First hydrogen locomotive started working in Poland.
Imagine if we somehow could run trains on electricity, that would be even better
I don’t know about Poland but I know about France (I would guess we’re not so far appart on this point).
While 95% of railways are electrified, those last 5% are not very worth it to invest in, because really low traffic and hard to operate (eg. in mountains). I’ve already heard of compromises, like hybrid locomotives that can run on battery for more than half the line and rely on diesel for the remaining.
hard to operate (eg. in mountains).
In Soviet Union Caucasus was electrified first for this exact reason. Without electrification it was too hard to operate.
Not trying to start a fight or anything, but don’t we still ‘need’ to burn a lot of coal to fuel electricity? Renewables haven’t gotten close to pushing the necessity of coal away yet, no? Why not alternatives like this in some places to offset the need for electricity?
Hydrogen doesn’t exist randomly in a well or something it has to be created by using electricity - and that transformation is very inefficient if you then use the hydrogen in an inefficient way to power an engine instead of just using the electricity directly
That argument that energy is coal-heavy actually counts against hydrogen…
Hydrogen powered stuff only makes sense when electric isn’t an option like for planes that just can’t carry heavy batteries
Apparently, some hydrogen does come out of the ground like methane: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/09/white-hydrogen-deposit-france/ but I assume it’s not abundant enough to make a difference
You don’t have to use electricity to make hydrogen! You can make it from methane! But yeah, it’s probably even worse than a diesel engine when it comes to CO2 emissions…
While it technically doesn’t you “need” electricity, Methane Pyrolysis requires energy of some sort.
Nuclear is the energy source that scares everyone but that is actually the most viable option to power the world until renewable becomes the dominant one.
Thorium has been the best solution all along but it can’t be weaponized so countries have been ignoring it for decades until recently
The issue to me in term of effeciency is that the production of hydrogen needs electricity, the movement of it needs electricity, the storage and pumping of it needs electricity, and so on. I’d rather see all that electricity in the process simply be moving the vehicle. Though lugging batteries along is an issue in it’s own.
What about wire?
What about it?
While it may not be the best option, is it not good that somewhere is at least trying it?
As long as it’s not widespread adoption, it seems like a good idea to at least trial these sort of things on a small scale to properly determine the real world application, even if the conclusion is just “yeah, it shit”.
This train is being trialed by an oil subsidiary so I think there is more than a little greenwashing going on here. The vast majority of hydrogen is “blue”, i.e. it’s manufactured from fossil fuels, so there is no environmental benefit to this. Even if it were “green”, i.e. made from water and renewable energy, the same power used to make the hydrogen, store it, transport it, turn it back to power could charge 3 or 4 battery powered trains or tenders - a tender could mean a smaller locomotive hooks up to however many battery tenders it needs for its route or switches them out in the yard.
Honestly all this feels like the railway’s Dieselization 100yrs ago. When the end of steam powered engines was drawing near, coal hauling railroads and Baldwin Locomotive in the U.S. tried all kinds of whacky and hilariously inefficient engine designs, just to keep the ol’ ways alive… none of these worked out - everyone who stuck to it lost hugely. Viz. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_and_Ohio_class_M-1
The environmental benefit of blue hydrogen is that it doesn’t put CO2 into the atmosphere. This is better than burning the hydrogen carbon gas it was produced from.
Except it does. This study suggests that the plants that produce hydrogen from fossil fuels are only capturing 80% of the CO2. So 20% is emitted. And aside from that hydrogen has the potential to contribute 12x as much to global warming as CO2 emissions.
That statement is correct, but you are still wrong. Blue Hydrogen specifically refers to hydrogen produced fron fossiles where the CO2 is captured. There is just very little blue Hydrogen being made from fossiles- most production is either grey Hydrogen (from gas no capture) or brown (same but coal).
Hydrogen probably has some niche uses but there are some things that proponents like to gloss over.
