First Hydrogen-Powered Train Hits the Tracks In Germany (arstechnica.com) 222
"French train-building company Alstom built two hydrogen-powered trains and delivered them to Germany last weekend, where they'll zoom along a 62-mile stretch of track that runs from the northern cities of Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervorde, and Buxtehude," reports Ars Technica. "The new trains replace their diesel-powered counterparts and are the first of their kind, but they are likely not the last. Alstom is contracted to deliver 14 more hydrogen-powered trains, called Coradia iLint trains, before 2021." From the report: The trains are an initial step toward lowering Germany's transportation-related emissions, a sector that has been intractable for policy makers in the country. But hydrogen fuel faces some chicken-and-egg-type problems. Namely, hydrogen is difficult to store, and making it a truly zero-emissions source of fuel requires renewable electricity to perform water electrolysis. The more common option for creating hydrogen fuel involves natural gas reforming, which is not a carbon-neutral process.
The advantages of hydrogen fuel cells are that -- unlike battery-powered vehicles -- refueling a hydrogen-powered vehicle is just as fast as a vehicle powered by fossil fuels. No sitting around and charging overnight is required. Trains tend not to be battery-powered when they're electric, however, because they're so heavy. Electric train systems tend to use catenary systems, with electrified cables providing electricity to the train. But over long distances, setting up an external electricity source can be expensive. Both trains have a reported range of 1,000km (621 miles) and can reach top speeds of 140km/h (87mph). Cost is unknown, although Alstom's press release says that Lower Saxony, the German state where the trains will run, supported the purchase of the 14 additional trains with $94.5 million.
The advantages of hydrogen fuel cells are that -- unlike battery-powered vehicles -- refueling a hydrogen-powered vehicle is just as fast as a vehicle powered by fossil fuels. No sitting around and charging overnight is required. Trains tend not to be battery-powered when they're electric, however, because they're so heavy. Electric train systems tend to use catenary systems, with electrified cables providing electricity to the train. But over long distances, setting up an external electricity source can be expensive. Both trains have a reported range of 1,000km (621 miles) and can reach top speeds of 140km/h (87mph). Cost is unknown, although Alstom's press release says that Lower Saxony, the German state where the trains will run, supported the purchase of the 14 additional trains with $94.5 million.
heavy train? (Score:2, Insightful)
Trains tend not to be battery-powered when they're electric, however, because they're so heavy.
That's one of the last things trains should care about. Steel wheels don't provide much friction when they have a low load.
Re:heavy train? (Score:5, Informative)
Thats all well and good on dry rails... (Score:4, Interesting)
... but things get a bit more complex when they're wet or have leaves or snow on them. A heavier train can push through any crap on the railhead and get better grip whereas a lighter train can have more problems. This is most noticable in autumn when leaves on the line can be a serious problem.
Re:Thats all well and good on dry rails... (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
HAND.
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Well, even the high speed German ICEs got rid of heavy locomotives quite a while ago. Starting with the ICE 3 series in ~2000 they switched to distributed motors, usually on every 2nd coach, and have passenger space from front to back all the way.
You can even have a peak over the engine drivers shoulder when in the first section of the front coach there (he can set the glass front between him and you to non-transparent though).
Re:heavy train? (Score:5, Informative)
Germany was leading in the development of battery-powered electric trains. The Wittfeld battery EMU, of which 163 were built from 1907 were a great success. after a battery upgrade in the 1920s they had a range of 300 km.
From the mid 1950s, the series 515 battery EMU, of which 232 were built, was used on branch lines.
Both the Witteld and the 515 needed special infrastructure for charging.
The last battery EMUs were taken out of service in 1995.
Recently, there is growing interest in alternatives to Diesel and line electrification. This hydrogen-powered train built by Alstom is one of them. The other major European train makers (Bombardier, Siemens, Stadler) at the same time presented new battery EMUs this year. All of them presented working prototypes that are to be evaluated in passenger service on branch lines this and next year.
