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

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

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.

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.