- It’s not green since most of it is produced from fossil fuels. It’s also disgustingly expensive even compared to fossil fuels. I’d note that the company Orlen Koltrans which is funding this train is a subsidiary of an oil company PKN Orlen so yeah.
- Even if it were green (e.g. water electrolysis from renewables) it takes something like 3-4x the energy to produce, store, transport, and convert back to energy as just charging a battery.
- Regardless of how it’s made hydrogen also contributes to global warming - if any hydrogen leaks or escapes during fueling or venting, it promotes the methane production in the atmosphere.
- It can and does go kaboom. e.g. this hydrogen powered bus has seen better days.
All said and done, I think it’s crazy to even bother with the tech unless its so niche it cannot be done some other way. Japanese automakers & oil companies looking to do a bit of greenwashing have been the major proponents of hydrogen and that should say something. Also the fact that hydrogen has been a miserable failure in areas where it has been piloted.
In the case of trains it seems more sensible to manufacture biodiesel or synthetic fuels than this. It’s certainly safer to transport and store. Perhaps existing trains can be converted relatively easily. Or electrify the train line or stretches of it. Batteries would be an option too - a train might simply hook up to a fresh battery tender and off it goes. Or some kind of hybrid solution that can source power from overhead lines and/or diesel and/or battery. Or even put solar on carriages to reduce fuel consumption during daylight operations. All these things seem more viable than hydrogen.
Biodiesels arent more efficent, a huge waste of land and destroying the local environment through monocultures, pesticides and fertilizers.
The most reasonable solution would be to fucking electrify the train tracks. It is a train god dammit. It runs on tracks and the track aint running anywhere else.
Biodiesels are still better than diesel and the stuff can be manufactured from seaweed, algae, any biomass really. It doesn’t have to be a monoculture. It doesn’t even have to be 100% biodiesel either - start blending it in. I agree electric motors and electrification are the ultimate outcome but the rail industry has a lot of lines and a lot of locomotives and and you want progression over time with options for battery, power lines or diesel, potentially all 3 on the same line in different parts. It might take decades to transition. It’s certainly not hydrogen, that’s for sure.
In support of your point, and to help clarify it, there’s a lot of train lines where the cost (and the carbon output) of electrification is far beyond the benefit. A lot of the North Wales coast, for example, because working in the tunnels would be prohibitively expensive. In these cases it makes sense to have bi/trimodal trains, at least until electrification technology makes significant breakthroughs.
Another example might be cases where an old rail line (e.g. ex-mining) is looking at being reopened at a low capacity. It would be madness to immediately electrify. An example I have looked at was running a train for tourists on what is currently a little-used freight line (that still uses tokens!) in the Lake District.
A whole lot of misinformation about biofuel here. Manufacturing biofuels does not require significant changes to current agriculture practices. Most biofuel is made from byproducts that would be burned as waste otherwise.
That is wrong already. Land use for biofuels
But it would get even worse, when we’d expand the land use even further by raising the demand significantly.
Two things: We’re already talking apples and oranges because I’m talking about biofuel production in the United States (the world’s largest producer of biofuel) and you’re talking about Europe.
Secondly, I’m talking about increasing the production of second-generation biofuels (cellulosic biofuel) which can be made from byproducts and green waste.
I am in favor of electrifying transportation networks in ways that do not require battery energy storage. However, no discussion about reducing reliance on fossil fuels, in particular when it comes to personal transportation, is honest if it does not account for the incredible environmental damage caused by the extraction of materials for and manufacturing and disposal of lithium batteries. Hydrogen power isn’t a direct burning of hydrogen as a clean fuel, it works by generating electricity to charge lithium batteries, which are then discharged to power electric motors.
Additionally, there is not enough lithium in the earth to sustainably replace carbon fuels for transportation. Renewable biofuels, combined with a reduction or cessation of the use of fossil fuels and an increase in clean nuclear energy are a much more likely and rational solution for the transportation energy problem.
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I can appreciate the electrification push for passenger vehicles. Good luck moving frieght with electric.