In 1930 five battery-powered electric shunting engines were built, and used on rail yards in Munich, the last one was taken out of service in 1961. The E80 was charged fromt he normal overhead electrification on electrified track sections. And the new battery EMU prototypes going into service this year also charge that way. This is quite useful for a common situation on branch line service in Germany: Trains go from a station in a city along an electrified main line for a few kilometres, then continue on a branch line.
Re:heavy train? (Score:4, Interesting)
That depends on line usage.
Sure, electrification has advantages, but it is costly, require time, and there will be people trying to resist.
In the end I think this has to be decided on a line-by-line basis. For a line with steep inclines with frequent trains and few tunnels, the benefits of line electrification should be worth it. For a line without such inclines, few tunnels, few trains, electrification might not be worth it; then the battery-powered train could be a good alternative to Diesel.
Disclaimer: I am am member of Bürgerbündnis Elztalbahn [elztalbahn.eu], which supports electrification of the Elztalbahn (no tunnels, AFAIR incline 1:100 on 12 km of the line, service to be upgraded to about 1 train per 30 min and direction throughout most of the day). There is an opposing group, the Elztalbahn Bürgerinitiative [elztalbahn...tiative.de] that fights against electrification; they tend argue that future battery- or hydrogen-powered trains make electrification obsolete.
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Our main train company, NS (Dutch Railways) has all their trains running on wind energy now. The few other, much smaller train companies use diesels. It would be great to see those replaced by battery or H2 powered trains.
Re:heavy train? (Score:5, Funny)
Our main train company, NS (Dutch Railways) has all their trains running on wind energy now.
But that doesn't work really well in Germany, where you have to lower the sails and masts every time you come to a tunnel or overpass...
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It's the same here. That's why they are never on time :P
Re:heavy train? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since the Diesel trains are mostly smaller DMUs on branch lines (EMUs typically on big long-distance and urban commuter trains), I'd assume that far above 90% of passenger-kilometers on rail would be by electric trains.
Since you asked about "rain electrification": Germany has far more thunderstorms than Britain or Ireland, but on a global scale it would rank below average. (map [wikimedia.org]). But I currently feel too lazy to calculate the number of lightning strikes per rail passenger kilometer.
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So what you're saying is that trains should run on electrified rails/overhead lines, but have a UPS that allows some non-externally powered operation.
I'm probably waaay wrong on this, but a sort of 'hybrid' train sounds like a reasonable idea - just enough batteries to help it get to the next station in case of power issues.
If the train only runs on sunny afternoons (Score:2)
The point is to try to make use of solar-electric. Trillions have been spent on solar-electric and now it can produce significant electricity - for a few hours, on sunny days. If the train only runs on sunny days you can just use wiring to connect the train to a the solar cells. If you want the train to run in the morning or evening, you're going to need a lot of batteries.
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You are shockingly wrong. Storing hydrogen at pressure for very long periods (decades) is now quite easy. You have to use the correct materials, but it is cost effective and the leak rate is basically undetectable. The correct materials are not exotic (fiberglass, plastics, kevlar)
We have hydrogen cars in California (over 5000). People drive them. People fill them, go on vacation, and come back six weeks later and they are still full. There are inefficiencies and costs, but the tech works reliably an
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Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought (Score:5, Informative)
intuitively
Your intuition probably has you thinking Germany is the greenest major European country due to its investment in solar and wind. In actual fact France is the greenest large economy, by far, because nuclear.
The German green hype machine is — typical of German propaganda — highly effective.
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So the "major" lines in Germany (including the ICE bullet train) essentially all have electrical overhead. The smaller local lines that go into the sticks, those trains often are diesel powered only, i.e. no electrical overhead for (large) part of the way. There even used to be a diesel-powered ICE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_TD
but that was not such a success. I estimate there to be *many* local lines on which diesel trains run, however: the investment to turn them into electrical would be too much
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The German green hype machine is â" typical of German propaganda â" highly effective.
Pray tell, what "typical" German propaganda are you referring to?
