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.

Comments

heavy train?

[polar red]

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:More 'climate change' bullshit

[Sique]

If you could really show that there is no man-made global warming, the amount of grants you'll get even from a single coal or crude oil company or a crude exporting country will dwarf anything you will get from working at a climate lab somewhere in the world.

The price is out for grabs. And no one is claiming it. I wonder why.

Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought

[CustomSolvers2]

Your intuition probably has you thinking Germany is the greenest major European country

Not really. It is mostly formed by my personal experiences in my country (Spain) and in other European ones, Germany among them. I am intuitively used to see electrical lines all over any train station/route.

Regarding what you say about France being the greenest country because of its high reliance on nuclear power, I don't agree with you. What that means is that the polluting emissions of certain species (where you can include the not-directly-damaging-health CO2) which they generate are lower, but that provokes other problems like having to care about the (veeeeeeeery-)long-term storage of nuclear waste. I don't want to start a discussion here about it, just to highlight that I am not precisely pro-nuclear (ironically, I do like its technological and theoretical background quite a lot and studied it in the university).

Re:"natural gas reforming, not a carbon-neutral"

[chispito]

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.