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First Hydrogen-Powered Train Hits the Tracks In Germany (arstechnica.com)
"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.
This might be true for locomotives, which mostly max out the load allowed on tracks to provide for maximum pulling power. But here, we have a light rail train for passenger transport, where acceleration is king, and a low mass requires less power to accelerate. Yes, if you have only half the weight, the amount of force you can put to the rails halves too, but because of the half weight, you get the same acceleration with half the force, requiring only half the power and half the energy to accelerate.
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.
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).
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.
> 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.)
> 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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
HAND.
Satellites don't measure surface air temperature, which is most relevant for us. Here's a better graph: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...
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.
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, 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.