Because without elaborating what you mean by that, your flat allegation makes you sound like someone who simply doesn't like Germany very much, which renders any argument you might have comparing France to Germany moot.
Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought (Score:4, Interesting)
No his intuition is thinking of all those rail lines you see which are mostly electric. You really need to go bush or down to some nastier parts of the country to find non-electrified railways. Over 50% of the rail network in Germany is electrified. MOST of the goods are moved over exclusively electric tracks. Pretty much all people are. This is really a case of edge cases. Some whole coutnries will refuse transit to non-electric trains, and the biggest ports in the EU are all electric as well.
The German green hype machine is — typical of German propaganda — highly effective.
As it should be. Hype should be quite easy when you generate a fraction of the emissions as the USA, have the second largest wind power system in the world, and the largest solar installation while investing heavily in green power.
France sitting on a tower of nukes doesn't change the Germany's achievements.
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No his intuition is thinking of all those rail lines you see which are mostly electric. You really need to go bush or down to some nastier parts of the country to find non-electrified railways. Over 50% of the rail network in Germany is electrified. MOST of the goods are moved over exclusively electric tracks. Pretty much all people are. This is really a case of edge cases. Some whole coutnries will refuse transit to non-electric trains, and the biggest ports in the EU are all electric as well.
The German green hype machine is — typical of German propaganda — highly effective.
As it should be. Hype should be quite easy when you generate a fraction of the emissions as the USA, have the second largest wind power system in the world, and the largest solar installation while investing heavily in green power.
France sitting on a tower of nukes doesn't change the Germany's achievements.
... and better yet, production of hydrogen via electrolysis is becoming cost competitive so there should be an excellent business case for these trains given that in the absence of grid storage there is often a glut of quite cheap wind and solar generated electricity which Germany has a lot of. Come to think of it, since the efficiency of PEM electrolysis, for example, is currently coming up on 80%, it will reach ~85% within a decade and is predicted to rise above 90% over the next couple of decades so hydr
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Germany is spending a ton of money, but they aren't getting results. Per capita, they produce 45% more CO2 than the European Union average [wikipedia.org]. Since they are phasing out their nuclear in the next few years
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Germany is spending a ton of money, but they aren't getting results.
I think this is misrepresenting the situation quite a bit. Germany is spending a ton of money and increased the share of renewables for generation of electricity from less than 5% to more than 33% in the last twenty years. This also helped bring down the cost to renewables substantially. This is a "result". You dismiss this result because Germany did not bring down CO2 emissions as much (there are down but not by much). The reason is that Germany decided to shut down nuclear first instead of coal. If you sa
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...Germany still compares well to Canada, Australia, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and some other industrialized countries - not just Trumpistan.
On the contrary, the U.S. is leading [investors.com] CO2 emissions reductions under Trump.
Take a wild guess what country is reducing its CO2 emissions the most? Canada? Britain? France? India? Germany? Japan? ...The answer to that question is the U.S. of A. ...
Nearly every nation that signed on to Paris and has admonished America for not doing so, has already violated the agreement. According to Climate Action Network Europe, "All EU countries are failing to increase their climate action in line with the Paris Agreement goal."
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Perhaps you are just counting the EU as European, because Iceland [wikipedia.org] is 100% green, with 70% hydroelectric and 30% geothermal. Norway [wikipedia.org] is about 95% hydroelectric. Only about 2% from fossil fuels, and they are a net-exporter.
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France went in big for nuclear for the same reason nuclear was adopted in Japan: it doesn't have the fossil fuel reserves it needs to power its economy. During the 1973 oil crisis, France made nearly all its electricity from imported oil, which is why they went on a nuclear crash course. France doesn't have any uranium either, but you only refuel a reactor every couple of years, and with the fabrication lead time it makes it hard for foreign powers to twist your arm with your energy supply.
But if nuclea
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Here in Germany almost everything long and medium distance is electric (minus e.g the ill-fated ICE-TD that's no longer in operation).
