Fuel Cell Powered Japanese Trains on Trial in July

ScorpFromHell writes "As per this yahoo! news item, "East Japan Railway Co. is to conduct a test run of the world's first fuel-cell-powered train in July. The fuel cells, which generate power from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, will help reduce environmental pollution compared to the existing electric and diesel engines, the company said." But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them? In other words, can this technology be used by countries with not so deep pockets as Japan?"

Comments

Chemical Reaction?

[AKAImBatman]

The fuel cells, which generate power from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen

That doesn't sound right. Usually "chemical reaction" infers that new molecules will be formed. As I understand it, in the case of most fuel cells, the electron is stripped from the hydrogen to produce electricity. If these cells were utilizing the combustion of H2 and O to form H2O, wouldn't that make them a powerplant rather than fuel cells?

Or am I totally off base here? (Feel free to mod me down if that proves to be the case.)

Re:Chemical Reaction?

[AKAImBatman]

Wikipedia calls it an "Electrochemcial" reaction. Which sounds a little more reasonable to me, though I suppose it can still be referred to as a plain "chemical" reaction. It just doesn't seem very precise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_Cell

Re:Chemical Reaction?

[mrchaotica]

First of all, combustion is a chemical reaction.

Second, your use of the phrase "power plant" implies using combustion to generate heat, which is then used to expand a gas to drive a piston to move a linkage etc. This is called a fuel cell instead because it uses the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity which then drives an electric motor and so forth.

In other words, H2 + O2 -> H2O can be used to drive combustion engines and fuel cells.

Re:Chemical Reaction?

[AKAImBatman]

In other words, H2 + O2 -> H2O can be used to drive combustion engines and fuel cells.

Except that fuel cells don't combust per se. Which was my point. The hydrogen acts as the Anode, the Oxygen as the Cathode, and the plates between them strip off the hydrogen electrons to create a voltaic imbalance. The actual combustion of the two is secondary to the energy generation, and is not directly used by the process. The only thing used is the attraction between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

A combustion engine on the other hand, uses the pressure developed by the combustion to produce mechanical energy which can then be translated into electrical power through the use of a dynamo or generator.

The point I'm getting at is that the article feels incredibly imprecise. There is an electrochemical reaction occurring that produces power output, but the actual chemical reaction is not harnessed. Or at least, that's the one way of looking at it. You do still end up with a recombination of the electrons, protons, and oxygen to produce water in the end so I guess I can't entirely fault the article.

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

"In other words, can this technology be used by countries with not so deep pockets as Japan?"

I think a better question would be "Why isn't the U.S. doing more to be in the forefront of promoting alternative fuel sources?

Steve,
http://tail-f.net/

electric pollution?

[moosesocks]

will help reduce environmental pollution compared to the existing electric and diesel engines

hold on a sec.... Electric train engines produce pollution? How is that possible?

Granted, a fair amount of power is lost in the transmission lines, but given that they're run at such a high voltage to begin with, that shouldn't be a huge issue (P=I^2*R). Is more power lost in the transmission process than the process necessary to manufacture and produce all this hydrogen and oxygen?

Fuel Cells are nifty as an energy storage medium, but for trains, they seem wholly inappropriate, especially when electric trains eliminate the need for a storage medium at all (and in a country as densly populated as Japan, this shouldn't be an issue at all)

Re:electric pollution?

[jrockway]

No, there are plenty of rural areas in Japan that (still) use diesel locomotives to move trains. Fuel-cell powered trains would be practical in these locations.

Obey the Law!! (of Conservation of Energy)

[scovetta]

Alright, everyone's going to jump down the guy's throat for:

But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them?

However, I think we should question the efficiency of this. If it takes X amount of energy to run a normal train, but 4X to produce the fuel cell, then is that really a good thing? It's like people saying that electric cars are so much better for the environment. Instead of burning gasoline, you burn coal (or whatever) in the power plants. Is the efficiency of a power plant really so much better than your car?

I don't know the answer to that, but I'm sure there's a /.er out there with some nice statistics for us all.

Re:Obey the Law!! (of Conservation of Energy)

[evilviper]

If it takes X amount of energy to run a normal train, but 4X to produce the fuel cell, then is that really a good thing?

More energy is still cheaper and more "green" if you are getting it from nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, etc. It's also trivially easy to charge them off-peak, when the energy is cheaper to produce because it's available in excess.

