The Anonymous Widower

Trump Brings Personal Pastor Paula White-Cain To White House To Preach Her Gospel Of Wealth

This is the title of an article in today’s copy of The Times!

I do like the paper’s sense of humour!

November 2, 2019 Posted by | World | , , | Leave a comment

Harbour Air Set To Become The First All-Electric Airline In The World

The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Aerotime Hub.

This sounds a tough call, but someone will do it, even if it happens sometime in the second half of the 21st Century.

This is taken from the Wikipedia entry for Harbour Air Seaplanes.

Today, Harbour Air refers to itself as the world’s largest all-seaplane airline and became North America’s first carbon neutral airline.

They have a fleet of forty seaplanes and Wikipedia doesn’t list any incidents.

Wikipedia also says this.

In March of 2019, Harbour Air announced a partnership with magniX to electrify the entire Harbour Air fleet. The two companies are planning to begin tests in late 2019; the first converted aircraft will be a DHC-2 Beaver.

Could this well-respected Canadian seaplane operator achieve its goal of an all-electric airline?

I feel that they will certainly achieve a successful test flight, although as countless aircraft have shown, time scales may not be as originally planned.

I’ll start with the DHC-2 Beaver, one of which will be converted to the prototype electric aircraft.

  • First flight of the design was on the 16th of August 1947, which as it was the day I was born, must be a good omen!
  • Over 1,600 were built during twenty years of production.
  • In the past they have been flown by various military and civil operators.

In the Wikipedia entry, under Operational History, this is a paragraph.

The original Wasp Jr radial engine of the Beaver is long out of production, so repair parts are getting harder to find. Some aircraft conversion stations have addressed this problem by replacing the piston engine with a turboprop engine such as the PT6. The added power and lighter installed weight, together with greater availability of kerosene fuel instead of high-octane aviation gasoline, make this a desirable modification, but at a high financial cost.

Consider.

  • Fitting of new engines  has been regularly done to aircraft to extend their operational lives or to increase performance or reliability.
  • So why not change the power unit for environmental reasons?
  • The MagniX electric motor chosen for the trial appears to offer a weight saving.

I believe that provided the mathematics and engineering are correct, that the Wasp Junior piston engine, which dates from 1929, could be replaced with a modern electric motor of the right power level.

How many extra passengers would be drawn to fly in a zero-carbon electric aircraft, which was powered by electricity from renewable sources?

November 2, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | 1 Comment

Fuel Cell Train To Be Tested In The Netherlands

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.

This is the introductory paragraph.

A Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel-cell multiple-unit is to be tested on the Groningen – Leeuwarden line after an agreement was signed at the Klimaattop Noord NL climate summit by manufacturer Alstom, the province of Groningen, local operator Arriva, infrastructure manager ProRail and energy company Engie.

You can get a flavour of some of the Dutch railways in the area from The Train Station At The Northern End Of The Netherlands.

Hydrogen powered trains are also part of the future plans for the use of hydrogen, which I wrote about in The Dutch Plan For Hydrogen.

The Railway Gazette article gives more details on how they will be introducing low carbon trains in the network around Groningen and the wider Netherlands.

These general points are made.

  • The Netherlands has nearly a thousand kilometres of lines without electrification.
  • Alstom has forty-one orders for their hydrogen-powered Coradia iLints.

They will also be refurbishing the 51 Stadler GTW trains in the area.

The main improvement, is that they will be fitted with batteries to handle regenerative braking and cut their carbon footprint.

The Railway Gazette article also says this.

A further 18 new Stadler Wink trainsets have been ordered which will be able use overhead electrification or hydrotreated vegetable oil fuel, with batteries for regenerated braking energy. These will be designed so that their engines can be replaced with larger batteries when the planned 1·5 kV DC discontinuous electrification of the routes is completed.

The Stadler Wink appears to be the another train from the Flirt family, which is the successor to the GTW.

The Dutch seem to be moving very firmly towards a zero-carbon railway in the North.

Collateral Benefits For The UK

What areas of the UK would be ideal places to adopt a similar philosophy to that which the Dutch are using in the North of the Netherlands?

I think they will be areas, where there are lots of zero carbon electricity, railways without electrification and terrain that’s not to challenging.

These areas come to mind.

  • East Anglia
  • Lincolnshire
  • East Yorkshire
  • Far North and North East Scotland.

Note.

    1. The only electrification in these areas is the main lines to Norwich and Cambridge in East Anglia.
    2. All areas have Gigawatts of offshore wind farms either operating or under development.
    3. Vivarail are proposing to run battery-electric trains between Wick and Turso, as I wrote about in Is This The Most Unusual Idea For A New Railway Service in The UK?
    4. With the exception of East Yorkshire, the train operating company is Abellio, who are Dutch railways, by another name.
    5. East Anglia is already using Stadler Flirt Class 755 trains, that can be fitted with batteries.

I also believe that Hitachi will soon be providing battery-electric versions of their AT300 trains. I wrote about this in Thoughts On The Next Generation Of Hitachi High Speed Trains.

Battery electric AT300 trains could provide long distance services to the areas I listed.

Conclusion

What is happening in the North of the Netherlands, will be watched with interest in the UK.

 

November 2, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment