World's First All-Electric Locomotive Has Over 1,000 Batteries, Runs 24 Hours On a Si

Norfolk Southern is the latest company to push a piece of heavy industrial machinery into green territory with their 100% electric NS 999 locomotive. The zero-emissions train makes use of 1,080 12-volt batteries that allows it to run for 24 hours on a single charge--all while carrying the same load as a conventional locomotive.
Developed in conjunction with the Department of Energy, the 1,500 horsepower machine makes use of regenerative braking for extra power and is also able to recharge in just two hours (requiring calibration once a week).
And here's the best part: Norfolk Southern says it costs the same to make as a traditional locomotive.

http://www.popsci.com/environment/a...1000-batteries-can-run-24-hours-single-charge

Clean and Quite .. the way of the future .. Now if thay can just get away from the box look that would be A1 .. Not much good for those that like more than a dash of testosterone with their loco though , LoLz

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Hardly a new idea, despite what the news report claims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_battery-electric_locomotives

Cheers David

Edit, while I fully support research into this area a few things have to be realized about it, first it is only as clean as the electricity used to charge it, second, I don't know how long those batteries are going to last, but deep cycle lead acid batteries in general only last about 3 years under the kind of punishment those will get, thats over 1000 dead LEAD acid batteries per loco per 3 years or one per day, and thats only for one 1500hp loco, how many switching loco's run around America alone, lets guess at 1000, so that is 1000 dead batteries a day and that only covers switchers.
As far as regenerative braking is concerned, that needs a reasonable speed and load to give a decent return a switcher would run out of room with it as you only brake with the same force as accelerate, battery/electric cars can only rely on about a 5% increase in distance/performance from it.

Cheers again David

These are not "Tube" locomotives. These are for pulling FREIGHT.

Rusty1955 said:

These are not "Tube" locomotives. These are for pulling FREIGHT.

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But the news articles are claiming it to be a first, and they are for switching duties, besides a loco is a loco no difference to the loco what it is hauling.

Not a thing in that article that says they are for switching duties.

Power station

It still needs a power station to charge from. And what effect on the environment will having the recycle that amount of batteries have.
Green is good if it is truly green, not just a bit green to make it sound great and as if they are saving the planet.
What really worries me is the world population explosion, green ideas are never going to be sufficient to supply the power needs in the future. Today it takes massive fields of plate converters to capture the Sun's rays and turn them into electricity or enormous fields of wind turbines and even that will only supply a small town if you're lucky. Are we going to have to cover the world in these things? It looks very much like it.
Possibly the sea or rivers might be a more practical way of obtaining power, but even that will only ever be in small quantities. For huge cities there are very few options, coal fired with the ability to take out the carbon or nuclear.
But whatever source the world utilises to create the power to run our cities there will always be a by product of waste and then that has to be dealt with.
Humans are simply over populating the place. Eventually there will be strive over such things as water (that is already at a premium in many places), fuel and food. Still, look on the bright side, a good war will reduce the population and maybe solve that problem! For instance we don't produce much of our own fuel, it's bought in from Russia. What happens if the political situation changes? (Mostly tongue in cheek).

And a merry Christmas to you too....

Ha ha ha.

Angela

angelah said:

(Mostly tongue in cheek).

Angela

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Too bad about the CoC , we could have a bit of fun with some of your post :hehe:

@rusty1955

Don't really matter whether it's freight , passenger or switching or standing still and looking pretty , the lead acid tech they are using is hardly new , even in the US this has been done before . Lucky that NS had some help with the cash or this loco may not have seen the rails .

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Thanks Rusty for showing this. I think it's great they're making the effort. Rechargeable things are coming more and more, it's the future.

Uranium, oil and coal will all be gone one day. The sun however holds all the energy we need for millions of years to come. As an example, using the cheapest solar-cell covering 10% of the Sahara desert would cover the entire planet needs for electricity. (don't mean a single distro with no power when the sun goes down, but the sun always shines in many places 24/7.)

