6 ms·

That makes a lot of sense. I went in a road trip in our EV yesterday pulling a trailer for the first time. We basically drove down into a valley in the mornin

That makes a lot of sense. I went in a road trip in our EV yesterday pulling a trailer for the first time. We basically drove down into a valley in the morning, and back up out in the evening. As you could imagine, we got basically infinity range going downhill, and much much shorter range going uphill. A track that powered/charged mining trucks while they were hauling material up, coupled with regenerative breaking seems like it could pretty much solve charging for that application.

defrost 3y ago
Even better, many BHP iron sites in the Pilbarra are mesa mining .. they drive up unloaded and roll down with 100+ tonnes - plenty of opportunity to gravity charge while retarding downhill motion (free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well).
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well I think you win the understatement of the month award.
- discordance 3y ago
  That’s the principal behind Fortescue’s infinity train: https://newatlas.com/transport/fortescue-wae-infinity-train-electric/ https://newatlas.com/transport/fortescue-wae-infinity-train-...
  - westurner 3y ago
    Regenerative braking in trains: https://www.google.com/search?q=regenerative+braking+trains https://www.google.com/search?q=regenerative+braking+trains Regenerative braking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27579732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27579732 : > In Scandinavia the Kiruna to Narvik electrified railway [...] The regenerated energy is sufficient to power the empty trains back up to the national border Is re-planning routes for regenerative braking solvable with the Modified Snow Plow Problem (variation on TSP Traveling Salesman Problem), on a QC Quantum Computer; with Quantum Algorithmic advantage due to the complexity of the problem? From "Snow plow routing problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_plow_routing_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_plow_routing_problem : > The snow plow routing problem is an application of the structure of Arc Routing Problems (ARPs) and Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) to snow removal that considers roads as edges of a graph. > The problem is a simple routing problem when the arrival times are not specified.[1] Snow plow problems consider constraints such as the cost of plowing downhill compared to plowing uphill.[2] The Mixed Chinese Postman Problem is applicable to snow routes where directed edges represent one-way streets and undirected edges represent two-way streets. [3] Arc routing > Algorithms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_routing#Algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_routing#Algorithms : > Finding an efficient solution with large amounts data to the Chinese Postman Problem (CPP), the Windy Postman Problem (WPP), the Rural Postman Problem (RPP), the k-Chinese postman problem (KCPP), the mixed Chinese postman problem (MCPP), the Directed Chinese Postman Problem (DCPP),[8] the Downhill Plowing Problem (DPP), the Plowing with Precedence Problem (PPP), the Windy Rural Postman Problem (WRPP) and the Windy General Routing Problem (WGRP) requires using thoughtful mathematical concepts, including heuristic optimization methods, branch-and-bound methods, integer linear programming, and applications of traveling salesman problem algorithms such as the Held–Karp algorithm makes an improvement from O(n!) to O(2^{n}n^{2}).[9] In addition to these algorithms, these classes of problems can also be solved with the cutting plane algorithm, convex optimization, convex hulls, Lagrange multipliers and other dynamic programming methods. In cases where it is not feasible to run the Held–Karp algorithm because of its high computational complexity, algorithms like this can be used to approximate the solution in a reasonable amount of time.[10] QC algos for TSP and similar: - QISkit tutorials > Max-Cut and Traveling Salesman Problem: docs/tutorials/06_examples_max_cut_and_tsp.ipynb: https://qiskit.org/ecosystem/optimization/tutorials/06_examples_max_cut_and_tsp.html https://qiskit.org/ecosystem/optimization/tutorials/06_examp...
- bee_rider 3y ago
  That is kind of funny. If the stuff is mined at the site using plugged-in equipment, and then lifted up to get into the trucks, I guess the mining equipment could be seen as a very convoluted way of doing energy storage via gravity. Just make sure the mine is uphill of society! Then the trucks only need battery packs sufficient to get back up the mining site unladen.
- guerby 3y ago
  Already in production: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest-ev-never-has-to-be-recharged https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest... "Marking that trip around 20 times a day, Kuhn Schweitz says the eDumper produces 200 kwh of surplus energy every day, or 77 megawatt-hours a year. A typical dump truck uses between 11,000 and 22,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. " They have to discharge the surplus :)

defrost 3y ago

Even better, many BHP iron sites in the Pilbarra are mesa mining .. they drive up unloaded and roll down with 100+ tonnes - plenty of opportunity to gravity charge while retarding downhill motion (free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well).