Local lines that operate aside from the electrified main tracks still often run diesel-electric though. Especially the single track local lines are usually not electrified, and at times even signals and switches are still operated by someone locally pulling big levers (although that's been mostly phased out over the last two decades).
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Diesel trains are still quite common in Germany because many secondary lines aren't electrified due to either low usage or old tunnels with their ceilings too low for overhead lines to be installed.
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The main line between Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland has recently been converted to overhead-electric track. Previously diesel multiple unit (DMU) trains ran on this busy service.
Electrification of this service ran into problems with several tunnels on the line originally bored in the mid-1800s for smaller steam traction. The innovative solution was to lower the floor of the tunnels to take the taller train-plus-pantograph and accommodate the overhead catenary structures. It was still a significant engin
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Yep, same plan for this line I use often [wikipedia.org]
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We're in New Zealand, we're semi-advanced as we run diesel-electric! ;)
Sadly we're phasing out our older electric stock [kiwirail.co.nz].
And we have hydroelectric galore... Doh!
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Diesels are still common, although it varies a bit by country. The UK famously had (has?) diesel-powered high-speed trains (HST 125). In the Netherlands, France and Germany, diesel trains (passengers and freight) are common on less traveled routes (where the investment in installing overhead catenary wouldn't pay off). I don't think electro-diesels are the most common diesel type, but that's just from my limited observations.
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Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought (Score:5, Informative)
> Diesels are mostly used along the coastline areas in Germany, due to corrosion issues on the catenary infrastructure.
That is provably false. Japan has 95% of her rail lines alongside the ocean shore, since inner areas of the island nation are composed of steep, densely forested mountains, where nobody lives. Yet, japanese rail is extensively electrified and famously on-time, despite the typhoons, tsunamis and tons of salt they regularly receive from the ocean!
The true differece is in the mode of traction instead: Germany uses the obsolete and very expensive to build one-third frequency (16.7Hz AC / 15kV) catenary system. They cannot justify the cost of extending the railway-specific reduced frequency 2-phase national grid to the coastline.
Japan, meanwhile adopted the franco-hungarian AC system, where trains are powered by regular 50 / 60 Hz, (2x)25kV juice taken straight from the general-purpose 3-phase national electric grid. That system is, which is now the UIC codified world standard, is much easier and affordable to build and maintain.
Germany (and Scandinavia) painted thenselves into the corner in that regard, but refuse to convert. They are in fact further entrenching themselves: Siemens recently started to manufacture 16.7Hz-only "Smartron" electric locomotives in violation of EU rules and France will cite them to trial over that.
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That's normal with intuition.
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It wasn't meant negatively towards you. More as a general statement that normally, intuition does not reflect facts. You said: "So, I guess that my intuition was wrong." With my comment I meant: "Don't worry, intuitions are usually wrong."
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oh the humanity! (Score:2)
oh the humanity!
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Beat me to the punch.
"natural gas reforming, not a carbon-neutral" (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats putting it mildly. Not only does it use a fossil fuel to obtain the H2 and require energy to run the process, it also ends up getting LESS energy out of the gas itself than if the gas had just been burnt directly.
Unless H2 is obtained from electrolysis using renewables or nuclear then its the complete opposite of a carbon neutral solution and is nothing more than a "We Need to do something, this is something, lets do it" style bandwagon for politicians to jump on.
Re:"natural gas reforming, not a carbon-neutral" (Score:5, Interesting)
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The iLint in Lower-Saxony use currently hydrogen delivered from the Netherlands, but will switch to electrolysis and electricity from renewable sources. As northern Germany has a lot of electricity overproduction from renewable sources, this is a perfect fit to reduce CO2 emissions.
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Efficiency matters (Score:2)
Unless H2 is obtained from electrolysis using renewables or nuclear then its the complete opposite of a carbon neutral solution
Even doing that is still wasteful for most applications. If you are already generating electricity from renewables or nuclear you are going to waste a lot of that energy processing H2 so most of the time it makes more sense to just use the energy directly and skip the H2 altogether. I think H2 makes sense for cases where the H2 is generated as a byproduct of some other useful process but it's kind of idiotic as a primary fuel stock in most use cases.