Then of course there are the electrical grid owners and distributors, so there have to be alot of political decisions before. Who knows - maybe in about 200 years...

angelah said:

It still needs a power station to charge from. And what effect on the environment will having the recycle that amount of batteries have.
Green is good if it is truly green, not just a bit green to make it sound great and as if they are saving the planet.
What really worries me is the world population explosion, green ideas are never going to be sufficient to supply the power needs in the future. Today it takes massive fields of plate converters to capture the Sun's rays and turn them into electricity or enormous fields of wind turbines and even that will only supply a small town if you're lucky. Are we going to have to cover the world in these things? It looks very much like it.
Possibly the sea or rivers might be a more practical way of obtaining power, but even that will only ever be in small quantities. For huge cities there are very few options, coal fired with the ability to take out the carbon or nuclear.
But whatever source the world utilises to create the power to run our cities there will always be a by product of waste and then that has to be dealt with.
Humans are simply over populating the place. Eventually there will be strive over such things as water (that is already at a premium in many places), fuel and food. Still, look on the bright side, a good war will reduce the population and maybe solve that problem! For instance we don't produce much of our own fuel, it's bought in from Russia. What happens if the political situation changes? (Mostly tongue in cheek).

And a merry Christmas to you too....

Ha ha ha.

Angela

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We was discussing this kind of thing on another train forum I,m part of because a person was goin on about all of britains lines to be electrified to be greener but that means more power stations creating more pollution.

Anyone in support of Nuclear?

angelah said:

It still needs a power station to charge from. And what effect on the environment will having the recycle that amount of batteries have.
Green is good if it is truly green, not just a bit green to make it sound great and as if they are saving the planet.
And a merry Christmas to you too....

Ha ha ha.

Angela

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Well put Angela. Looks good but still needs to pollute the world in the making of the batteries and charging them. And a Merry Christmas to you too.

Rusty1955 said:

Not a thing in that article that says they are for switching duties.

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As mainline freight in the USA has head end power of 6,000 to 10,000 hp I don't think 1,500hp is much good unless they intend to put four or six of these units to replace the two or three diesel units.
Also there is the requirement of recharging facilities, there would need to be hundreds if not thousands of these all over the country then, of course, there is the down time for charging, fast charging that much capacity would take a substation and some form of cooling for the wiring, so its slow charging say eight hours, so eight hours out of every thirty downtime.

I am also skeptical of 24 hours on a single charge, for switching duties maybe, but for mainline I cannot find out just what amp/hour those batteries are or the power rating of the motors in kilowatt/hours.
The fact they used OLD TECHNOLOGY Lead Acid batteries instead of lithium ion, three times the price but have a lifetime five times as long meaning 60% cheaper in the long run, hold more charge and are lighter, meaning they can put more in for the same weight giving more range makes me think they did it for the development money from the government, not to produce a loco as useful and as green as they can.

I am all for battery powered vehicles, whether it is cars/trucks or locomotives, but lets keep our eyes open for TRUE advancements, not this type of hype, battery loco's have been used in mines for decades and as far as I can tell this loco is only bigger and stronger, not more advanced.

One question, if just all the switchers in the USA were replaced with these loco's could the power grid keep up, remember that the railroads will want to charge them at any time of the day, not just at off peak when there is an over abundance of power but during peak demand times as well, brown outs anyone :hehe:

Cheers David

Edit, just found this

ALTOONA, PA. - With U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Congressman Bill Shuster in attendance, Norfolk Southern today unveiled the latest in alternative energy locomotive technology at its Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, Pa. NS 999 is a prototype 1,500-horsepower switching locomotive that relies solely on rechargeable batteries for power.

From here, note, it is the Norfolk Southern official website
http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Media/News Releases/2009/batteries.html

the average cost of power today including transmission is 8 cents per kilowatt hour and wind comes in at 4 cents, hydro at 4 cents, concentrated solar comes in at 8 cents and normal solar comes in at 10 cents.

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I don't believe those numbers for a moment. Right now where I live in New England I can choose the source of my electric power to be distributed to me, and one of the options I have is to specify that all my power come from "green" sources, including wind, solar and hydropower. It takes quite a while to root around in their website for the information, which seems to be deliberately hard to find, but when you find it you discover that your monthly bill will be 300% higher if you go with the "green" option. Needless to say, I aint going green, at least not yet.

