-a-day construction would take years to
engineer and perfect and manufacture.
Those miles and miles of solar panels are not going to appear out of
nowhere. They have to be manufactured, and they do take a lot of energy to
manufacture. Solar is still quite costly, and one is lucky to ever return
investment compared to the other energy sources available. Add on top of
that the losses in converting solar to hydrogen, and the losses of hydrogen from
its containment. It will be a good decade before the new solar and
hydrogen advances will make a project such as this feasible.
That's a lot of water to be converting to hydrogen. Water is no easy
commodity in today's world, unless discard water can be used.
Furthermore, their model assumes that the nation is ready to run on hydrogen
today. It's not. It will take decades to change over the
infrastructure to be hydrogen-based; and there are likely to be other, possibly
more economical energy modalities to come forth that will make hydrogen largely
obsolete.
What about all the safety testing that will need to be done. The engineering
time alone for planning such a system would take years, to make sure the craft
sailing along at 250 mph don't suddenly fly off into a canyon somewhere.
What about the anchoring of the vehicles so they don't roll around in the
vehicle. That's going to take some time out of a trip, cutting down on the
time saved from faster speeds.
No, I don't think these guys are in touch with reality. But they do have a
neat concept. It's just going to take a lot longer to implement than they
have thought. I would be surprised to see a first spur -- just one track
between two metropolitan suburbs -- completed within five years.
Unless some major forces got behind it, they it might take just 20 years to
implement at least 75% nation-wide. That is doable, and even at that it is
Herculean. The next 20% would probably take another 15 years.
I had to laugh when I saw that they affixed a copyright notice to their press
release.
What is good about the project is the concept of a drive-in car transport,
mass-transit, high-speed, green system. That is worth pursuing. But
we'll need more patience than these obviously young guys have. They are
the rising generation, and they may surprise us with what they can pull
off. I wouldn't mind.
Another Editorial
by Mary-Sue
Haliburton
In planning construction of an elevated rail, these system designers may be
thinking along the lines of the Millau viaduct in France. Like an overpass on
steroids, it is known to be the highest bridge in the world at over 800 feet
high. It takes traffic out of a valley full of narrow streets through local
towns, which was formerly the only access between Paris and the mediterranean
region.
See <http://bridgepros.com/projects/Millau_Viaduct/> for details.
The construction method applied to the viaduct was a real outside-the-box idea,
inspired by watching a seam being pushed through a sewing machine! (Source:
interview with project engineer in the "Extreme Engineering" series
shown on Discovery channel recently.)
The steel highway bed was assembled on the plateau at either end, then pushed
along between the support pillars until the two ends met in the middle,
remarkably accurately. Each push out over empty space was called a
"launch, requiring a specialized computer-driven hydraulic
jacking-and-sliding system operating with intense oil pressurization. The
farther out the roadbed moved, the more towers were involved, and the better the
computer co-ordination had to be.
Despite the technical complexity, using this system cost way less and was more
speedy than the traditional method of constructing highways by building frames
and pouring concrete. Probably even more adventurous construction methods would
be employed to achieve fast construction rates of this proposed rail system.
Since the Traveler is to function as a train moving on rails, it can transport
non-hydrogen cars to a destination within specialized cargo vehicles. I wonder
what the price would be for that, and whether the saving in time would make up
for the extra cost of having one's car shipped.
Some proposed monorail systems call for specifically-adapted cars to be sold to
individual consumers. These cars would be able to couple together, fly along the
track, then leave it and drive off independently onto regular roads. Please see
one example of this concept at: <http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/hilo2.htm#strings>.
That article makes the point that although safety on traditional paved highways
requires maintaining braking space between vehicles, the opposite is true of
maglev monorails. Linking the vehicles together as a string avoids the
development of enough kinetic energy to cause serious impact to the adjacent car
in a series of separate ones. This idea has some merit in contrast to having to
load cars into a Traveler vehicle as if it were a ferry.
Given a choice, the commuter might appreciate the flexibility of not having to
get out of his vehicle and/or having to put his car aboard a different vehicle
in order to take advantage of high-speed transit.
The Traveler Highway illustrations make clear that this is a dual-rail system,
not monorail, and the diagram of the station shows what seems to be a rather
tight circle of this pair of rails. However, no vehicles are depicted to
indicate size relationship. The illustrations of the vehicles show four
"feet" on each unit, whether passenger or cargo. Presumably the
minimal contact area and distance between the front and rear "feet" on
the rails is combined with joints that will allow changing the angle of the
"feet" relative to the car. Therefore the tight turning would be
possible. However, speed would have to be reduced significantly prior to
entering this circle if stations are actually constructed as shown. I hope that
not just internet software engineers but train and subway engineers have been
consulted about the issue of centrifugal force, and that the lighter weight and
grip of the "feet" on the rails will prevent cars from flying off on
curves.
Presumably the circular station is proposed in order to allow other vehicles to
pass while one of them is stopped for offloading or embarkation. However,
switches to parallel sets of rails are the traditional method of allowing
through traffic to pass a stopped train. Most rapid-transit types of stations
are of the straight-through design, which allows a faster approach, and stopping
time and distance is minimized.
RE: editorial. Your concern about solar power appears based on an assumption
that electricity will be derived from traditional solar panels. However, there
have been some developments in that field, one of which is much cheaper and
quicker to manufacture, such as Silicon micro-spheres in flexible panels. See:
<http://www.spheralsolar.com/2_spheral-technology/>.
By the time this Trailblazer dual-rail system is ready to be erected, the
quantum-dot method of enabling heat as well as photons to be converted to energy
in solar panels will be off the drawing board and into mass production. See:
<http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2005/1805_quantum_dot.html>
There may be new solar-hydrolyzing methods in the works. However, and
presumably, the hydrogen is not being "generated" but extracted from
water. Where will that water come from? Nothing is said in the article about the
problem of water, especially in the arid and desert areas of the central plains
and southwest states.
As a Canadian the question does occur to me: "Are they expecting to use
water diverted from Canada?" What we have in the "Great White
North" is mostly ancient glacier water. Once diverted south, it would be
gone. If the amount of rainfall is taken into account, most of central and
northern Canada is a desert getting five inches of rain per year or less. The
only reason we have all those lakes is that they are frozen for a large part of
the year. Even the former rainforest of B.C. is under threat due to these
excessively hot dry weather systems lasting month after month. Therefore, the
idea that water is a limitless clean fuel may have to be re-examined. The
priority for water use must be agriculture and human requirements for drinking
and washing.
The Traveler's promoters discuss storing hydrogen as if it were a fluid that can
be contained, as opposed to the lightest known element that can escape through
virtually any material. Storage as a hydride may be necessary. Or would they
store it as ammonia? It does take a lot of energy to obtain NH3 from natural
gas. (Maybe this three-times excess energy could be applied to extracting the
ammonia from hog and cattle urine and store it that way!! Smelly hydrogen
storage!! BWAHAHAHAHA! But seriously! See the ammonia-cracking article and
comments at: http://pesn.com/2005/05/24/6900101_ZAP_ammonia_cracker/
)
In suggesting a long time-frame for designing and building robotics, you appear
to be assuming that these have not been built. Perhaps some of them are in
development, or may even have already been created and used for similar projects
such as the Japanese rapid-transit system. A lot of engineering legwork has
likely been done by the Japanese for their advanced bullet-train system. I would
be interested to know to what extent this Traveler team has been inspired by
them, or may have outright borrowed from that highly-sophisticated setup.
My main concern about maglev in general is not mentioned in your comment
article: To what extent will the powerful magnetic fields affect the health
of the passengers, and especially of the station employees who will be expected
to work very close to those powerful fields every day?
I would want to ask the planners how they intend to mitigate these effects. If
they deny that magnetic fields have an influence on health, this shows that
further public discussion is needed about the research into electromagnetic
fields and health.
MSH
See also
Page posted by Sterling
D. Allan May 26, 2005
Last updated July 16, 2005
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