Hydrogen used as an energy carrier is a promising alternative to diesel for autonomous railway motive power, but, globally, few prototypes exist. In 2012, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers held the inaugural Railway Challenge, in which the participating teams had to develop, design and construct a locomotive to run on 10.25 inch (260.35 mm) gauge track while meeting certain set design criteria as well as competing in operational challenges. The University of Birmingham Railway Challenge Team’s locomotive design is described in this paper. The vehicle is the UK’s first hydrogen-powered locomotive and is called Hydrogen Pioneer. The drive-system consists of a hydrogen tank, a 1.1 kW proton-exchange-membrane fuel cell stack, a 4.3 kWh battery pack and two 2.2 kW permanent-magnet traction motors. The development of the locomotive, from the original concept to the final design, and the design validation are all presented in this paper. The locomotive completed successfully all challenges through which the proof of the concept of a hydrogen-hybrid locomotive was established.
China's national strategy identifies railway electrification as one of the principal means of reducing carbon emissions and optimising the energy structure of transportation in the country. Here, the authors investigate the carbon-reduction potential of rail electrification in China and present a model to estimate the CO2 emissions under three possible future scenarios. These scenarios differ in their contribution to railway transport in China's transportation market. The authors also consider the effect of potential improvements in the country's electricity generation mix. The results demonstrate that railway electrification using the current energy generation mix can reduce carbon emissions by 8.9%. However, using a generation mix similar to that of the UK can help achieve a maximum reduction of carbon emissions of 65.4%.
During 1982, the cumulative wellfield abstraction from the Jwaneng groundwater supply increased from a little over 1000 M1 to beyond 5000 M1. Regional drawdowns continued significantly less than predicted in the worst case, and the state of resources looked most satisfactory. Some isolated operational problems have been encountered in individual boreholes, relating to pump performance, corrosion and excess drawdown. These are being handled on an ad hoc basis.
Dr M. H. de Freitas, Imperial CollegeAlthough the geophysical data appear to have been treated in an analytical way The Authors seem to have been able to do quite a large suite of different types of investigation work in getting towards their answers. Usually a pre-development groundwater investigation is cut back to the bone, and beyond, and it is interesting to see the proportion of the investigation costs compared with the total capital cost. In the figure of $1.85 million quoted for the total cost of the investigation, are the costs of the tritium work and the other research-type investigations included?If not, what effect do they have on the overall cost? 49. Do the Authors think that the proportion of investigation cost to capital c@t is a fair one for the average developing-country groundwater development of this type and size? Also, with the benefit of hindsight, which techniques would they regard as being superfluous? Looking back, at what point would they say that the expenditure would have been at an optimum? Mr G. P. Jones, University College, LondonAs someone who was involved in this work in both the field work and the office work, including the mathematical modelling (in the feasibility stage), I find my
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