Energy: you can't destroy it, but you can certainly waste it. That's what most motorized vehicles do, including trains. Usually, the energy generated when you stop a moving vehicle is dissipated as heat, and is lost to the atmosphere.
With GE's ecomagination you can capture and store that energy, then reuse it. Watch the video to see a simple illustration of the physics behind dynamic braking. Keep in mind an object's force is measured in newtons, using the equation force = Mass x Acceleration.
YouTube link
4 comment(s):
Nice video, but the technology has been used in trams, underground trains and regular trains for a while now. These are called "regenerative brakes", and nobody's really making a big fuss over them, simply because the idea is quite obvious (here's an article four years ago explaining some of it: http://web.archive.org/web/20080317080137/http://www.railwaygazette.com/features_view/article/2007/07/7577/regenerative_braking_boosts_green_credentials.html)
But now -- well, NOW the GE engineers found a way to capture and convert the energy from braking. Because, you see, without the GE engineers it would all be such a big mess. And I bet the poor engineers at GE have no fault of their own in these ridiculous claims -- they probably actually improved something, and the marketing people created this ludicrous video...
I learned nothing from this video. Are they running their trains into jelly now?
Ha! I concur with both of your observations! I liked the music though.
It is also problematic that Newtons are the standard unit of force, while energy is usually measured in Joules.
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