Dutch trains now all powered by wind energy January 10, 2017 Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Eneco and NS said on a joint website that some 600,000 passengers daily are "the first in the world" to travel thanks to wind energy All Dutch trains are now 100 percent powered by electricity generated by wind energy, the national railway company NS said Tuesday, calling it a world first. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2017-01-dutch-powered-energy.html#jCp
Kind of a silly statement. That's like claiming you gasoline car is not powered with gasoline, because diesel, rather than gasoline, powered the earthmovers that mined the metals for its frame.
I found myself wondering how this can be literally true, given that even in the Netherlands there will be almost windless days. The article says nothing about storage, so one is left wondering whether what they mean is that enough extra wind-generated electricity is traded to allow a re-purchase of conventional electricity to provide the power when the wind doesn't blow. All of which goes to show we can't run a train service just on wind power.
Something we agree on, finally. Yes that is a point all these environment activists are missing. The environmentally damaging practices of constructing the trains, maintaining the wind turbines, and all those batteries used for energy storage fail from time to time too. My guess they are using Siemens Wind Turbines? https://www.siemens.com/press/en/pr...ergy/wind-power/ewp201407060.htm&content[]=EW
Maybe they get the trains going really fast when the wind blows, then let them coast (and regenerate) when the wind stops? (<- joke, mostly.)