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Turning H2 via fuel cells into electricity and running an elecfric engine is 4-5 times as efficient than burning it in an ICE.
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There are people already working on that problem.
https://www.gasworld.com/csiro... [gasworld.com]
The vision is to "export solar power" by producing ammonia and the converting the ammonia to H2 at or near the point of use.
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You have to be careful about comparing energy here, though. If you want to compare total energy output (i.e., heat) then, yes, the hydrogen is worse than the natural gas.
But the metric we care about is natural gas input to mechanical work output. In one scenario, you have a natural gas-powered locomotive (do th
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"the range of torque and speed needed at different operating conditions is a terrible match for a gas turbine"
True, but you can use gas turbines to drive generators which is what is done on ships. Whether you could fit that into a loco is another matter.
But you may have a point here, though I'd be surprised if when tallied up the H2 is anything more than break even compared to using the gas direct because don't forget, H2 has to be heavily compressed to be stored which takes even more energy plus it leaks o
Re:"natural gas reforming, not a carbon-neutral" (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats putting it mildly. Not only does it use a fossil fuel to obtain the H2 and require energy to run the process, it also ends up getting LESS energy out of the gas itself than if the gas had just been burnt directly.
Unless H2 is obtained from electrolysis using renewables or nuclear then its the complete opposite of a carbon neutral solution and is nothing more than a "We Need to do something, this is something, lets do it" style bandwagon for politicians to jump on.
I'm not saying Hyrdogen is a good or bad approach, but the advantage is, as with batteries, that the particulate pollution occurs far from the population centers, instead of right through the middle of it.
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The same is true for electricity- takes an energy source (possibly fossil fuel) to create, which means we get LESS energy than if we had burnt the fuel directly.
But all of this is irrelevent- electricity is a power *transport* mechanism not a power source. Just like H2.
Wisdom, pay attention! (Score:5, Informative)
> Electric train systems tend to use catenary systems, with electrified cables providing electricity to the train. But over long distances, setting up an external electricity source can be expensive
That is a germanic / scandinavian / italian specific problem, because they do not use the Kando-system (high voltage AC catenary fed at the national grid frequency). Countries which use the world standard 25kV (2x25kV) AC, 50 / 60 Hz traction system can electrify railways cheaply, regardless of varried terrain, density of traffic or there being single or multiple tracks. In detail:
Italian Railways uses 3000V DC, which requires expensive and maintenance heavy rectification substations every 10-12 miles or so. Meanwhile, the germanic and scandinavian countries (.AT, .CH, .DE, .NO, .SE) use the weird one-third frequency AC traction system, which requires a second national electric grid fed at 16.7Hz, running parallel to the normal national electric grid which provides high voltage 50Hz AC to consumers and industry. That system, originating from 1912 is as wasteful as it gets and only the wealthy, heavily industrialized and hydro resource rich countries can afford it and even them only barely. The USA had a similar 25Hz AC railway traction network but that disappeared by the mid-1970s.
The proper solution is the now world standard Kando-system, where railway traction directly uses single-phase AC, fed via maintenance free ZBD trasnsformers directly from the threads of 3-phase AC 50 or 60 Hz national grid. That was VERY difficult to implement before the advent of power-electronic semiconductors (high Ampere silicon diodes) circa 1961. But in 1928 Koloman von Kando built a 17-ton phase splitter rotor to realize the functionality onboard electric locomotives, but which required rod drive to the wheels, like those of steam locomotives, so the germans considered it obsolete and refused to adopt.
It was only implemented in Hungary from 1932, until the french railway started to adopt 25kV and experiment with in 1952 (first with mercury rectfication, then silicone diodes). Eventually the french fought to make 25kV 50/60Hz AC traction the codified railway world standard, but by that time the 16.7Hz AC posse were too entrenched to convert.
