The dream of the first hydrogen rail network has died a quick death

[NickB79]

https://qz.com/the-dream-of-the-first-hydrogen-rail-network-has-died-a-1850712386

LVNG, a German state-owned railway company, has been devising ways to phase out diesel since 2012. In September 2018, it started running hydrogen fuel-cell trains–the Alstom Coradia iLint trains—on trial routes in the Lower Saxony region.

The commercial rollout of these trains on a railway link, in August 2022, had already been derailed on several occasions. The trains required new hardware and software to be retrofitted for their routes, driver shortages left no spare time to educate them on running hydrogen trains, and there were troubles at the hydrogen refuelling station in winter.

Now a year after the commercial launch, the Lower Saxony state ministry has abandoned ideas for future hydrogen trains, arguing that battery-electric models “are cheaper to operate.”

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Hydrogen powered trains have to be among the dumbest ideas possible

Unlike every other kind of transport, they're literally on rails. The most optimal scenario in which one can electrify the system. That's why we've had trains/trolleys running on electricity for like a century.

Duh

[honest.abe]

5. The electricity for electric powered trains is not provided through the rails.

In most cases it’s through overhead wires or with subways it’s a special third rail.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. Where did I say it was?

I mention the rails because this means there is a set/known terrestrial path that they always take, which means it's easy to provide power along that line. They're not a plane, or a ship, or even a car.

[honest.abe]

7. Its not easy.

Adding overhead wires or a third rail is very expensive.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. And yet ...

Now a year after the commercial launch, the Lower Saxony state ministry has abandoned ideas for future hydrogen trains, arguing that battery-electric models “are cheaper to operate.”

Thermodynamically, unless humanity gets really lucky and discovers large amounts of free hydrogen deposits underground, hydrogen is very expensive. You waste a lot of electricity (or, more typically, fossil fuels) in order to create it.

H2 tech is much more akin to a 'type of battery' than it is a 'fuel', despite the name 'fuel cell'.

It may make sense to have H2 powered ships, planes, buses, and semi trucks, but to me the particular application of trains, them being on physically set routes determined by their tracks I think humanity is going to end up calculating that this is not a logical application for very thermodynamically wasteful H2 'fuel'.

I guess we shall see

[honest.abe]

10. That does not make it the "dumbest idea possible".

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. Fair enough, that was hyperbole :) (nt)

[NNadir]

14. Well the laws of thermodynamics make it the dumbest idea possible.

Ignorance of these basic laws of the universe is a big reason behind climate change.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. Yes, with the rails as the return path for the current. NT

[Alexander Of Assyria]

2. Hydrogen powered trains are an excellent application. Immense diesel replaced by...water emission.

And the huge current diesel engine has plenty of space for a hydrogen engine and storage…and can pull its own fuel!

It’s a trial, plenty more going on trials in the world.

[NNadir]

13. We can lie to ourselves all we wish...

...but hydrogen is a filthy fuel, always has been, is and always will be.

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.

I note, with some disgust, that BASF recently had to close a hydrogen plant in Germany because their pal Vladimir Putin cut off their gas:

BASF shuts a hydrogen (ammonia) plant permanently because of the price of natural gas.

Of course, they could follow China's hydrogen policy and make hydrogen from coal, and no doubt get cheers from people who know nothing about science and engineering, but the result would be a continuing and growing disaster for the environment, a subject about which hydrogen cheerleaders, I realize, couldn't care less.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

16. Hydrogen engines versus diesel engines, no brainer, PhD. or not.

[NNadir]

17. Diesel engines can run on DME. Volvo is leading the effort.

DME, lacking a carbon carbon bond, is almost completely free of particulate formation, has an atmospheric half life of 5 days and thus is essentially zero risk with respect to climate forcing, has a critical temperature of 150C and is easily liquefied, and doesn't require vast infrastructure to do so, nor the vast FILTHY energy requirements merely to store it as hydrogen does.

Every diesel engine now existant on the planet can be modified with changes to seals to run on DME. DME is of course not primary energy, but if it is made via process intensification using nuclear primary energy it could enhance exergy recovery, rather than destroy exergy. We wouldn't need to completely change all of the planet's infrastructure because people with no brains think that shifting pollution from a locomotive to a chemical plant that will needlessly waste energy is the same as preventing pollution.

I have a very clear opinion on what constitutes the use of one's brain, and anyone who believes the fossil fuel salespeople and salesbots here trying to rebrand them as "hydrogen" might well consider whether or not they are, in fact, using their brains.

Hydrogen is a filthy fuel made by exergy destruction. Actually it really isn't a fuel at all, except in the Potemkin show pieces advertised here by fossil fuel salespeople and salesbots. It's a chemical intermediate used for the synthesis of commodities like ammonia, gasoline, and methanol.

[Think. Again.]

3. What a shame...

...with so many very successful H2 rail projects happening around the world, poor Germany is looking very pathetic over not being capable of doing this.

[FirefighterJo]

4. As is always the case with new technology and applications

It's a process of trial and error. LVNG was one of the first to implement hydrogen. In the meantime, the technology and it's understanding in real life applications has followed a steep learning curve and all over Europe, hydrogen powered trains are emerging. Even Germany has catched up with the trend. If you would dig deeper, LVNG's decision is not (solely) based on the technological merits.

[hunter]

15. Most new technologies and applications don't survive in the marketplace.

The idea of a "hydrogen economy" was dead from the beginning for a lot of reasons, mostly having to do with basic thermodynamics and the physical properties of hydrogen itself.

The idea was dead forty years ago and it's still dead today. Nevertheless people keep trying to revive it, mostly as greenwash for the fossil fuel industry. Turning coal or natural gas into hydrogen isn't green.

There is no "trend" beyond the credulity of politicians and the public at large. The results of other hydrogen experiments will be the same as this one.

I couldn't find the source of hydrogen for this experiment, but there was some hand waving about electrolysis and renewable energy, which would be madness on a grid with a carbon intensity of about 300 gCO₂eq/kWh, especially considering the energy losses of electrolysis, fuel cells, etc. from the primary energy source to the traction motors of the train.

Of Germany's 33,399 kilometres of railroad track, 20,540 kilometres are electrified.

[NNadir]

12. Good. Without very much infrastructure changes...

...rail networks might well on DME powered diesels and be climate neutral, but certainly not in that coal dependent hellhole Germany.

[OKIsItJustMe]

18. One of my favorite Star Trek quotes

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708427/quotes/?item=qt1872850&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Kang: Out! We need no urging to hate Humans. But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house. Out!