The World's First Hydrogen-Powered Passenger Trains Are Here (cnn.com) 124
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN Travel: The future of environmentally friendly travel might just be here -- and it's Germany that's leading the charge, with the first ever rail line to be entirely run on hydrogen-powered trains, starting from Wednesday. Fourteen hydrogen trains powered by fuel cell propulsion will exclusively run on the route in Bremervorde, Lower Saxony. The 93 million euro ($92.3 million) deal has been struck by state subsidiary Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen (LVNG), the owners of the railway, and Alstom, builders of the Coradia iLint trains. The Elbe-Weser Railways and Transport Company (EVB), which will operate the trains, and gas and engineering company Linde, are also part of the project.
The trains, five of which which debut Wednesday, will gradually replace the 15 diesel trains that currently run on the route, with all 14 running exclusively by the end of the year. Just 1 kilo of hydrogen fuel can do the same as around 4.5 kilos of diesel. The trains are emissions-free and low-noise, with only steam and condensed water issuing from the exhaust. They have a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), meaning they can run for an entire day on the network on a single tank of hydrogen. A hydrogen filling station has already been established on the route. The trains can go at a maximum of 140 kph, or 87mph, though regular speeds on the line are much less, between 80-120 kph.
The trains, five of which which debut Wednesday, will gradually replace the 15 diesel trains that currently run on the route, with all 14 running exclusively by the end of the year. Just 1 kilo of hydrogen fuel can do the same as around 4.5 kilos of diesel. The trains are emissions-free and low-noise, with only steam and condensed water issuing from the exhaust. They have a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), meaning they can run for an entire day on the network on a single tank of hydrogen. A hydrogen filling station has already been established on the route. The trains can go at a maximum of 140 kph, or 87mph, though regular speeds on the line are much less, between 80-120 kph.
This kind of makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
A train can be far more purpose built to handle the storage and transport issues with hydrogen and can be filled at a specialized facility by trained personel.
On the other hand trains are probably pretty low on the list of cutting emissions since they are pretty efficent from an energy-per-person-per-mile-moved basis but every bit helps.
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Re: This kind of makes sense (Score:2)
Yeah this is a cool proof of concept but it's not going to scale without having the economic production of hydrogen fuel more accessible and getting it from non fossil sources.
I can see a future where long haul trains are hydrogen powered though even over a battery powered one but thatll shake out over the next couple decades. I think this is a possible use case for hydrogen compared to passenger vehicles which a total nonstarter.
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Yeah, and that is a Methane - production - plant for H2.
How stupid are you?
In fact, the hydrogen for this train is probably produced by stripping the carbon off of methane :(
And why would that be the case in a country that has so much surplus wind power that we do not know what to do with it, except producing Hydrogen with it?
You are either an idiot, or just silly, or a paid troll: or ignorant like hell.
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This are short howl trains, where it is considered to be too expensive to electrify the tracks *and* replace the trains by electric ones. So, the idea is to see how a hydrogen economy scales in that niche.
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We do however blow that efficiency on scale. Per unit moved trains are massively efficient but in trip terms they emit far more CO2 despite competing against trucks which stop and start.
Mind you this is low hanging fruit used as a PoC.
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Hydrogen as a "fuel" is a misplaced use of technology.
We should be using "hydrogen" in devices where water is not a scarce resource, and the devices it's used in are low-risk environments.
Ships and Rail transport are "not that bad" uses of the technology because it allows for creating hydrogen fuel on the vehicle by auxiliary energy sources (eg solar) or from terminal power (Eg shore power,) It is however not risk-free.
It is however bad to put hydrogen fuel cells into things that can not be fueled directly
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Like "shipping" hydrogen from from one country to another is -THE WORST- idea,
All fuels like coal, gas, uranium, and most importantly: oil, are shipped from one country to the other one.
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Like "shipping" hydrogen from from one country to another is -THE WORST- idea,
All fuels like coal, gas, uranium, and most importantly: oil, are shipped from one country to the other one.
