Last month, I had blogged on a car that charges itself with help of solar, and within a month, a train has been encountered on the same. Yes. Australia’s currently developing train called the ‘Infinity Train’ plans to abort diesel consumptions that it had been using for years to rail, instead to charge itself with help of a thing that’s completely new to energy-producing world, the gravity.
Australian mining company Fortescue and Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), collaborated with U.K. based Williams Advanced Engineering, a tech & engineer-servicing business to scratch out the world’s first Infinity Train – electric vehicle designed to locomote loads of iron ore without the need of charging.
“The Infinity Train has the capacity to be the world’s most efficient battery electric locomotive,” says Fortescue CEO Elizabeth Gaines.
So, How does the Infinity Train work?
While to perform its only job, to load and unload the iron-ores, the rail is said to navigate in the valley between the mountain-top and the bottom. The train thus carries 34,404 tons of iron-ores from the mining area to the downside of the valley. By applying the higher-secondary’s physics here – when an object moves along its gravity, its gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, the collaboration has managed to initiate the charge-less train. After unloading the loads, the train is much lighter than before wherein the stored energy is enough for it to climb again to the top.
“The regeneration of electricity on the downhill loaded sections will remove the need for the installation of renewable energy generation and recharging infrastructure, making it a capital efficient solution for eliminating diesel and emissions from our rail operations”.
The Infinity train will eliminate the requirement for renewable energy generation and charging infrastructure. According to Gaines, this will make it a capital-efficient solution for removing diesel and pollutants from Fortescue’s rail operations.
Stretching-up to 2.8km length with 244 ore-cars – yeah, its that much long, extending to a casual eye’s sight and in fact that’s how it got its name ‘Infinity train’, the train had been utilizing 82 million litres of diesel in 2021.
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Upon this project being implemented for 45 million euros over the next two years, Fortescue’s aims for net-zero emissions by 2030. Indeed, the company had also lined up for interesting eco-friendly projects like working on world’s first ammonia-fueled ships and hydrogen-fuel cells powered mining trucks.
With only this much detail in hand, the company hopes for good time to answer whether this infinity will be finite to a single use case or could be adhered to several fields.
Starting from cars, now trains run on their own & the next expected vehicle is airplane and there could be a way the whole world functions renewably in future. So, if you have any eco-friendly idea, go for it! Life is short to regret!