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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The motors have never been the problem, it’s always been the battery. See train engines, they are a diesel generator with electric motors.

    This is where history pisses me off. We should have been headlong into battery research after the oil embargoes. Could have been 40 years faster.

    • stoy@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      I hope you are not talking about battery locomotives.

      With overhead wires the train has a practically unlimited battery capacity.

      • EarMaster@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        There are use cases for battery trains. In remote, mountainous locations where the cost for electrifying a track is very high it is not uncommon to use electric trains with batteries. Here in Germany we have several regions where diesel trains have been replaced by them.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      5 months ago

      Oil is honestly an amazing product, chemistry wise there is so much we can do with it and energy wise it’s a extremely concentrated and easily transported form of energy.

      Energy wise one liter of oil is equivalent to 10 person working for a day !

      I repeat, using one liter of oil is like having 10 “slaves” working for us for a day.

      Its easy to see why oil became the base of our modern civilization, and easy to see why we don’t manage to stop using it even though it’s destroying us.

      Source - How much of a slave owner am I ?

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      Not really. Battery tech has always been advancing. Even today electric vehicles have barely come up with anything new, battery wise. Everyone wants something better than lithium base. No one can get anything to market.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It advanced at a glacier pace because there was no massive driving force. It only kicked off a bit with cell phones and then in any substantial way with laptops. (Yes, batteries existed before that for different things, but there was no massive driving force.) Now imagine what would have happened if we funded it starting in the 1970s.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          5 months ago

          Yes, but no one’s even glancing at it for use in vehicles. The one that’s finally getting into production is 70wh/Kg. Not nearly energy dense enough yet for ev’s. Lithium batteries are closer to 300wh/Kg. In other words, they take up 1/4th the space and weight. EV’s are already a thousand pounds heavier than non ev’s and that’s already causing extra tire pollution issues and having to overbuild suspension parts and bearings. Making them another 3,000 pounds heavier than that is just out of the question. Let alone making the space to fit the battery.

          Sodium is going to change the world with its power storage capabilities connected to solar. Anyone on like 75% of the planet could 100% live off the electric grid problem free with enough solar panels and a big sodium storage battery.

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Wasn’t aware that EVs were already that heavy. Then yeah, I guess that’s definitely not feasible, at least not at the moment.

            • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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              5 months ago

              Yep. A size of vehicle wise comparison would be that a tesla model s sedan weighs around 4,600 pounds. A toyota Corolla weighs around 1,600 pounds less at around 3,000 pounds.

              Even the newest and most powerful mass produced American made car ever, the “C8 Corvette Z06” with its big V8 gas engine with 670 horsepower weighs in at around 3,650 pounds.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      pretty sure most trains are powered by either overhead wires or third rails? considering that urban rail systems are always electrified and those have A LOT of trains.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          5 months ago

          okay? i’m talking about the world though, so typical for people to just assume america is all that matters lmao

          • DogWater@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The point is about utilization of electric motors, if it happens anywhere on earth it’s possible. You’re trying to insinuate that it isn’t true. And it is. Being American has nothing to do with it you dunce

    • Veidenbaums@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Exactly this. Imagine if gas powered motor could recharge in mere 12 hours and run for up to half the distance. Ah, that would be the dream.

      And if you and 5 of your neighbors decide to refuel at the same time during peak hours you have a real chance of overloading your neighborhood grid. And your fuel tank is dead in 5 years, replacing which is more than half of your used cars cost.

      Everything non-portable uses electric motors from the time the first wire was invented.