I think that's the point - hydrogen is less efficient to transport than all those other fuels because it is much less dense. So it has to either be compressed (which is inefficient) or refrigerated and liquefied (hydrogen boils at about 20K, so this is very energy-intensive too)
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Perhaps you should read up how efficient it is to transport oil or gas?
Less dense: that is not argument. That is just silly. You transport X kg form A to B in a ship. Costs the same, regardless what X is made of if the amount of kg is the same.
Cooling of Methane or compressing it (LGN), seems not to bother you, but H2 does? Why? Bottom line it comes down to economics and avoiding CO2 emissions. That is all.
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90% OF THE WORLD HAS A SHIT GRID that can't support wholesale adoption of battery cars. And even the parts of the world that has a decent grid do not have ones that can handle all vehicles being battery powered.
Is that in percentage of people or percentage of land area?
The only country I'm aware about with a shit grid, with various variations of shit, is the US of awesomness.
Hydrogen is happening, and will find its niches, though.
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The only country I'm aware about with a shit grid, with various variations of shit, is the US of awesomness.
Some less shitty than others. I would also point out, on the same lines, the adoption of electric vehicles will be pretty slow, because it takes time to build cars and people tend to run cars for pretty long periods before replacing them, so there is time for more power production to be built out to handle the load, it isn't like we are replacing all the cars next year and the grid is just going to collapse.
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There are also other effects, like countries still upgrading their grids, installing state of the art equipment.
Here in Thailand nearly everything "new" you can buy are e.g. LEDs - and absurd powerful ones, and absurd cheap as well. OTOH people upgrade to ACs - not all but it is noticeable.
People in general underestimate how "trailing back" nations develop. It is actually pretty simple:
a) as in cars in the 1990s, Europe sold old Diesle (especially Mercedes) to north Africa, the middle east and Asia (used ca
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Actually, no.
Modern locomotives are giant diesel generators driving electric traction motors
They're really quite filthy
Why not electric trains? (Score:3)
Diesel trains are horrible, but I don't get it, why not electric trains? We've had those for a long time now, it's pretty mature technologi. You don't even need batteries you can power them from the tracks, or you can have small batteries if you avoid powered lines in stations etc.
Hydrogen generation is very inefficient, you end up using a lot of power, and in Germany a quarter of it is coal, which is probably dirtier than Diesel.
Re:Why not electric trains? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well just about all subways are powered with a third rail and most light rail and commuter trains are already done with overhead lines and pantographs but there are areas where there just is not feasible, either the geography is not condusive to it, the route is too long, overhead lines can be ugly etc.
I think doing it electric is overall the most cost effective option to run a train by far if the infrastructure is in place so there's always an incentive to do it that way where you can but likely for this the cost of installing all that infrastructure will buy you a bunch of diesel or in this case hydrogen trains.
Re:Why not electric trains? (Score:5, Informative)
It arguably makes more sense long term to use batteries because you can charge them from third rail, pantograph etc. where it exists, and then use them in between those sections. Rolling charging without it being wireless, who'd have thunk it? But the supply of batteries is poor right now, so hydrogen makes sense right now.
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They have that set up in Japan. Short sections of track that can't be electrified, so the train has a battery that is big enough to cover those areas.
They are also deploying regenerative braking tech in the electrified areas, putting the energy into another line or back into the grid.
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The route is 100 km long and only hits a couple stations with existing electrification. The train would never spend enough time under overhead line electrification to charge the batteries.
Re:Why not electric trains? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason for H2 instead of overhead wires is cost. The cost to electrify a route is huge. If the route is high usage like the NE corridor in the US or near major cities, then "on grid" works. If the line is longer and lower usage, the H2 solution costs a lot less to install.
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It costs a lot because you have to build a kind of mini grid. Imagine in 90% or the world where the electric grid is dogshit. How long will it take to build one and all the power sources in order to switch all vehicles to battery. Decades. Just like how long it will take to fix and upgrade the rickety power grids in the industrialized world to be able to handle the loads. You are right, building power grids is expensive. Clean H2 is achievable and we know how to distribute it.