Ewww, no. A silent train like that just takes away almost everything that makes trains great. Trains don't need to do anything about emissions. They take trucks off the road, and thus are more ecofriendly. Plus that thing is just plain ugly.

The Sun, wind and sea

A three main contenders for obtain 'free' electricity.
Each one needs a collector, millions upon millions of solar panels in the case of the sun that all have to be produced by industry and then thoroughly maintain by a fleet of guys in vehicles because the panel fields will be far too large to walk around and the panels too heavy to carry. And what are they made out of?
And placing them in some God forsaken place! Is that such a good idea, transporting them there for a start by the lorry load.
All wind vanes need producing, often with the aid of oil based ingredients that require mining, which people tend to forget, and then still need maintaining.
The sea, well, there's another unique problem of manufacture, installation and upkeep.
And all this is without taking into account the mess they are going to make of our countrysides.
Nothing is 'free' on this world, a sad fact.
We all have a big, big problem.... and big business I am sure is rubbing its hands together at the thought of vast profits.

Angela

Great Idea

Not only does it look good, it is also good for the environment! That is the coolest locomotive I have ever seen. They look like diesels, but they're electric.

gfisher said:

I don't believe those numbers for a moment. Right now where I live in New England I can choose the source of my electric power to be distributed to me, and one of the options I have is to specify that all my power come from "green" sources, including wind, solar and hydropower. It takes quite a while to root around in their website for the information, which seems to be deliberately hard to find, but when you find it you discover that your monthly bill will be 300% higher if you go with the "green" option. Needless to say, I aint going green, at least not yet.

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Current solar is about 50 cents per kwh, the latest wind turbines are around 5 cents per kwh in very windy locations, hydro well up here in Canada 2-3 cents per kwh plus transmission. Arizona consolidated solar ie uses mirrors has a much better pay off than in New York and there are a few new cheaper ways of doing solar in farms. I'd forgotten geothermal but you have to be in the right location. SA doesn't usually get its numbers that far wrong.

Cheerio John

pommie said:

first it is only as clean as the electricity used to charge it

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Perhaps, but the electricity used to charge the batteries could come from "green" sources (hydro-electric, or wind power) and new plants for generating power can be built to be less polluting than present facilities are. There's still the carbon footprint issue, but you're going to need the power to move the train one way or another. A "locomotive" sized nuclear plant, or array of solar panels is probably not feasible, so the best bet is probably to place all the nuclear generating capacity in a secure location, and either transmit the power, or use storage batteries. And while storage batteries are a serious drawback in some applications due to weight, in the case of a locomotive, the diesel engine and generator add to the weight of the locomotive which directly affects the pulling capacity of a locomotive (for a given amount of energy applied to the traction motors, the pulling power of the locomotive is roughly proportional to the weight of the locomotive); if you have an external source of electric power, one will need to add weight for ballast. If the storage batteries weigh the same, or not much more than than, the engine and generator / alternator, the weight of the batteries is a non-issue.

second, I don't know how long those batteries are going to last, but deep cycle lead acid batteries in general only last about 3 years under the kind of punishment those will get, thats over 1000 dead LEAD acid batteries per loco per 3 years or one per day

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But the lead-acid battery is a closed system, and while a battery fails, the essential components (lead plates, and Sulfuric acid in the electrolyte), can be reprocessed and made into a new battery, and if the technology were going to be employed in quantity, one would expect it would require more reprocessing capacity than is currently available, and new plants could be made to more environmentally sound principles than existing facilities.

ns

gp792 said:

Not only does it look good, it is also good for the environment! That is the coolest locomotive I have ever seen. They look like diesels, but they're electric.

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It was already mentioned but led acid batteries do not last more than 3 years and changing them all up in 2 hrs will kill them even faster. They end up in a landfill after that (nothing environmentally friendly about that) even recycling of the batteries uses processes that give off bad stuff in the air.
I dont see this catching on very fast if at all. In the northeren climats where it gets below freezing this also shortens the time the batteries last by about half.

My fellow Trainzers:

I posted this because I thought it was an interesting article, NOT TO RESTART THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.