I fail to see the problem? Freight trains in Europe regularly run electrical already. There is no technological reason as to ehy they shouldnt or couldnt be electrified.
And if you want to go to mountain area, then electric is your only option
RTFM. EMUs are more capable than DMUs.
- Green hydrogen is being produced at scale.
- So what, renewables are infinite
- That’s overblown
- You think the toxic (deadly) lithium thermal runaways that can’t be stopped are somehow better? No. They are worse and a deadly underground carpark disaster waiting to happen.
- Not enough lithium in the world to supply the global suv market let alone compete with other markets and let’s not forget that the rest of the transport market…Lithium batteries are yet again another finite mined resource with the same problem as dinosaur juice.
- Rail lines won’t be electrified, they are barely being maintained as is!
- Not really. There are plans for hydrogen plants. The vast majority is “blue”. Secondly what are the chances that an oil company is going to make green hydrogen?
- The renewables aren’t the problem. The cost of capturing energy is the problem. If hydrogen takes 3-4x the energy then that’s 3-4x the land with 3-4x the solar and/or windfarms at 3-4x the expense. Do you not see the problem?
- No it isn’t. Scientific studies suggest the impact on the atmosphere might 12x worse than releasing CO2.
- Lithium isn’t the only battery material. Nor I daresay even if it were, that the safety risk is anywhere near as bad as driving a train with a hundreds of kgs of hydrogen on board
- Lithium isn’t the only battery material. There are numerous battery chemistries in existence. It might even be that some less dense chemistries like sodium ion would be viable.
- Which is why I clearly I suggested a progressive approach. Switch from diesel to biodiesel, start building hybrid trains where the motor and tender are almost separate things and where the source of power can be 2 or 3 potential inputs - diesel, electrification, battery. And where rolling stock can use solar to reduce consumption further.
- Sorry to burst your bubble. Australia, Africa, take your pick, both have huge multimillion dollar green hydrogen plants being built. Like the 1GW North Queensland hydrogen project currently in contract.
- Again see above
- Right… that is bullshit. Plenty of real world studies and events HAVE occurred and the toxic release is not a maybe flip flop study. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09784-z
Don’t like papers in nature? This guy is a bit of an asshole but he is not wrong at all and reports on the recent event/s Watch it to the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7l4wR1zhbc 4. Sure but none are here and more competitive or suitable for application (like compressed air) the leader is clear and underwhelming. Here we need to understand promises of development realistically don’t occur more often than do. 6. I won’t knock on biodiesel as we need a solution, something but we can’t create religions on one in development “potential” more likely to fail than succeed
You think the toxic (deadly) lithium thermal runaways that can’t be stopped are somehow better? No. They are worse and a deadly underground carpark disaster waiting to happen.
Yup, all those trains waiting to explode in carparks. Nor are we developing better batteries that don’t have these problems. Nope, just leaving things exactly as they are.
Not enough lithium in the world to supply the global suv market . . .
Even if lithium was our only battery option, this is just plain wrong. People misunderstand what “reserve” means in mining. It’s not the amount of something that’s available to be mined. It’s the amount that is available profitably under current economic conditions. Both better technology and other shifts in the market mean more reserves “magically” open up.
Oceanic lithium mining may already been commercially viable, and the amount of lithium we can get from that is basically unlimited. On the lab side, there’s a promising string-based evaporation method, which would substantially reduce costs and environmental footprint–exactly the sort of tech that makes more reserves open up. It still needs to be demonstrated at scale, but the strings involved don’t use any exotic materials or have any difficult production.
The fact you couldn’t put the recent derailments and toxic unstoppable fires together shows clear ideological bias.
“Developing” cool so 5 years? 10 years? For these super safe “in-development batteries”. Neat. More clear ideology borderline fantasy.
“Reserve” Hahahaha More fantasy. Demand has never been higher but don’t worry. “Reserve” will save us all…
“Other technology” “Profitability “ hahaha good god how much of a fantasy are you selling.
It’s not green since most of it is produced from fossil fuels.