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Most grids can handle the load super easy.
You charge at night, when "base load" is happening and that is in most countries 40% of peak load.
So: you just keep your grid running at a higher load than you normally would do at night: simple!
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The other more important problem is: parts of the route, or all of it, has to be shut down during the work on putting up overhead electricity.
Many such routes in Germany are single rail. So the trains can only pass each other in train stations. As soon as you work on electrifying between two stations, that part of the railway is shut down. So you need busses etc. to keep the transport going.
If you can just replace the diesle-electric trains with H2 driven ones, that seems much cheaper. And: projects like th
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There wasn't much bang for your buck (or Euro) at Berlin's new airport. It was worth every penny, eh? In a similar vein, the fine citizens of Stuttgart will be able to travel so much better than anybody else when they finally get their new railway station, and the audiophiles of Hamburg are enjoying their music in their new shiny Elbphilharmonie more than anybody e
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The trains are actually running quite well, and the Autobahns are not that bad either.
And both: do not give back a bang for the buck. And we still use them and build them.
No idea what your Berlin Airport and Stuttgart 21 project have to do with large infrastructure research projects Neither are.
Berlin Airport as well as Stuttgart 21 and the Karlsruhe "U-Strab" went to "the lowest bidders". Everyone who made an offer as in "it will take X years" and "will roughly cost Y billions" got rejected. So: everyone w
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> Possibly, but green hydrogen is really taking off...
"Hydrogen alliance' formed as Canada, Germany sign agreement on exports" https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
"About Project Nujio’qonik" https://worldenergygh2.com/abo... [worldenergygh2.com]
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Or maybe a Clean 'Hydrogen alliance' formed as Canada, Germany sign agreement on exports [www.cbc.ca]; using wind farms on the ocean side in the windiest part of North America to produce Clean H2. Maybe Germany realizes battery powered everything is a pipe dream and H2 will be what provides power for vehicles.
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I wouldn't be surprised if later down the line, they switch to hydrogen produced from natural gas because it's cheaper than electrolysis.
If you have free (yes I wrote free, you can also write: negative priced) wind energy: then electrolyizis is the cheapest. Or do you think buying nat gas - oh oh, is there not just a crisis about nat gas right now? - is cheaper than using dirt cheap water and free wind energy?
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Re:Why not electric trains? (Score:4, Interesting)
charging off the main electrified line is a better solution for them
You just explained why it's not: it only works close to the main lines. You could be 200 km from the main electrified line, it will be a half solution that will cause logistics headaches. But both are studied and reported on at high levels. Some experts think lithium batteries are an intermediate solution and hydrogen will win on the long run, so some companies focus on battery trains (Bombardier), others on hydrogen (Alstom). Hydrogen is strategically preferred in Europe because it does not depend on imported mineral resources (Lithium is only economical when mined/imported, and battery makers are Asian), while Europe has a thriving Electrolysers industry: Topsoe and GHS from Denmark, Siemens Bosch and Thyssenkrupp from Germany, Enapter from Italy, Schlumberger and Elogen from France.
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You just explained why it's not: it only works close to the main lines. You could be 200 km from the main electrified line, it will be a half solution that will cause logistics headaches.
Given that we can make 600 km EV cars right now, 200 km wouldn't be even half range for an EV train. But the answer remains pretty simple: Then you just electrify more rails.
If you just electrify the appropriate length around rail yards, it should be more than sufficient. Basically, as the train approaches the station, it hits the electrification, and starts charging back up. It braking to stop there also results in charging the battery. It should be able to keep charging even as cargo and passenger ope
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That is two minutes. Nothing charges to a relevant level in 2 minutes.
You have a citation on this? Some googling on cargo trains shows that they have a downtime of 1-2 hours at a minimum, sometimes taking 3-4 or longer. At which point you should be able to put a full charge on it.
