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First Hydrogen-Powered Train Hits the Tracks In Germany (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.

"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.

9 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. More diesel locomotives than I thought by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was intuitively assuming that most of trains, at least in Europe, run on electricity. But apparently they are building diesel-supporting locomotives even nowadays, although mostly as a backup under very specific conditions. I don't think that have ever traveled in a primarily-diesel-powered train.

    --
    Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    1. Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought by hholzgra · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here in Germany almost everything long and medium distance is electric (minus e.g the ill-fated ICE-TD that's no longer in operation).

      Local lines that operate aside from the electrified main tracks still often run diesel-electric though. Especially the single track local lines are usually not electrified, and at times even signals and switches are still operated by someone locally pulling big levers (although that's been mostly phased out over the last two decades).

    2. Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So the "major" lines in Germany (including the ICE bullet train) essentially all have electrical overhead. The smaller local lines that go into the sticks, those trains often are diesel powered only, i.e. no electrical overhead for (large) part of the way. There even used to be a diesel-powered ICE:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_TD

      but that was not such a success. I estimate there to be *many* local lines on which diesel trains run, however: the investment to turn them into electrical would be too much for most German communities/states/provinces (=Bundeslaender).

      The German rail (Deutsche Bahn) prides itself that all their electrical trains run on green electricity, but the "green nature" of Germany as a whole is indeed debatable: they use lots of coal (hence lots of CO2) to generate power, whereas France does not (lots of nuclear power). Moreover, Germans generally have a car culture the likes of which I have only seen in the US (Berlin and perhaps some other cities possibly being an exception).

    3. Re:More diesel locomotives than I thought by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No his intuition is thinking of all those rail lines you see which are mostly electric. You really need to go bush or down to some nastier parts of the country to find non-electrified railways. Over 50% of the rail network in Germany is electrified. MOST of the goods are moved over exclusively electric tracks. Pretty much all people are. This is really a case of edge cases. Some whole coutnries will refuse transit to non-electric trains, and the biggest ports in the EU are all electric as well.

      The German green hype machine is — typical of German propaganda — highly effective.

      As it should be. Hype should be quite easy when you generate a fraction of the emissions as the USA, have the second largest wind power system in the world, and the largest solar installation while investing heavily in green power.

      France sitting on a tower of nukes doesn't change the Germany's achievements.

  2. Thats all well and good on dry rails... by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... but things get a bit more complex when they're wet or have leaves or snow on them. A heavier train can push through any crap on the railhead and get better grip whereas a lighter train can have more problems. This is most noticable in autumn when leaves on the line can be a serious problem.

  3. "natural gas reforming, not a carbon-neutral" by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:"natural gas reforming, not a carbon-neutral" by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While it is not ideal, the door towards an ideal situation is now more open. The production of H2 is a separate problem, which can be solved separately. They're just not finished yet, but they are more ready for the future.

    --
    Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  5. Re:heavy train? by spth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That depends on line usage.

    Sure, electrification has advantages, but it is costly, require time, and there will be people trying to resist.

    In the end I think this has to be decided on a line-by-line basis. For a line with steep inclines with frequent trains and few tunnels, the benefits of line electrification should be worth it. For a line without such inclines, few tunnels, few trains, electrification might not be worth it; then the battery-powered train could be a good alternative to Diesel.

    Disclaimer: I am am member of Bürgerbündnis Elztalbahn, which supports electrification of the Elztalbahn (no tunnels, AFAIR incline 1:100 on 12 km of the line, service to be upgraded to about 1 train per 30 min and direction throughout most of the day). There is an opposing group, the Elztalbahn Bürgerinitiative that fights against electrification; they tend argue that future battery- or hydrogen-powered trains make electrification obsolete.

  6. Re:heavy train? by spth · · Score: 3, Interesting
    According to a report from 2012, in Germany, then, 59% of track was electrified, and 90% of rail traffic (train-kilometers) was electric.

    Since the Diesel trains are mostly smaller DMUs on branch lines (EMUs typically on big long-distance and urban commuter trains), I'd assume that far above 90% of passenger-kilometers on rail would be by electric trains.

    Since you asked about "rain electrification": Germany has far more thunderstorms than Britain or Ireland, but on a global scale it would rank below average. (map). But I currently feel too lazy to calculate the number of lightning strikes per rail passenger kilometer.