Passing through the gates without traveling, Forgetting to check in or out and requesting refunds, Sustainable accessibility of the Netherlands, More information about NS buses that run on HVO. Julian Turner gets the inside track on the unique collaboration from Michel Kerkhof, account manager at Eneco. Built 1992 this nearshore wind farm had just 4 Nedwind 500 KW turbines based 1km to shore. At least they are investing in renewable energy. According to Statistics Netherlands, gross electricity generation was approximately 110 billion kilowatthours (BkWh) in 2015. One windmill running for an hour can power one train across about 200km (120 miles). "Since 1 January, 100% of our trains are running on wind energy," said NS. The Dutch government is looking to ramp up the nations share of renewable energy from 4 percent in 2014 to 16 percent in 2023. The Nuclear Humanist 1.75K subscribers 40 Dislike Share 814 views Jul 23, 2017 The Dutch Railway Corporation. A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. [2] The Dutch are trying to meet the EU-set target of producing 14% of total energy use from renewable sources by 2020, and 16% by 2023. The pickup shoes do occasionally lose contact anyway, albeit very briefly, at track junctions. RE fans should understand that present mainstream RE technologies ( mostly PV and wind) require considerable real estate and in our small island one cannot travel very far without having a wind farm in view. Ah, so the train really runs on smoke & mirrors. What happens where there is insufficient wind for the required duration to powerup the batteries? This passage was written by David Hughes. The energy required to power trains in the Netherlands comes from newly built wind farms in the Netherlands as well as in Belgium and Finland. People making this claim are simply propagandists. The city also gets about a third of its power from a large biomass plant. To aver otherwise displays ignorance or deception. There are ~40 utilities with sharp price competition in NL. It sharply cut subsidies down to 1.5 billion, leaving private sector to carry over wind turbine investments should these be beneficial.[6]. The story of Apple data centre in Denmark: Half of this electricity comes from the Netherlands, and the other half is imported from Sweden, Finland, and Belgium. All day so far. Started operations in 1979. But how does NS know the power it imports is wind? Whats the trick? 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. The turbines have a hub height of 135 metres (443ft) and each new turbine can generate as much electricity as all 50 turbines of the old wind farm combined. More than 12% of the Netherland's electricity is generated from renewable sources, mainly biomass and waste (5% of the total) and wind (7% of the total). The new Zuidwester site at the wind farm will have just 12 turbines and a total nameplate capacity of 90 MW. The actual amount of green energy produced is unaffected.. As of the 1st of January, 2017, electric Dutch trains are now completely powered by wind energy, according to NS, the national railway company. Thatd give us a consumption figure for the city of around 1.5 billion kWh. Dutch trains to be wind-powered from 2018. That is why half of the demand will be sourced from a number of new wind farms in Belgium and Scandinavia, which have been specifically assigned for this contract., http://www.railway-technology.com/features/featuremichel-kerkhof-of-eneco-discusses-the-dutch-rail-networks-renewable-revolution-4647194/. Since 2019, the buses have been powered by HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil) made from processed deep fryer oil and industrial fats. If you would like to know more, click here. from northern Maine to southern Florida, about 1800 miles in 0.01 second. All Dutch electric trains are now powered by wind energy, the national railway company NS has said . How Dutch and German train and bus firms are taking British taxpayers for a ride, Solar panel researchers investigate powering trains by bypassing grid, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Even the two Dutch wind farms with which NS contracts directly for wind power, Noordoostpolder and Luchterduinen, are tied generally to the Dutch grid and not tied directly into the NS rail system. The two Dutch wind farms that have contracted to sell power to NS (Noordoostpolder and Luchterduinen) are both connected directly to the Dutch grid, along with all the other power plants in the country, and NS draws its power from the grid: Figure 3: The Netherlands' electricity grid. Earlier this week, one of their national railway companies, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), announced that, since 1 st January, every single one of its electric trains have been running on energy. Switch them back on by degrees. I am surrounded by almost 3000 MWs of hydro power in my county alone, but because of these guarantees of origin my supposed consumption is very dirty, consisting mostly of a central European mix of coal, natural gas, nuclear with some renewables added. NS has signed a contract with Eneco to guarantee the supply of this electricity. So, the fact that they can now reliably produce it from wind is big news. So even if this claim were true, it would require exponentially more windmills and/or solar panels to cover any significant portion of the continental United States. Many small scale wind farms exist throughout the Netherlands which bear testament to earlier models of wind turbines and lesser known manufacturers which provided a range of niche products, ranging in size and power output. "Exploiting wind power in Holland." As of January 1, all trains in the Netherlands now run entirely on wind power (that is to say electricity generated by wind farms, not masts and sails). Smaller turbines are often used for off grid, bespoke and community power internationally. Under this system the government chooses locations and organizes tenders for projects of 350 MW, and project developers can offer bids for each farm. The T1 standard relates to telecommunications. But none of this wind power is directly connected to the NS rail system. In this way, the Dutch railways aim to reduce the greatest negative environmental impact caused by CO2 in such a way that its demand actually contributes to the sustainable power generation in the Netherlands and Europe.. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. We do something like this California with biogas. Train tickets for international journeys can be purchased from NS International. Because Eneco, which contracts to supply NS with wind power, gets a Guarantee of Origin from the exporter under which the exporter confirms that the power came from wind and assigns the rights to it to NS. I would take it, then, that you are not among the poor and elderly who DO give a fig about money? In this way, the Dutch railways aim to reduce the greatest negative environmental impact caused by CO2 in such a way that its demand actually contributes to the sustainable power generation in the Netherlands and Europe.. What is clear is that most of those electrons didnt originate from wind turbines. The historical land of windmills is leading the charge in wind energy development. Where I post my arguments on various things climate-related, belief that a 100% renewable-powered train can and does exist is ubiquitous. Companies that want to claim that they run on green energy then just have to buy enough GoOs to cover their energy demand. The electrons essentially vibrate in place at 60 Hz. The virtue signalling fools at NS might then undertsand the impact of intermittent supplies. NO. Good for Nederlandse Spoorwegen. 22 May 2018. [62], Installed land-based wind capacity (MW) by. Burlingtons biggest source of electricity is hydropower imported from across the region. Eneco and NS said on a joint website that around 600,000 passengers daily are the first in the world to travel thanks to wind energy. The best of EcoWatch right in your inbox. Electricity backed 100% by low-carbon generation, Its also why we make good on our supply promise for homes on our Blue tariffs: well match every unit you use with electricity generated from low-carbon nuclear sources.. As of January 1, all electric passenger trains on the Dutch rail network have been run on wind energy, according to a statement from operator NS (via EcoWatch ). When wind power is fed into a grid it becomes inextricably mixed with all the vibrating electrons from other generation sources to the point where there is no way of knowing where any power taken from the grid came from. However, this quotation, which comes from an essay written by earth scientist David Hughes, was cherry-picked and presented out of context to create a deliberately misleading version of what the author actually said. Offsets. The turbines supply enough energy to power 2.4 million households. Homer-Dixon did not write this viral quote, but he did comment on it in a May 2018 blog post entitled: "No . If the train line is a busy one, with small gaps between scheduled trains, the electricity produced by one helps to power the very next one that comes along. Plus, it turns out that about half the electricity NS uses to power its rail system comes from outside of the Netherlands. Yes, they are called dwarves, or possibly hobbits. On insulated wires, the speed, on average, is about 2/3 the speed of light. NS first announced their target for a wind-powered train fleet back in 2015, but they've hit their target a year earlier than planned - way ahead of their 2018 goal. But its a funny read. It is 100% powered by electric. An extra live rail that has direct current flowing through it at all times. It becomes inextricably mixed with all the electromagnetic waves of the other. All renewable energy gets paid the FIT out of the so-called SDE budget. In total there were 3,004 MW of onshore wind power at the end of 2015. Eneco has agreed to supply 1.4 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind-sourced power by 2018, which is roughly the same amount of energy consumed by all the households in Amsterdam, the capital city. Putting these numbers together indicates that only 10-15% of the electricity consumed annually by NSs electric trains will come from wind, with the rest a mixture that includes mostly Dutch gas and coal plus a small amount of Belgian and German coal, nuclear and lignite and maybe even a little German solar. All wind amd solar energy gets a hefty FIT tariff in the Netherlands, intended to guarantee profitability of the energy investment over the long term (even if the electricity market price goes negative, for example). PV in Germany, and Energiewende in general, will go down in history as a useless waste of money, a financial disaster which will be used for decades to come as a bad example of ideology-driven energy policy. The Eneco Luchterduinen wind farm was officially opened in September 2015 and is a 50/50 joint venture between Dutch energy company Eneco and Japan's Mitsubishi corporation. Wind contributes 4,117MW, representing 13% of the capacity mix. I find that the electrified portion of the Dutch railway network (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, or NS) runs on grid electricity that comes dominantly from fossil fuel generation (natural gas and coal). The historical land of windmills is leading . And half of Japan, poor devils. And no facts will ever get in the way of a true believer . Hinkley C will have a footprint of 165 acres when operational and an equivalent footprint for onshore windturbines would be from 160,000 to 490,000 acres (dependent on power of turbines available) to produce the same power output over a year. I Did Not Say Wind Energy is 'Idiot Power.'" Fossil fuel-fired power plants produced over 80% of the electricity in the Netherlands, mainly natural gas (42%) and coal (35%). The concept of net energy must be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. Most wind power is produced in the province of Flevoland. I live in France since 20 years, have almost always used electricity to heat my house and always saved money with respect to the neighbours who used other means. [18], In the first week of December 2016, all 150 turbines of the new 600 MW Gemini offshore windfarm began producing power, and the project is expected to be fully commissioned by mid 2017. [15], In February 2022 the Netherlands announced it increased its offshore wind target to 21 GW by 2030. According to Eneco, the power used by the carriers comes from newly built wind farms in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Belgium. NS consumes 1.2 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity each year, which is the equivalent of 1% of the Netherlands' electricity consumption, or the total electricity consumption of all the households in Amsterdam. One windmill running for an hour can power a train for 120 miles, the companies said. The farm consists of 43 Vestas V112 turbines of 3 MW capacity each. 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