That is an grammar error, so I have to subtract 2 points, and not just 1/2 for a spelling mistake.
As you have a grammar error in your response here, you suffer double rebound, so that's 4 points off.
"Missing" the word "could" is not actually a grammar error. While I could include it, it doesn't actually change the meaning of the sentence.
On the other hand, hybrid lines like your suggestion, most certainly will happen supper or later. Especially in hilly areas where going downhill with charge you.
Be careful of throwing stones for mistakes you have your
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You have a citation on this? Some googling on cargo trains shows that they have a downtime of 1-2 hours at a minimum, sometimes taking 3-4 or longer. At which point you should be able to put a full charge on it.
We are not talking about cargo trains.
Be careful of throwing stones for mistakes you have yourself... :P
I only make spelling mistakes
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We are not talking about cargo trains.
Yes we are: "even as cargo and passenger operations are done"
Still, I doubt longer distance passenger trains, the ones that go long distances outside of cities that should already be electrified, are loaded up in only 3 minutes. Hell, a lot of the local light rails I take when in the city often take longer.
You still have that they can use regenerative braking, so that as they're pulling up to a stop they're charging. Depending on braking speed, battery type, and wattage capacity on the line, they may be a
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Germany is working on mining its own Lithium from underground water flows.
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yet there are plenty of 200km+ railways with too little traffic to justify electrification, there are plenty of workarounds to make the technology scale.
These batteries can be mounted on their own trucks and made into a form of battery tenders. Thus you can have a few of them charged up and ready to be coupled up and used and detached and left for recharging. These battery tenders can even have their own small motors and be self propelled to let them move on their own to charging stations.
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Just a thought, but would an electrified line pose a problem for people and animals to cross.
Aside from signs and barriers keeping people off the tracks, there are a number of mechanical and electrical ways to protect people and animals from the lines. There are a number of ways you should sheathe the electrified line so that people can't touch it. Imagine something a bit like track lighting. You could have a rail that's insulated material with a groove in the side and, at the end of that groove, a cavity at the top and your electrified rail is there. So, from a cross section it would be a capital
Re:Why not electric trains? (Score:4, Interesting)
why not electric trains?
European countries have dense network of historical lines that go village to village in all directions, which are not economical to electrify. Powering through a third rail has been obsoleted, last were removed in 1973. France has 16 000 km of electrified train lines, and 13 000 km that needs electrification (55% is electrified [1]). The cost of electrification is calculated to 1,59 M€/km [2]. Electrification of French tracks would therefore cost 20 G€. Plus you need to build about 10 000 crossings with small bridges, about 100 k€ each, another 1 G€. And you still need to replace the existing diesel locomotives (built for 40 years minimum, some steam engines have been in service for 80 years). If you have to pay 20+ G€ for the overhead line infrastructure, and still need to buy new locomotives, it's more sensible to use the money to buy hydrogen locomotive and build hydrogen infrastructure that will be useful to more than just the trains (energy storage in general and for private hydrogen cars).
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[2] https://www.economie.gouv.fr/f... [economie.gouv.fr]
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1. Buy battery-electric locomotives rather than pure electric. Even if they only have a few hundred km of range, that's enough that you can avoid needing to electrify large sections of the system, and don't need to mess with the crossings, as the locomotive has enough power to get across without issue. Plus, you can avoid electrifying "complicated" bits and concentrate on the cheaper spots.
2. Don't bother replacing the diesel-electrics except as attrition demands it.
Personally, I think the hydrogen infr
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Producing hydrogen is inefficient
It is not. But perhaps you care to find a link and try to explain why you think it is inefficient (compared e.g. to transporting 1000 tons of oil from Saudi Arabia to Hamburg)
Why concentrate on oil? (Score:2)
I'd think that given the context of me talking about replacing the locomotives with battery-electric ones, you'd realize that transporting of oil would be considered irrelevant, because I'm not talking about oil powered trains.