Dear Faust, it’s them again. Them who say “electricity is not green since most of it is produced from fossil fuels”
It’s also disgustingly expensive even compared to fossil fuels
Hydrogen is mean of storage, not source
it takes something like 3-4x the energy to produce, store, transport, and convert back to energy as just charging a battery.
Ehhh. 60% efficiency means 1.6x the energy to produce. And battaries are transported too.
In the case of trains it seems more sensible to manufacture biodiesel or synthetic fuels than this. It’s certainly safer to transport and store. Perhaps existing trains can be converted relatively easily. Or electrify the train line or stretches of it.
Electrify? Yes! Everything else? Meh.
Or even put solar on carriages to reduce fuel consumption during daylight operations.
Small area, create drag, may be even energy-negative. Worse idea than hydrogen storage.
I agree hydrogen has a lot of challenges, but as you said, it does have niche uses, and I do see some places (Steel Arc Furnace) where it could make an impact IF driven by green energy. Not really disagreeing with you persay but you are downplaying Hydrogen a bit in my opinion.
We are still finding new ways to utilize it both in the electrolyzer and in chemical synthesis so there is more ground for us to cover in the near future I feel like (opinion).
I’m not sure a train is the right place though… yeah.
One use case for hydrogen is sea amd aircraft. H2 has a very high power density. Sea abd aircrat can’t use batteries because they woukd take all tge space for people and cargo.
It’s more complicated than that. Hydrogen has a higher energy density than gasoline on a mass basis (i.e. 1 kg of hydrogen is about 3x the energy density of 1kg of gasoline). But for volumetric density the situation is reversed - 1Kg of hydrogen takes 4x the space of 1kg of gasoline. So you’re not really saving anything by using hydrogen.
On top of that gasoline is a liquid at atmospheric pressures and can flow into any nook and cranny of your aircraft. Most aircraft will store fuel in the wings and under the fuselage. If you use hydrogen you have to store it in heavily reinforced pressurized tanks, preferably spheroidal, cylindrical, toiroidal in shape. That means you’re looking at putting some honking great cylinders on your aircraft and there is no convenient place to do it. They’ll either have to be mounted on struts or in the body somewhere.
I don’t think batteries will find much application in aircraft until solid state batteries come along. But there are some high density batteries appearing for aviation applications (drones, taxis etc.) and just like with gasoline they can be incorporated pretty much anywhere in the structure of the aircraft.
even solid state batteries are not close enough to come close to what aircraft need. Also there are some way to store hydrogen in a liquid form that does not need pressure. Although then you have to have a water to mix with to make the h2 gas for the fuel cell.
I don’t even know where to start with that.
I personally see hydrogen as a great energy dense storage solution to utilize excess generation from solar/wind/etc.
But we’re a long way off from that, so it seems the consensus is that if anything, hydrogen research should primarily be in preparation for a time when it could be utilized reasonably. That may be 20-30 years out, or more. Idk.
There’s a ton of options there besides hydrogen. Flow batteries are far more efficient than hydrogen, and there’s no particular barrier to mass production at this point. Then there’s anything from flywheels, other battery chemistries that are too heavy for EVs, or just pumping water uphill.
We need options there today. We want to be on 80% renewables by 2030 in industrialized countries, and that will require some kind of storage solution. Fortunately, we already have quite a few.
Actually, we’re not a long way off from that. Hydrogen production facilities utilizing (excess) renewable electricity output are under construction as we speak. For example, a large project in Kazakhstan (which has large stretches of windy, sunny and empty steppes) is aiming to be online in 2030 with 30 GW of production going towards green hydrogen.
Why, Poland, why? You have elecrified network, why?
German Lower Saxony recently halted developments of a hydrogen locomotive fleet, arguing that electric battery ones are cheaper to operate https://qz.com/the-dream-of-the-first-hydrogen-rail-network-has-died-a-1850712386
Nonetheless, Alstom and Siemens remain fixed on the production of hydrogen-fueled trains https://news.europawire.eu/siemens-mobility-successfully-tests-hydrogen-powered-mireo-plus-h-train-in-bavaria/eu-press-release/2023/09/16/15/35/04/121944/
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I think entire Poland network was elecrified during Soviet era. Not sure whathappened to it.
