Two Chinese companies are developing Maglev trains to transport coal from mines in Inner Mongolia. If all goes as planned, Chinese coal will have a faster, greener trip than passengers riding from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
Coal-fired power plants are filthy beasts in general, and historically the Chinese coal industry has taken quite a toll on the environment and its workers. It seems hardly a month goes by without a few dozen miners meeting an early grave -- Reuters reports about 3,000 miners were killed last year. Still, in an effort to control both costs and emissions, Drives and Controls magazine reports two Chinese companies -- including one joint venture with Massachusetts-based magplane -- have begun work on the world's first prototype Maglev coal transports.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has abandoned his support of a 300-mph Maglev railway from Southern California to Nevada in favor of a diesel-electric railway called the DesertXPress.
Currently, Harbin Electric is building an 2800-foot test track on which a linear motor-driven freight train will run. If the test is successful, a 20 mile track will be built for transport to a freight hub. "Linear motor technology can be customised for fast, safe, clean, efficient, unmanned, and low-cost freight transportation," Harbin Electric CEO Tianfu Yang told the magazine.
"I am very excited about this project," Yang said. "Not only because it is the first of its kind in the mining industry and in the electric motor industry in China, but also because it opens a new market potential for us and we believe that the potential is substantial."
We wonder if Mr. Yang would consider accepting a job at Amtrak.
Photo of a coal mine in Mongolia: Flickr/Wolfiewolf
POST UPDATED: June 19, 2009, 10:00AM EST
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