As such, let's see:
https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/ev... [fueleconomy.gov]
An EV converts "over" 77% of electricity from grid to wheel power. Conventional gasoline is 12-30%.
Hydrogen:
Electrolysis: 70-82% [wikipedia.org]
Compression: 2-3 kWh/kG. [energy.gov] At 33.5 kWh per kg, that's around 92% efficiency.
Shipping: We'll ignore this
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Electric motors are in big installations 99% efficient.
No idea why I triggered your post, though.
It has nothing to do with passenger trains going for hydrogen on a track that can not be electrified in short time or cheap money.
Rather than the crazy proposal I saw elsewhere of producing the hydrogen in Canada and shipping it to Germany.
It is not crazy at all. As Germany does not have the grid capacity to produce such large amounts of Hydrogene.
But Canada has the opportunity. And: the Hydrogen from Canada hs
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Electric motors are in big installations 99% efficient.
You have losses in the motor controller, the transmission, and other bits and bobs in the drive system. It can indeed be over 90%, but it varies.
It has nothing to do with passenger trains going for hydrogen on a track that can not be electrified in short time or cheap money.
For the money you're investing into hydrogen, you could electrify areas within the necessary time and for less.
(Grammar: "can not" should be "cannot")
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80% efficient is definitely in the efficient range vs. being inefficient. All of the rest of your arguments about transporting, compressing/cooling it, etc. are irrelevant if the context is fossil fuel based hydrogen vs. hydrolysis-based hydrogen. That's especially true if you can produce that hydrogen in situ somewhere along the rail line, which is more likely to be possible than with a fossil fuel based system.
On the other hand, using the electricity directly, with batteries to cover non-electrified secti
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And you have not dealt with transporting oil, gas or coal.
Or do you think they magically pop up from the mine/well into your car?
Close to 50% efficiency for Hydrogen is excellent all other forms do not even come close.
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Hydrogen generation is very inefficient, you end up using a lot of power,
No it is not. Get a damn clue.
How efficient is it to transport 1000 tons of oil from a to b? Hardly more efficient than producing H2 and using it in a fuel cell.
The idea that using H2 is inefficient is a complete myth. No idea who made it up. And no idea why people fail for that myth when they have "information at their fingertips".
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Diesel trains are horrible, but I don't get it, why not electric trains? We've had those for a long time now, it's pretty mature technologi. You don't even need batteries you can power them from the tracks, or you can have small batteries if you avoid powered lines in stations etc.
Hydrogen generation is very inefficient, you end up using a lot of power, and in Germany a quarter of it is coal, which is probably dirtier than Diesel.
The problem is when you have to electrify 29,000 KM of track. Especially as some tracks will get used maybe twice a day. 29,000 KM is how much rail there is in France. it's the 9th largest network in the world and one of the most used passenger networks. The main lines will be electrified, but a lot of the spur lines wont be. About 55% is electrified. The US has about 250,000 KM of rail, this is overwhelmingly used for long distance freight so trains are irregular and have to go long distances, electrificat
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The metric I have seen is that electrification pencils out at 100 mph (160 kph) or 6 trains per hour. The route through Bremervoerde (RE33) is 120 kph and two trains per hour.
Did the math, surprised by the result (Score:5, Informative)
I was thinking "yeah, but hydrogen is so not-dense, you'll need half the train for fuel tanks. I don't think that's the case.
Hydrogen has a specific energy of 142 MJ/kg. Compressed to 35 MPa (35 atmospheres, which I don't think is crazy for steel hydrogen storage tanks) you get a density of 23 kg/m^3. That gives you an energy density of about 3 GJ/m^3.
Diesel has a specific energy of 45 MJ/kg (and I'm surprised how much lower that is) and is about .85 kg/l. Multiply it out and you get about 1 GJ/m^3, one third that of very compressed hydrogen.
If the hydrogen was only compressed to 10 MPa, about 10 atmospheres, they even out. And that doesn't even figure in the efficiency of a fuel cell/electric motor versus a diesel or diesel-electric locomotive. I'm surprised how well hydrogen stacks up and even more surprised this is the first I've heard of it.
Re:Did the math, surprised by the result (Score:4, Informative)
The hydrogen brittling is still a thing, though. The molecules are so small that they work their way into the metal of the tank, weakening it.
Especially when set under such pressures.
Re:Did the math, surprised by the result (Score:5, Informative)
You can't use a metal tank reliably without a coating... but hydrogen barrier coatings do exist.
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That's good to know.
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A coating is going to be absolutely required, of course, but there is a question of how much protection it provides. On the one hand, no coating is going to stop hydrogen from passing through it entirely, especially at high pressures, so some makes it into the steel of the tank. On the other hand, hydrogen embrittlement is not a permanent condition, since the hydrogen works its way out of the steel in the end. So I assume you get some equilibrium with an acceptable level of embrittlement. On the other, othe
Re:Did the math, surprised by the result (Score:4, Funny)
Some sparks will turn it into an afterburner (Score:2)
that will give some additional thrust as well.
Problem is that most diesel locomotives are designed to pull, not to push.
So we could do away with the cargo so we end up with this huge MadMax like rocket running on a track...
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Problem is that most diesel locomotives are designed to pull, not to push.
Good point, jet propulsion does not work so well uphill. On the other hand train track grades are usually very shallow. Energy storage through pressurized gas is definitely a thing though. You would probably want to use something a bit more inert than hydrogen though.
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That is why the tanks are made from plastic and not from metals ...
The molecules are so small that they work their way into the metal of the tank, weakening it.
Just to nitpick: that is not what is happening (in metal).
The hydrogen molecules separate into atoms, those are moving trough the "metal matrix" of the surrounding metal.
And that is not happening e.g in plastic tanks.
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you're out by an order of magnitude on your pressure. Typical pressure for gas storage tanks is on the order of 300 bar (300 atmospheres). handling gasses at these pressures is pretty common.
For rail transport, though, you're probably better off looking at cryogenic storage, which allows provides about 72kg/m3
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Hydrogen is usually compressed to roughly 200 Atmospheres in plastic tanks.
I'm surprised how well hydrogen stacks up and even more surprised this is the first I've heard of it. /.
Because the "hydrogen is inefficient" myth is strong on
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35 MPa is 350 bar. 1 bar is 10E5 Pa.
what would make a difference is (Score:3)
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We were headed that way. Once [wikipedia.org].
Re: what would make a difference is (Score:2)
Fuck yeah I wish commercial nuclear wessels had become more commonplace, makes so much sense for moving multi thousand ton ships long distances.
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The Savannah was an interesting vessel to be sure. A bit of a hybrid between a cargo ship and a passenger ship, although I suppose it was much more common for cargo ships to carry passengers in those days. According to the article though, it actually ended up costing more than the oil-powered vessels of the time, and required a special support vessel. Also, it dumped low-level nuclear waste at sea. Also, she operated for 27 years and ceased operation in 1976 and now, 46 years later, still has not been prope
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But the (few) nuclear powered vessels that have sunk are pretty harmless. The reactors of the USS Thresher and Scorpion (as well as a couple of nuclear torpedos) remain on the sea bottom with no significant radiation leakage. 50 reactors on the bottom would be far better than 50 pools of fuel oil floating on the surface.
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all those huge cargo container ships that cris-cross the world switch to a chean fuel and QUIT burning that nasty fuel oil they burn now
Everything makes a difference. What would make a real difference is people not pretending that the world needs to focus on a single solution in one sector at a time. There's 7.7billion people on this planet. We can do both.
https://maritime-executive.com... [maritime-executive.com]
Ya, but (Score:2)
I dunno about Germany and vehicles using hydrogen -- again [wikipedia.org] ...
