Hydrogen cell powered trains - trams?

[rue_d_etropal]

saw this online , it might be for a train, but first test run only recent

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/09/germany-hydrogen-passenger-train/501575/

 

Germany Has the World's First Hydrogen-Powered Passenger Train

Not all groundbreaking changes are about speed.

 

just wondering how easy this could be used for trams. would cut down on cost of installations I would have thought. I know the Birmingham trams use a battery for part of roiute, but this sounds more promising.

 

Reading through the article (it was on another site that I saw the original news article) there is a mention of the system being used for trams . so why isn't this being rolled out everywhere?

Edited December 14, 2016 by rue_d_etropal

[Fat Controller]

Lat year, there was a Chinese one:- http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/hydrogen-powered-tram/

[rue_d_etropal]

Makes so much sence, that I wonder why they are continuing with traditional power, especially when they can use same tram/train bodies etc.

[rab]

Makes so much sence, that I wonder why they are continuing with traditional power, especially when they can use same tram/train bodies etc.

I'm never too sure about hydrogen

as an alternative power source.

Yes hydrogen powered vehicles

are environmentally friendly,

but I'm not sure the same can be said

about the hydrogen production process.

[GoingUnderground]

I'm never too sure about hydrogen

as an alternative power source.

Yes hydrogen powered vehicles

are environmentally friendly,

but I'm not sure the same can be said

about the hydrogen production process.

Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysing water into its two component elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen. The question is, "How do you generate the electricity in the first place?"

 

Hydrogen is not a terribly space efficient fuel or easy to manage, unlike the paraffins, "methane (a.k.a. natural gas), ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane and octane (a.k.a. petrol), etc. That's probably why its adoption has been so slow. Also there was the slight matter of the R101 and Hindenburg airships that gave it a bit of a bad name. OK, so we travel in close proximity to highly flammable liquids in our cars and aircraft, but we seem to be blind to the fire risk and are prepared to live with it. 

[Chrom]

Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysing water into its two component elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen. The question is, "How do you generate the electricity in the first place?"

 

Hydrogen is not a terribly space efficient fuel or easy to manage, unlike the paraffins, "methane (a.k.a. natural gas), ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane and octane (a.k.a. petrol), etc. That's probably why its adoption has been so slow. Also there was the slight matter of the R101 and Hindenburg airships that gave it a bit of a bad name. OK, so we travel in close proximity to highly flammable liquids in our cars and aircraft, but we seem to be blind to the fire risk and are prepared to live with it. 

Just fit a trailer on the back and put a cow in there, easy....

[Reorte]

Probably get a decent speed, range, economical fuel-cell powered train working just as the GWML electrification is finished

[rue_d_etropal]

There is a lot of development work on the hydrogen fuel cell. It looks like to me than many of the safety concerns are sorted out. With diesel being banned in some city centres in 10 years time, the days of the diesel engine are numbered. It will be interesting to see what happens now.

It does fit in my idea for a small 'in the future' tram layout. No need for wires, so maybe I can move that project up the list a bit.

[wombatofludham]

I think there have been until recently a number of issues - traditional wiring is a proven and well understood technology whereas hydrogen cells have only become really practical relatively recently.  One issue with hydrogen buses is the weight of storage putting the overall weight over the maximum limit with a full load so the trail fuel-cell buses in use in London at the moment have fewer standing passengers permitted, although this is also an issue of course with battery technology.

 

I suspect storage and refuelling will be the main obstacles to widespread adoption, especially if supercapacitor and new battery technology keep pace with development.  As trams run on fixed intervals stopping at all stops, some form of high-speed charger at each stop recharging a battery or supercap (as being trialled in London soon on a bus) may be just as effective, whilst hydrogen cells may find more acceptance on buses and cars where hydrogen fuel cells more closely mimic the operating regime of petrol and diesel vehicles, especially as refilling the tank is a very similar process.

 

Nevertheless, it's an interesting development and electrolysis of sea water to produce hydrogen using wind or tidal power could give a form of stored energy those generating technologies need to cope with the variablity of their output, and help provide new jobs in coastal areas suffering from decline in fishing or other industries.  I wonder if given the number of motor cars, lorries and even aircraft in the world sea level rise would be impacted if everyone went over to sea-water generated hydrogen?

[jjb1970]

In terms of safety hydrogen gas can be risk managed perfectly well. Power stations have used hydrogen gas as the cooling medium for large generators (100's of MW sized generators) for many decades with an excellent safety record.

 

Fuel cells have been around for decades and are a mature technology, or rather group of technologies. Also worth noting that although the fuel has to be hydrogen rich it does not have to be hydrogen. Some fuel cell stacks release hydrogen as part of a chemical reaction on the surface of the stack, alternatively you can reform feed stocks such as methanol, natural gas or even diesel.

 

There are a few issues, the low temperature PEM type cells tend to be of limited power output meaning that for high outputs you tend to need quite a number of fuel cell modules. You can get much higher power outputs from high temperature technologies such as SOFC but they run hot and need much more attention to risk management. The life of fuel cell stacks can be quite short and they're expensive to replace. Despite a lot of positive attributes (they're pretty efficient and clean) the thing that has held them back is cost. As a clean source of electrical power it is debatable whether there is really any advantage over a battery, especially as there are some very impressive battery technologies on the horizon that offer very high energy density and much shorter charging time.

