In my previous post, I told you how the Interstate Traveler system will be effectively immune to cloud cover and seasonal changes in sunlight once the system is fully built throughout North America.
How can this be?
The answer to the question points to the genius of Justin Sutton. Every mile of rail will be covered with tens of thousands of square feet of solar collecting panels. What’s more, whereas a typical rail system only interconnects switch tracks and trestles, the Interstate Traveler interconnects the solar panels themselves by way of piping hydrogen from utility substation to utility substation.
Here’s what that means.
When I first told you about the Interstate Traveler, I explained that it is a solar-powered, hydrogen-fueled high-speed rail system. The connection between solar power and hydrogen as fuel is crucial. The enormous number of solar panels which line the tracks and sit atop the cars and passenger stations and in ground-based arrays all along the tracks are used to power electrolyzers, devices which take in electricity and water to produce gaseous hydrogen and oxygen.
In other words, every three miles along the system (coast to coast and border to border once fully built), there will be a hydrogen facility which takes in water and uses electricity during the day to make hydrogen. That hydrogen then is piped throughout the network, tens of thousands of miles worth in the end, to run fuel cells to make electricity on demand. Since dusk falls in New York City two hours before it does in Albuquerque, sunlight can continue to be used there to make fresh hydrogen even if it is night on the East Coast.
Justin Sutton has taken this concept of extended sunlight another step, however, by designing his system so that there is a surplus of hydrogen available for many days or even weeks in case of natural disaster or other period of high demand and low solar radiation.
In short, the sun typically shines somewhere in North America every day of the year so why not pipe it cleanly and safely to cloudy locations? For that matter, why worry that the solar panels which one uses are the most efficient? Instead, why not build in “rainy day” capacity and tap it when needed?
At the Green Earth Expo in May, Justin Sutton will elaborate on the enormous benefits of his scalar approach. To learn more about the Expo, click on the link in the left navigation pane of this page labeled www.globalgreenalliance.com
For a preview of how a rail line covered with solar panels will look, check my next thread.
Sustainable Justice For All!
Corbett Kroehler
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