Hydrogen powered train

[gary60s]

http://cnnmon.ie/2sMGzNE   This will catch on big in Europe, but never here.

[sirenwerks]

The way support for our science and technology application acceptance is going here, we'll be rubbing sticks together to  cook soon and telling tales of people we knew who fell off the edge of the earth, while the Chinese and Indians zip around in the flying cars and jet packs we were promised in our youth.

[Philip H]

I can actually see a lot of above ground transit and heavy commuter rail Systems looking at these if the price is right. Widpnder if they have a Freight Loco yet .

[Spades]

Well if you have the fuel infrastructure Hydrogen is great, but the fuel density of hydrogen is a fraction o' diesel or Jet A, so plan on a lot of fuel stops.  They have produced at least 43000 of one model of the flying car. It's called the Cessna C-172

[Spades]

http://cnnmon.ie/2sMGzNE   This will catch on big in Europe, but never here.

I don't see why not.  In the SF bay Area there are hydrogen powered buses and the train set shown looks an awful lot like the SMART train set.  California State government is big on hydrogen.

[sirenwerks]

The only real drawback is hydrogen's flammability.

[MK]

Hindenburg v2.0? 

[jagged ben]

Not sure why this is better than catenary, or lithium batteries.  I think the belief that this will reduce carbon emissions misunderstands the sources of hydrogen.

[Mark5]

Yeah it takes energy to produce Hydrogen fuel ...

[wcfn100]

This article covers the issues raised here a bit better.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/09/germany-hydrogen-passenger-train/501575/

Basically, it's cheaper than putting up new catenary in some areas and the hydrogen is already a by-product of other manufacturing processes.


Jason

[nkalanaga]

The Hindenburg's problem was the diesel fuel for the engines.  Unconfined hydrogen rises, so the fire goes up, rather than spreading out or down.  On the Hindenburg, the outer skin was flammable, and when it ignited, it set the diesel on fire.  All of the smoke, and most of the visible flames, were from the skin and fuel.  If it had only been a hydrogen fire, they could have gotten all of the people off safely, while the hydrogen burned above them.

Confined hydrogen under pressure can explode, just like LPG, but leaking hydrogen isn't a major problem.  It's much safer than gasoline.

The energy density is a problem, as it takes a much bigger tank, or high pressure, to store the same energy per unit volume.

[eric220]

Mythbusters tested the Hindenburg myths. Their tests showed that the mix of hydrogen and flammable dope on the skin burned far more aggressively than either by itself. The combination was pretty similar to the historical footage. Personally, I'm sceptical that a relatively minuscule amount of diesel fuel had any significant impact versus the massive quantities of highly flammable hydrogen and metal powder skin dope.

On the original topic, I'd like to see crash test data on the hydrogen tanks. I can see where that quantity of hydrogen could be a pretty significant concern in a crash. That said, the roof does seem to be one of the better places to put the tanks. They would be away from most common points of impact.

[Mark5]

the hydrogen is already a by-product of other manufacturing processes.

Interesting. I wonder how much is "burned" as a by product and if that would even begin to supply a large scale deployment of hydrogen. (I don't know the answer)

[C855B]

In what processes is hydrogen a byproduct? Most recent info I've read indicates industrial production of hydrogen is from natural gas, and is decidedly energy-negative in fuel cell use, not to mention the reliance on a hydrocarbon as raw material. Every once in a while hydrogen from electrolysis of sea water using electricity sourced from renewables is mentioned, but there are so, so many challenges to overcome that the energy:cost is impractical to nearly impossible.

If there's an advantage to these fuel cell (but electric) powered transports, it's they are locally clean in operation. Only the fuel production is dirty, the logic being it's easier to mitigate a large single source than it is to try to clean hundreds or thousands or millions of microgenerators of pollutants. That's the issue with petroleum-fueled vehicles, that so much of the manufacturing, operation and network support costs are now devoted to cleaning-up the energy source.

The hydrogen/fuel cell relationship is basically one of a refillable storage battery. I'm sure once battery tech leapfrogs again, we'll be talking about converting these trams to whatever portable electricity storage means is the tech-darling-du-jour.

[lock4244]

Pass... I'll take a diesel thank you very much.