On the other hand, most of the 3kV DC traction countries converted at least partially, because DC just cannot provide enough juice for true high-speed rail, being limited to ~6 MW supply per feed section, while even the cheapest built 25kV AC network is capable of ~11MW. (The italians found that out about that difference the hard way with the first batch of their supposedly 300km/h capable Frecciarossa trainsets, eventually they went 25kV/50Hz AC for their HST network, while regional lines remain 3kV DC.)
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The rest of the comment is actually OK, but this is appalling bullshit. Electrification by catenary is extremely expensive ("extremely" as in "there is nothing more expensive you can possibly do", other than building the railroad itself). It can be a good investment, but it will always be enormous.
A good
Hydrogen source? (Score:2)
"The company did not elaborate on how the hydrogen fuel is supplied, and it did not respond to requests for comment."
So they may be using dirty hydrogen from fossil fuels. I have toured a German solar-powered electrolysis hydrogen production plant; one big enough to support a train would be a very substantial investment in size and money.
Not to mention the maintenance on fuel cells. PEMs are usually for small to medium installations, but there are issues with longevity of the expensive membranes. SOFCs a
How is the torque? (Score:2)
I know the diesel trains can be very good for hauling massive loads of stuff.
Hydrogen is fantastic as it has no byproduct (if I recall, just water vapor?) but it's dangerous to contain and pretty sure it's very hard to make efficiently.
I saw someone splitting water into hydrogen using a solar panel setup long ago, although it's not cost effective at all vs most power sources, ignoring the efficiency standpoint, it's clean and unlimited. (to my knowledge, again)
Honestly not a bad idea, assuming it fully re
Hydrogen's problems are in the details (Score:4, Informative)
I know the diesel trains can be very good for hauling massive loads of stuff.
Just being pedantic but most of them are properly termed diesel-electric where electric motors drive the wheels and the diesel engine has no direct connection to the drive wheels. It just exists to drive a generator. You could seamlessly replace the diesel engine with a different power source (including hydrogen fuel cells) and it would function more or less identically.
Hydrogen is fantastic as it has no byproduct (if I recall, just water vapor?) but it's dangerous to contain and pretty sure it's very hard to make efficiently.
It is very clean once you get it in the fuel cell but the process of getting and transporting the hydrogen tends to be inefficient (electrolysis) or dirty (processing fossil fuels) so it isn't so great once you think about the whole system. Hydrogen isn't so much dangerous to contain as it is (comparatively) expensive and difficult.
Honestly not a bad idea, assuming it fully replaces diesel trains long term.
It won't replace diesel trains most likely because it's not economically competitive or efficient for the reasons mentioned above plus a few others not mentioned. There are corner cases where hydrogen fuel cells will make a lot of sense but it's hard to see a future where they replace diesel engines on a widespread basis in most applications including trains. That said I hope they keep working the technology because some interesting things are bound to come out of it one way or another.
we could call this train ... (Score:2, Funny)
First hydrogen-powered train hits the tracks (Score:2)
Did it explode?
Re:More 'climate change' bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
The price is out for grabs. And no one is claiming it. I wonder why.
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Evidence of absence (Score:2)
Well that's because you can't really prove that something isn't happening.
You absolutely can prove that something isn't happening and we do it all the time. It's called evidence of absence [wikipedia.org]. Furthermore the concept you are confused about is proving a negative [wikipedia.org] and the notion that we cannot prove a negative isn't universally true either.
Re:More 'climate change' bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Satellites don't measure surface air temperature, which is most relevant for us. Here's a better graph: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis... [nasa.gov]
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The intensity of the signals these microwave radiometers measure at different microwave frequencies is directly proportional to the temperature of different, deep layers of the atmosphere.
Yes, I know. The problem is that the IR emissions from all the layers get combined. Pulling them apart requires a lot of modelling. And the lowest layer they tease out of the data is significantly thicker than the customary surface air temperature (1.5 meter above ground). Temperature gradient near the surface is very high, so it makes a huge difference whether you measure at 1.5 meters, or 150 meters.
