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A comment on BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dumps diesel. Parent comment

Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by pixl97 on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:34AM (#36943151)
They have hybrid test trucks that can power themselves via overhead lines for the uphill loaded portion of the trip. I wonder if something like that could reduce battery usage and time to charge.
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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by atourgates on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:40AM (#36943278)
That makes a lot of sense.

I went in a road trip in our EV yesterday pulling a trailer for the first time. We basically drove down into a valley in the morning, and back up out in the evening. As you could imagine, we got basically infinity range going downhill, and much much shorter range going uphill.

A track that powered/charged mining trucks while they were hauling material up, coupled with regenerative breaking seems like it could pretty much solve charging for that application.

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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by defrost on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:43AM (#36943346)
Even better, many BHP iron sites in the Pilbarra are mesa mining .. they drive up unloaded and roll down with 100+ tonnes - plenty of opportunity to gravity charge while retarding downhill motion (free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well).
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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by bee_rider on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:54AM (#36943520)
That is kind of funny. If the stuff is mined at the site using plugged-in equipment, and then lifted up to get into the trucks, I guess the mining equipment could be seen as a very convoluted way of doing energy storage via gravity.

Just make sure the mine is uphill of society! Then the trucks only need battery packs sufficient to get back up the mining site unladen.

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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by discordance on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:52AM (#36943484)
That’s the principal behind Fortescue’s infinity train:

https://newatlas.com/transport/fortescue-wae-infinity-train-...

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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by westurner on Monday July 31, 2023 @02:24PM (#36946741)
Regenerative braking in trains: https://www.google.com/search?q=regenerative+braking+trains

Regenerative braking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27579732 :

> In Scandinavia the Kiruna to Narvik electrified railway [...] The regenerated energy is sufficient to power the empty trains back up to the national border

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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by jacquesm on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:52AM (#36943482)
> free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well

I think you win the understatement of the month award.

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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by guerby on Monday July 31, 2023 @03:38PM (#36947697)
Already in production:

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest...

"Marking that trip around 20 times a day, Kuhn Schweitz says the eDumper produces 200 kwh of surplus energy every day, or 77 megawatt-hours a year. A typical dump truck uses between 11,000 and 22,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. "

They have to discharge the surplus :)

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