4X wouldn't be a good number, but even 2X would work-out just fine, and there's no reason to assume it's anywhere near that bad, anyhow.

Instead of burning gasoline, you burn coal (or whatever) in the power plants. Is the efficiency of a power plant really so much better than your car?

Yes, it certainly is. Even when you count the line losses, charger losses, battery losses, etc., you still come out ahead of burning gasoline directly. Besides that, your car doesn't have complex exhaust filtering and control systems, as power plants do. And, NIMBY should apply here, since the power plants can be far away from you, and polluting where there are far, far fewer people to be affected by it.

Electric cars would likely be charged at night, as well, when a much lower percentage of that power is comming from coal, and more is comming from hydro, wind, etc.

No statistics from me. I've posted them to /. plenty of times before, and don't feel like looking them up yet again.

no it's not worth it.

[frovingslosh]

You need to look into how that hydrogen is being produced. The only large scale production of hydrogen that I know of makes hydrogen from natural gas, a fossil fuel. And it is amazingly wasteful and inefficent, and as dirty as burning natural gas or gasoline in a motor veichle. Although it does allow one to relocate the polution from a given area, it contributes even more to global warming than older technologies.

Re:no it's not worth it.

[LordLucless]

While I'm not sure about the relative polution created by burning natural gas to create hydrogen vs burning it for energy directly, there is an advantage to relocation the pollution to a single point. It's much more feasible to implement high-tech and expensive filters and control mechanisms in one or two hydrogen production plants than it is in a couple of million cars across a country. Then too, when a better method of production is discovered, all you need to do is upgrade the production plants, rather than wait for everyone to be a new, cleaner car.

But...

[mark-t]

"But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them?"

Of course not.

But that's largely irrellevant if the energy to produce them was derived from an energy source that is not exausted by use, such as solar, hydro, or geothermal sources.

Rich People should do stupid, inefficient things?

[Phat_Tony]

"But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them? In other words, can this technology be used by countries with not so deep pockets as Japan?"

What, rich people should do things that are economically stupid?

It's not about this being stupidly inefficient, yet Japan can afford to do it anyway because they're rich. The question is, which is a more efficient use of electricity (or, more generally,. resources), running an electric train, or running a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell train? Whether you're rich or poor, you should still use the technology that works best for you.

I think it might have occurred to someone in Japan to check and see if this is better than running a conventional electric train in otherwise similar conditions before building it. Although it's quite possible they didn't care. It could be like ethanol in the US, which is used for political reasons, not because it's an efficient way to improve the environment. Depending on who's counting, it generates between .7 and 1.5 times as much power as it consumes to make. We could reduce pollution (including carbon emissions) much more by spending the money we spend on ethanol on nuclear power, solar arrays, or wind power. Ethanol fuel, in it's present state, is government graft to benefit corn farmers and ease the conscience of environmentalists who don't understand it.

I am interested to know if this train really is about a great new technology for saving the environment, or a political ambition.

Wouldn't it be nice...

[Sleet01]

if only people who actually understood, say, chemistry or electricity or, or, or _English_ were allowed to post on news items? I mean, come on, "lesser than"?!

And yes, a fuel cell strips electrons from H2 in the process of creating H2O from H2 and O2 - a chemical reaction - and no, it does not take "lesser" energy to create the gases than is generated! But it sure generates less smog and polution than diesel, and is arguably as effecient as transmitting high-voltage electricity over long distances.

even if it's a wash....

[ChrisGilliard]

But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them?

Even if it takes about the same energy to produce the chemicals, this is ok. Don't think of a fuel cell as an energy producer, it's an energy storage device. This is like a battery. When you charge a battery, you don't get a net increase in energy. You are merely moving electricity that is produced in an electric plant into the battery. The train is the same idea. With something the same size as a train, I can't see any reason not to just use a battery. In fact, you could potentially have a batery car or something like that to store the energy and it would be cheaper than fuel cells. Fuel cells are mainly interesting in automobile applications because their energy storage density is greater than Lithium batteries. Still it's good to see work being done on the fuel cell front.

Re:I think we all know the problem with this

[Ohreally_factor]

Thanks for the link!

Sorry for assuming that you were an idiot, but your initial post was light on details and this is slashdot after all.