London Underground - 2

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London Undergound
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London Underground (The Tube)

Philosophy
When planning future underground systems and sub systems a strategic approach is necessary.

There must be co-existence with other systems. A serious system approach needs to adopted.

Environmentally responsible approaches are the only ones to be considered.

The deep tunnels are becoming Cavern Thermal Stores. Over the years, there has been a steady build-up of heat in the ground surrounding the tunnels. We have suddenly discovered that the London Underground deep tunnels is becoming a massive UTES system. It should be possible to reverse the situation and start taking advantage of the large number of potential storage areas.

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Rationale
The summertime overheating on the Underground Transportation System or "The Tube" as Londoners know it as is not going to go away, we may be lucky and have a temporary reversal in the Global Warming trend but make no mistake the trend is up.

The demand for increased capacity is also on an upward trend.

Energy costs will increase, at least for the foreseeable future

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Assumptions
The highest priority is to cool the tunnels, it is tempting to look at the concourses, platforms and public areas within the station, however only in exceptional circumstances should the initial effort be applied elsewhere.

It is incumbent upon us to recycle and utilise the thermal energy developed underground.

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Approach
A first step would be to halt the unnecessary generation of heat within the tunnels.

Where heat from stations and equipment rooms is entering the tunnels, dump it somewhere else for the time being then work out ways of recycling it.

More efficient trains equipped with regenerative braking. see Grisman.

Improving the existing ventilation systems and other passive systems, for example the intelligent use of dampers to introduce cooler, or cooled air at the mid-points and to use the piston effect of the trains within tunnels to carry the cooled air towards the stations where it displaces the heated air which will tend to vent using the station pedestrian entry routes.

UTES or interseasonal storage technology is an excellent match to the problem of cooling London Underground. Good fortune has provided opportunities in the shape of an abundance of unused tunnels and voids that lend themselves to roles as cavern stores. Simply applying tunnel air-cooling derived from winter temperature air to the deep tunnels and communicating tunnels and caverns will provide stored coolth which can be used to halt and reverse the root cause of the problem and into the bargain create opportunities to store usable energy.

Finally, a significant proportion of the Terawat-hours (1.087 Terawatt Hours 2004) used every year to power London's underground rail system has become heat energy stored in the ground in the proximity of the deeper tunnels. There is a question about ownership of this vast store of energy. Will it benefit the people who have paid for it (Mainly London's residents) through cheaper heating, or will it simply go directly to waste.

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