Two-Foot NG Railway in Tehachapi - Built in 2015!

[GaryHinshaw]

Cool.  This is basically a massive (literally) keep-alive capacitor for the grid.  One good thing about a low-tech scheme like this is that it does not require exotic materials, like battery packs do, nor does it produce dangerous waste products.  But of course, it doesn't actually produce any energy either.

[John]

perpetual motion machine? 

[nkalanaga]

CRL:  ANY energy source has environmental costs.  Even walking produces CO2 and consumes food that another animal could have used.

However, for a fossil-fuel system, fixed power plants and electric transmission have one advantage over small combustion engines.  It's much easier to put pollution controls on one fixed facility than on thousands of vehicles, or small domestic/industrial generators.

[eric220]

perpetual motion machine? 

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Somebody doesn’t understand gear ratios... Or friction... Or intertia...

[CRL]

Agreed on the environmental costs comment @nkalanaga. Also agree on the large stationary plants being more efficient. A lot of our energy problems are directly driven by infrastructure shortcomings and the difficulty in obtaining the required permits to build anything. The NIMBY attitude kills a lot of projects. Building more smaller generating plants located closer to the energy using areas should reduce the infrastructure cost.