Add a little steam engine (Score:2)
Yay, high speed, large passenger bombs! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yay, high speed, large passenger bombs! (Score:5, Informative)
A cryo tank has its own issues. But transport LH2 or HHe or LOX or even LN2 and you have the same issues. Because LH2 tanks are only a couple of PSI, they are pretty easy to make and under not a lot of stress. Basically a steel tank with a liner, an air or vacuum gap, and an outer shell.
Hydrogen explosions (Score:2)
While all of that is technically true, we also have RL examples. Some interest group managed to build a refueling station within 500m of a main artery, resulting in a national media storm as the main artery was shut down following the explosion.
https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/eks... [www.nrk.no]
I honestly wish there was a good resource to look up cases of Hydrogen facilities exploding, because they generally don't generate publicity if its far enough away from infrastructure or roads. Even the Wikipedia articles only cover m
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Hydrogene wont explode either.
And if you are in a situation where Hydrogene "could" explode: so would diesel.
km/h please (Score:3)
It's always '/' with metric units. There is no exception for km/h. 'k' means kilo not kilometres.
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In that case please sell me 2 kilos of potatoes. What, you don't sell them by length?
Too little too late (Score:3)
Hydrogen is too late to this party.
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There's nothing "too late" about hydrogen. It is solving a different problem than battery and stands to reason that you'd use low hanging fruit like a train as a PoC. The fact you said "possibility to electrify main lines" is a good idea that you're solving a very different problem than they are.
Whoo who! (Score:2)
Making more of ANY kind of train is a good idea (Score:2)
It's just more efficient than trucks and boats in general.
Why do trains need energy storage? (Score:2)
On fixed routes, one can just install electric wires or a 3rd rail. Are losses from generating and compressing hydrogen really smaller vs transmission losses?
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Questionable (Score:3)
Just for those who don't know, this train will need ca. 3-4x the electricity of normal electric trains due to inherent H2 conversion inefficiency.
Honestly, I don't understand why Germany cannot just electrify their train lines. The only reason I could imagine is nimbyism, and bingo, there it is: https://www.heise.de/forum/hei... [heise.de]
Switzerland has every single line electrified, some of them in very difficult mountain geographies including the Eiger north wall. And this since decades.
This reeks of greenwashing and shoving taxpayer money to Linde.
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Honestly, I don't understand why Germany cannot just electrify their train lines.
Cost vs cargo handling and benefit on the route.
Switzerland has every single line electrified
Switzerland is tiny and spent a metric fuckton on it. They have relatively few train lines which carry a significantly higher portion of cargo (often in transit).
This reeks of greenwashing and shoving taxpayer money to Linde.
Your post reeks of ignorance, lacks cost benefit analyses, and doesn't consider that you can't solve every problem by running a cable to it.
Passenger trains in U.S. see no growth (Score:2)
126km with lots of level crossings (Score:2)
One drunk truck-driver can ruin that dream forever.
Unintended consequences of the hydrogen economy (Score:2)
Leaked hydrogen will transit to the upper atmosphere. Where it will destroy ozone. So that really needs to be paid attention to to mitigate environmental disasters.
And production of hydrogen is usually from methane. So carbon free in final use isn’t carbon free in entire lifecycle. We need to be more aware of energy and en
Re: (Score:2)
Probably natural gas for now but thing with hydrogen is it gives you the option to generate it by other means, if not now but in the future wher with disel there's only one way to get it.
Re: (Score:2)
It is odd that one of the world's wealthiest country cannot afford to electrify its train lines.
On the other hand, if electricity is produced by burning coal, I have to admit there would be little benefit.
Probably better than using coal-fired steam locomotives though. :-) And at least any coal burning would be centralized at power plants, with better chances/opportunities for pollution mitigation -- not they'd be actually installed/used as (my understanding is) they're expensive ... There are always pros/cons to any situation, though neither are guaranteed to be great.
Re:Electrify? (Score:4, Interesting)
After travelling on the bullet train in Japan it is easy to understand why they are so proud of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Fuel delivery as cryo liquid is well understood and