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Indeed. What about efficiency? Something in the back of my mind tells me that current hydrogen fuel cells are not very energy efficient when the entire process from power source to vehicle motion is considered. But that's not a rigorous analysis. Just something I might have read once. I did a quick web search and came up with this -- https://www.greenoptimistic.co... [greenoptimistic.com] -- which certainly seems to indicate that H-Fuel-Cells have some problems. But I'm not sure that it's the full story. Anyone actually k
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A massive problem the proponents of Hydrogen Fuel cells don't want to talk about is that they don't get their Hydrogen from electrolyzing water into O2 & H2 as that is massively inefficient and costly. No, this supposedly GREEN energy source gets all it's Hydrogen from steam reforming Natural Gas! [wikipedia.org] in plants that don't even recover the resulting CO2.
With the inefficiencies lost at every step transforming the LNG into Hydrogen then storing it then using fuel cells, gydrogen Fuel cell powered trains are no
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Converting water into O2 and H2 is not inefficient!
Why do people always claim that? Read a book man!
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Read a book yourself! Electrolysis is inefficient to the point where it is much cheaper to steam reform Natural Gas than it is to crack water!
There are ZERO sources of commercial amounts of H2 from electrolysis of water! ALL commercial H2 sources are from steam reforming of Natural Gas! Not some, not most, ALL!
By all means, build your own company that sells H2 from water, just let us know what you call it so that we can short it before it inevitably tanks so someone can make some money off it.
Hydrogen is good for corner cases (Score:2)
What about efficiency? Something in the back of my mind tells me that current hydrogen fuel cells are not very energy efficient when the entire process from power source to vehicle motion is considered. But that's not a rigorous analysis. Just something I might have read once.
No you have it right. Hydrogen fuel cells are quite efficient for the part of the process on the vehicle but the larger process of producing and distributing the hydrogen is wasteful and economically not competitive. Your options are primarily either some sort of energy intensive electrolysis or some sort of processing of fossil fuels where it is generally more efficient to just use the fossil fuels directly. While there are corner cases where hydrogen fuel cells make sense, in general there usually more
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Electrolysis from PV isn't all that great.
On a large scale, those 70% you get from plain old alkaline electrolyzers should be enough if you have access to excess generation that nobody knows what to do with.
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Hydrogen embrittlement will destroy every container you make.
Not at all. It's trivial to gravitationally contain hydrogen without any embrittlement at all. It's like hundreds of orders of magnitude more common to store hydrogen like this than any other way.
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Re:zero-emissions source of fuel (Score:5, Informative)
Your point is valid - most hydrogen is produced by steam reformation of natural gas, which releases CO2. Widescale production of hydrogen without substantial emissions (e.g., electrolysis powered by wind and solar) is still a long ways off
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that it's totally incorrect to refer to hydrogen as "zero emissions." There aren't any emissions from the release of that energy. That is, unlike a diesel locomotive, there are no tailpipe emissions. A pedant would say "well, then, they should clarify and say 'zero tailpipe emissions'", and they would be correct. But emissions from diesel locomotives - and other diesel emissions like trucks and container ships, are sources of substantial air pollution that is a hazard to human health. So switching to hydrogen still has benefits.
And, since you were curious about emissions per kJ output... I suggest having a look at this paper from 2014 [ucsusa.org], comparing the total emissions of a gasoline car to a hydrogen fuel cell equivalent. It's not quite the same comparison as locomotives, but gets the point across. Per distance traveled, the fuel cell vehicle produces 34% fewer CO2 emissions per distance traveled if the hydrogen is sourced from natural gas. As the hydrogen source greens (i.e., electrolysis replaces steam reformation), the emissions drop further.
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I'm a fat neckbeard Bernie fan, and take exception to your characterization.
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That is interesting.
"In 2004, a federal immigration judge ordered that Mr. Palij be deported. But for years, American officials failed to persuade any country to accept a man born in what was once Poland and is now Ukraine, and who had served a murderous German regime."
2004. Trump had nothing to do with it. I would guess Bush didn't even have anything to do with it, but Trump certainly didn't.