jacquesm 3y ago
> free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well I think you win the understatement of the month award.
discordance 3y ago
That’s the principal behind Fortescue’s infinity train: https://newatlas.com/transport/fortescue-wae-infinity-train-electric/ https://newatlas.com/transport/fortescue-wae-infinity-train-...
- westurner 3y ago
  Regenerative braking in trains: https://www.google.com/search?q=regenerative+braking+trains https://www.google.com/search?q=regenerative+braking+trains Regenerative braking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27579732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27579732 : > In Scandinavia the Kiruna to Narvik electrified railway [...] The regenerated energy is sufficient to power the empty trains back up to the national border Is re-planning routes for regenerative braking solvable with the Modified Snow Plow Problem (variation on TSP Traveling Salesman Problem), on a QC Quantum Computer; with Quantum Algorithmic advantage due to the complexity of the problem? From "Snow plow routing problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_plow_routing_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_plow_routing_problem : > The snow plow routing problem is an application of the structure of Arc Routing Problems (ARPs) and Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) to snow removal that considers roads as edges of a graph. > The problem is a simple routing problem when the arrival times are not specified.[1] Snow plow problems consider constraints such as the cost of plowing downhill compared to plowing uphill.[2] The Mixed Chinese Postman Problem is applicable to snow routes where directed edges represent one-way streets and undirected edges represent two-way streets. [3] Arc routing > Algorithms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_routing#Algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_routing#Algorithms : > Finding an efficient solution with large amounts data to the Chinese Postman Problem (CPP), the Windy Postman Problem (WPP), the Rural Postman Problem (RPP), the k-Chinese postman problem (KCPP), the mixed Chinese postman problem (MCPP), the Directed Chinese Postman Problem (DCPP),[8] the Downhill Plowing Problem (DPP), the Plowing with Precedence Problem (PPP), the Windy Rural Postman Problem (WRPP) and the Windy General Routing Problem (WGRP) requires using thoughtful mathematical concepts, including heuristic optimization methods, branch-and-bound methods, integer linear programming, and applications of traveling salesman problem algorithms such as the Held–Karp algorithm makes an improvement from O(n!) to O(2^{n}n^{2}).[9] In addition to these algorithms, these classes of problems can also be solved with the cutting plane algorithm, convex optimization, convex hulls, Lagrange multipliers and other dynamic programming methods. In cases where it is not feasible to run the Held–Karp algorithm because of its high computational complexity, algorithms like this can be used to approximate the solution in a reasonable amount of time.[10] QC algos for TSP and similar: - QISkit tutorials > Max-Cut and Traveling Salesman Problem: docs/tutorials/06_examples_max_cut_and_tsp.ipynb: https://qiskit.org/ecosystem/optimization/tutorials/06_examples_max_cut_and_tsp.html https://qiskit.org/ecosystem/optimization/tutorials/06_examp...
bee_rider 3y ago
That is kind of funny. If the stuff is mined at the site using plugged-in equipment, and then lifted up to get into the trucks, I guess the mining equipment could be seen as a very convoluted way of doing energy storage via gravity. Just make sure the mine is uphill of society! Then the trucks only need battery packs sufficient to get back up the mining site unladen.
guerby 3y ago
Already in production: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest-ev-never-has-to-be-recharged https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest... "Marking that trip around 20 times a day, Kuhn Schweitz says the eDumper produces 200 kwh of surplus energy every day, or 77 megawatt-hours a year. A typical dump truck uses between 11,000 and 22,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. " They have to discharge the surplus :)