[kposehn]

Very cool. If you could also make a smaller one with ~3kw output that fits on a locomotive frame you'd literally have the entire freight rail industry the world over as customers.

[echoangle]

Would you though? A lot of freight lines in europe are already electric, wouldn't it be much more efficient to have a stationary high-power reactor than carrying around a smaller one on each locomotive?

[ceejayoz]

That might be balanced somewhat by not needing to maintain thousands of miles of caternary wire.

[0x457]

In europe sure, in the US most of freight rail isn't and companies operating those rail roads don't want to spend money on eletrifying railroads.

Currently they're trying to gas light us that hydrogen-hybrid locomotives are the futures (why not use diesel-hybrid locomotives that already exist is a mistery)

[Borg3]

3kW output? I think you mean 5MW output... large electric locomotives are in 2.5 to 3.5MW continuos power. Some diesel-electric huge ones are even larger, like 5MW.

[mikeyouse]

Yeah must’ve meant MW.. I’ve got more than one 3KW generator at my house and they can barely run my AC much less a locomotive.

[ClumsyPilot]

Why is that sounding like hydrogen trains all over again.

Radiation shielding scales poorly in the downwards direction.

[kposehn]

I meant MW :P

[James_K]

I think my induction hob is roughly 3kW. Why don't we all just put a nuclear reactor in our basement at that point? You people are all dreaming.