Crisis is the time for innovation!
Anybody missed that we are in a financial crisis and that the Automotive sector is in the middle of it?
What will happen with the car driven by petrol? Our planet is threatened by CO2 partly from cars. Right now people shout themselves hoarse. “There is no future for petrol cars”. Do not mix up the financial crisis with the environmental crisis. They are not connected in any way and have completely different time frames. At least for 15-25 years there are no really good alternatives to completely replace oil-based energy for cars. There will be many alternatives used for different purposes. We will see many different types of energy for cars for many years to come. During the next 10 years there is a big potential for new ideas and in times like this the ideas will come.
I look forward to the new solutions that will show up! In the meantime we need to find good alternatives to cars. Better infrastructure for buses and trains is needed. One intersting alternative for not only cars, buses and traditional trains but also airplanes is Maglev Trains.
What are Maglev Trains?
Maglev is short for magnetic levitation, which means that these trains will float over a guideway on a cushion of air by using vey powerful electromagnets. The idea is to remove almost all friction to the ground. The only friction left is the air similar to airplanes. This is actually in favor for the airplanes, because the air has lower density higher up in the atmosphere thus lower friction. On the other hand airplanes need to get up to these hights before they can benefit from lower friction and that costs energy. Maglev trains can reach very high speeds, currently more than 500 km/h. It is Japan that holds the record (581 km/h) with a trainset on Yamanashi Maglev Test Line. Currently there are mainly two systems available. One is a German system and one is from Japan. The Japanese system uses super-cooled, superconducting electromagnet and chilled coils. Chilling coils saves energy during operation. However, to cool the coils is expensive.
Why Maglev Trains?
The maintenance and operation cost of Maglev systems is very low compared to planes and traditional trains. The high speed gives a convenient way of travelling fast. At the speed of 550 km/h you could travel from Paris to Rome in less than two hours. The first commercial maglev train made its first public commercial run in December 2003 in Shanghai, China. They are using a German system from Transrapid International and the line runs between the Longyang Road station at the Shanghai center and Pudong airport. The average speed is 430 km/h and the journey is about 30 km and takes less than 10 minutes on the maglev train. By car it takes about 1 hour. The Shanghai line will be extended to 160 km to Hangzhou. The plan is to inaugurate the extended line at the Shanghai Expo 2010.
Why not Maglev Trains?
The construction and production costs are still very high, both for the tracks and the trains. Maglev Trains cannot use existing train tracks. No politician likes high investment costs that will show savings first after the mandate period is finished. The cost is suppose to decrease however. More important is the environmental aspect. Maglev Trains can transport high volumes of passengers per hour. The question is how the electricity for these systems is produced. The overall environmental impact of a maglev system is dependent on the nature of the power source. There are still many very ”dirty” production sites of electricity where the CO2 load is far too high. This is not what the world needs right now…
We are living in Innovation times! I believe that we will get new Maglev solutions with lower investments and even faster trains. The Maglev have a future.
Some Links:
The Future Channel: Maglev Trains (4 minutes about the subject)
The maglev has great future indeed. I just wish the politicians would care about long term investments as well, although clearly it is not their priority..