this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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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”.
No! If it doesn't immediately solve the issue completely without any drawbacks it must be scrapped and no one should work to improve it!
Best regards,
Every conservative party (and their corporate sponsors).
Most of the supporters of hydrogen trains are the Oil & Gas lobby, a traditionally conservative group. It's another, "Technology will save us from climate change!" scheme, which will allow unabated oil extraction to continue so we can make hydrogen fuel.
If I may?
Hydrogen, green hydrogen, can be produced from water, using electricity produced from renewables, like solar amd wind.
My own country is in the process of converting a decomissioned refinery into a hydrogen plant.
It may not solve much in the short term but as an energy reserve, hydrogen can find use directly as a fuel or for running gas turbines to produce electricity in replacement of conventional gas.
Green Hydrogen from Electrolysis is extremely inefficient (<30%). Renewable energy isn't without cost or environmental impact, so we need to responsible with how we use it. Unless the grid you're pulling from is 100% renewable and has excess power that is just being wasted, that renewable energy could be used elsewhere in a more efficient manner.
Siemens quotes 80% for their electrolysers, fuel cells run at about 60%... in steel smelting if you squint right over 100% (reducing directly with electricity is possible, but less efficient in practice than going via hydrogen). Similar for chemical feedstock where "just use electricity bro" really isn't an option in the first place.
Precisely because of those uses hydrogen (and by extension ammonia) will be a massive energy carrier in the future anyway. And both, and definitely ammonia, doesn't self-discharge, or have cycle life limitations.
but it's not either /or is it? there places where overhead cables are not a good option for trains so a Hydrogen train makes sense there it's a niche but it's use case is there
Regardless, it is a start. Unless we are to stumble upon the secret of cold fusion, we need to compromise in order to make any kind of move away from fossil energy.
The project I mentioned is to be a self contained system, reliant on renewables only, hence the green classification.
It can be made from water and renewables at about 3-4x the energy cost of charging a battery. In train terms, that means you could be charging 3 battery trains instead of 1 hydrogen train. Or you could have 3 battery tenders and have more logistical flexibility in how they are deployed.
To what I know, the hydrogen to be produced is intentended to replace fossil gas in northern europe countries. It's meant to be a stockpileable energy resource.
It's not ideal but we either make middle of the road commitments and actually get something done to move forward or just call it all off an let things fizzle out
Unless someone figures a way to sequester hydrogen into an inert, reversible form you really don't want to be stockpiling hydrogen for obvious reasons.
It's not like we have had disastrous events related to hydrogen.
The objective is to built a trans-iberian pipeline for the liquified hydrogen. So, it will be interesting.