I cannot understand the future use case of hydrogen locomotives. Who even funded this thing.
Big oil and gas fund it. Main source of hydrogen right now is from oil drilling.
Why not?
Batteries can’t keep nearly as much power in a space as burnable fuel can, it’s just physically impossible because the oxygen you add to fuel gives it a far higher energy density where batteries need the oxygen built in.
Something like a locomotive also needs an absolute shit ton of power to pull the trains they pull, so you’re going to have a lot of difficulty and it’s going to be pretty expensive running high voltage lines across these railroads.
Hydrogen, because of railroad can easily control the infrastructure and fill up a train, run it right away, and refill it at its destination, could actually be a pretty viable option
There are zero sources of green hydrogen in the foreseeable future and railways can be electrified. Small runs that aren’t electrified can use batteries. There is a zero use case for a leaky fuel that we source from creating CO2 like hydrogen. The idea of using wastefully using electrolysis to something we can deliver power directly to is ludicrous.
Edit: I can think of ONE use case, and that’s maybe logging locomotives that will never be electrified.
As we move into green energy we’re going to have an excess of power at times that we don’t need it, and there’s going to be many use cases where stuff like electrolysis, even though it’s wasteful, is ultimately well worth it because power will be cheap to free during those times of day.
Not in my lifetime, that’s for sure. We currently supply nearly all agricultural hydrogen from oil cracking, for example. There may be a future where wastefully using hydrogen makes sense, but it’s not anytime soon. An actual solution is electrifying the train lines.
California literally already has the problem of excess energy on occasion, and it’s only going to get worse and worse as time passes until we create some sort of magical low cost energy storage solution.
Hydrogen is created from fracking now because we live in a fossil fuel world right now, but eventually as we’re forced to move away from it you’re going to have to have high energy density systems, and hydrogen is one of the few fairly reliable ways to do that.
If hydrogen ever becomes a real thing, maybe for using green energy in remote areas where electric isn’t feasible or economical, maybe the cost to waste some peak solar/wind to generate hydrogen via electrolysis will somehow make sense cost-wise.
Electrolysis is wasteful, but so are internal combustion engines.
That’s not what folks should seriously be comparing this to. You can run electric wires directly over the damn rail and feed a train off the grid. That’s where money should’ve be going everywhere 20 years ago. Running a train off of a diesel electric generator is dumb too frankly.
you’re going to have a lot of difficulty and it’s going to be pretty expensive running high voltage lines across these railroads.
It’s worked just fine for the past century
For what? Trolleys?
Go look at the weight of an average coal train and remember that most of these railways go through some of the most criminal regions of the country with lots of burnable forest land running around the tracks
Just because the US never electrified it’s train infrastructure after the obsoletion of the steam engine doesn’t mean other folks didn’t. Many trains straight up use their diesel engines as electric generators for electric motors. Electric cargo trains are cheaper to run than diesel, but the upfront cost is more expensive. Guess which option the non-state run train infrastructure of the United States chose. We’re still seeing massive resistance from the train companies for doing it because they don’t want to pay the cost.
For what? Trolleys?
For most trains in Europe. For example I can mention the Iron Ore Line in north Sweden which has 8600 trains. Which isn’t as heavy as some of the coal or ore trains around the world, but it’s at up to a 1% incline.
You got any idea of the energy density of Hydrogen? On a per m3 basis, batteries hold a lot more energy.
BTW, hydrogen doesn’t get burned.
Fills up in a comparable time span as diesel locos, and the hydrogen storage would be much lighter compared to equivalent battery storage. No need for an onboard AC/DC generator for the traction motors too, as would be the case if it was diesel powered.
To me it seems like an ideal diesel loco replacement
I assume it will be hauling cargo, not passengers…
It’s a very dumb solution to things that run on tracks and can be directly electrified. It’s mindbogglingly silly.
Weight is usually a feature for locomotives, which are sometimes ballasted for extra traction.
Occasionally you see extra-lightweight engines designed for light infrastructure-- often putting the same guts on more axles to lower the load, but it’s rare.
Modern locomotives also use AC traction motors, with sophisticated computer controls to generate an AC product suitable for the desired speed and torque. Even modern diesel-electric designs have alternators and AC internals. Yes, some old electric engines were huge rectifiers on wheels, but that’s no longer necessary.
Electrification is a very “capitalism won’t let us have nice things” problem; it’s a 25 year commitment to infrastructure and new engines before it pays full benefits (higher reliability, simpler equipment, higher horsepower per unit, using dynamic braking to return power to the grid)
Would this be a viable option for cruise or cargo ships as well?
The only real green option for oceangoing cargo ships at our current technology would be nuclear plants. Since small nuclear plants generally require highly enriched uranium suitable to making bombs, I don’t foresee it being an option, however.
Nuclear cargos exist. Or at least existed. URSS then Russia had one for reach a port in the north. It was an ice-breaker.
Or back to wind.
Idk how expensive these reactors are tho. The US Navy operates dozens in their fleet between CVNs and SSBNs, but that dwarfs the rest of the world.
Thorium Molten Salt reactor can’t be used for weapons because it’s no fissable so it can’t have a chain reaction that creates explosions
Yeah, I wouldn’t consider the thorium fuel cycle as part of our current tech. India’s going to be the first to start thorium breeding at scale which they haven’t gotten close to doing to date. That said, Thorium fuel absolutely can produce nuclear weapons in a breeder reactor design, it’s just more difficult because you have to reprocess the fuel for U233 which is what Thorium is bred into.
There are lower enrichment targets you could theoretically use for a small uranium reactor depending on your moderator. It’s just easier to use highly enriched uranium, or maybe some sort of MOX fuel.
Not a very good one.
Hydrogen density is too low, there is more hydrogen in things like ammonia or methanol. All of these are potential solutions to fossil bunk fuel or LNG, but all have issues and there is no clear winner yet.
Okay rowing it is.
Is there an English version of the article?
I think people can and should build a system that extracts Hydrogen from Water and expels Oxygen as a byproduct, how about that?
You mean like electrolysis? That’s already in use, and has been in use for a very long time.
If you meant something new that doesn’t require a bunch of energy input, then yeah, that would great.
It’s also a tiny part of the market, because it’s literally 25x the cost of turning methane into hydrogen.
Current electrolyzers are also much less energy efficient than batteries. It’s not an unsolvable problem, but battery tech is currently much more affordable than green hydrogen infrastructure. And an electrified third rail is a much better idea for trains.
Great idea.
Oh, the humanity.
We need more of those and everywhere
Then you’ll have to create a hydrogen distribution network. Please remember as you’re doing that -The main danger with hydrogen is what is known as BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion). Because hydrogen is gaseous in atmosphere
Storage and transport of H2 is a big deal because of the unique properties (very low transition temp/very high pressure for liquid). That generally means for a non-pressurized, non-cryogenic storage it has to be combined into another molecule and then catalyzed back out, real time, for use. And, of course, the ignition ratio range (4%-75% in air) means that it’s very easy to accidentally ignite a H2 leak; substantially easier than most other fuels, though this is mitigated by it’s density and ability to disperse in an unenclosed area.
Production is theoretically energy efficient as you can create it with hydrolysis, but the cheapest way of producing it, by far, is cracking of methane, which requires a high temperature process to create. It may not produce a high volume of CO2, but it perpetuates the cycle of exploration and extraction of gaseous hydrocarbons and the related environmental dangers and downsides.
No it’s not stored as liquid BLEVE is not a concern here, but there is plenty of issues with explosivity and very high preasures which can be 300-500 bar (~atm) depending on the application.