[Nearholmer]

This is very good and gets to some of the fuel cell vs battery questions http://web.mit.edu/2.61/www/Lecture%20notes/Lec.%2021%20H2,%20fC,%20super%20capacitors%20&%20hybrid.pdf

 

And, Wikipedia covers rail applications https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrail

 

And, and, I think both warwick and Birmingham universities have entered fuel cell locos in the IMechE Railway Challenge http://www.imeche.org/get-involved/young-members-network/RailwayChallenge

 

K

Edited December 14, 2016 by Nearholmer

[jjb1970]

Tellingly, when I worked for one of the big power companies they were putting their money into battery power for applications such as cars. People might say well obviously an electricity company will want to promote battery cars however all the modelling they did actually demonstrated that a shift to a hydrogen fuel cell automotive future would result in significantly higher demand for electricity than batteries. Their decision was based on an assessment that batteries were the more attractive solution.

 

I did a few commercial and naval projects to use fuel cells at sea. They've been used in submarines for many years for particular reasons which have nothing to do with saving the world but there has been increasing interest in fuel cell auxiliary power units for merchant vessels as zero emissions harbour sources of power. Most of the projects were using high temperature technologies and in my opinion were still primarily greenwash. The costs were horrific, the power outputs modest and when looking at true environmental impact (ie. where does the fuel come from, the fuel cell stacks etc) it was questionable whether they were any greener than more prosaic alternatives IMO.

[Edwin_m]

Every available non-passenger space in a tram is already filled with traction equipment etc - have a look on the roof.  Where would you find room for an extra fuel cell and hydrogen storage without taking passenger space?  It also increases weight and the tram would no longer be able to use regenerative braking - which on its own would increase consumption by about 25% unless even more space and weight was taken up by batteries or supercapacitors to store the regenerated power.  Fuel cells are also not very good at producing the rapidly changing power demands required of a tram. 

 

So to a large extent I suggest this is a solution in need of a problem.  As about 99% of tramways are already electrified it's unlikely this will catch on. 

[Nearholmer]

Tramways, and many sorts of railway, can be operated most efficiently/effectively by direct electrical supply, but there are always bits where some stored energy comes in useful - tramways especially, where wiring in city centres and at the very ends of thin suburban branches is often an issue.

 

So, stored energy on trams is quite common (and yes, it is often at the expense of passenger space, but that is a calculated trade-off); the big question is whether it is best to store energy as hydrogen, or in batteries, or capacitors, or a tank of diesel, or a tank of methane, or in a flywheel, or WHY. Various juries are still out, and the answer is bound to vary between applications.

 

Fuel cell shunting locos? Hmmm ...... that I don't get, unless the hydrogen can be produced in a very green way, and even then I'm sceptical that it can beat a diesel/battery hybrid or straight battery, although a lot depends on duty cycle.

 

K

[coline33]

There are already two all-hydrogen powered tram systems operating - Aruba and Dubai (second tram system there) both developed by a US company using 'heritage' style cars. The Chinese have produced an experimental articulated car for their second generation systems as more cities in China open tram systems. Building a hydrogen powered tram system from scratch is already estimated to cost at least a third if not more in construction costs. With the projected South Wimbledon - Sutton - Belmont tram system in London, this would be a good starting point for European enterprise in developing such. With the hydrogen processing plant costing about one million quid, it would make sense to have a combined tram/bus depot facility which could also produce the fuel for hydrogen powered buses in the Croydon/Sutton areas. So hydrogen trams are already with us but how many more will come???

[coline33]

Sorry, but I missed out the word 'less' in reference to new system construction costs.

[rue_d_etropal]

I do sometimes thin thatit is more abut making money9building and altering structures), than getting trams or light rail up and running. When I worked in IT, we would often price up a project based on what we thought was best, as we knew, so it woyld not be that difficult for an unscrupulous company to set a price much higher. It might even be a way to put presure on accepting an alternative but inferior proposal.

The  visual impact of overhead wires has been used as an excuse not to put trams into city centres in the past. It was also one reason for initially using conduit system in cities such as London and Paris. Odd then that wires were acceptable when trolley buses were introduced.

The two tram projects using hydrogen fuel cells show it is possible, but it also has even bigger potential for railways, which I think is where main development will be. It wold make upgrading rail services in north west far more economically viable(yet still probably not politically supported enough).

[jjb1970]

If you wanted to build a fuel cell powered tram system the cost of building the system wouldn't really be the main financial consideration, it is through life cost. In particular, the cost of hydrogen (assuming you use PEM type cells with a high purity hydrogen gas) and design life and replacement of fuel cells. The vehicles themselves tend to be expensive, as fuel cells are much more expensive than diesel engines or conventional electric power packages. The financial attractiveness of electrifying railway lines has always been based on high initial capital cost being recovered by lower operating costs, that would be true of a fuel cell vs. overhead solution. Particularly for heavy rail vehicles a wired system offers much greater potential power and vehicle performance.

 

If looking at fuel cells purely in technical terms then they're very clean and they're quite efficient (although a good modern diesel engine is probably similar in terms of energy efficiency). However, that is based on evaluating the fuel cell and vehicle, the green credentials and energy efficiency really depend on where the fuel comes from and how it is made. If you use a wind turbine to generate hydrogen as a means of combatting the intermittency of wind energy then it doesn't really matter if the process is inefficient, it is a very different story is generating the hydrogen in a conventional chemical process plant and if using hydrocarbon fuels and feeds. Avoiding hydrogen itself by using a fuel like methanol may get around the problem (although most methanol is produced from natural gas feedstock so ultimately you are still effectively using a hydrocarbon fuel) but then the efficiency of the fuel cell package drops.

 

For a tram or train, it seems to still make more sense to electrify using wires, and for operation beyond the wires I tend to think diesel engines are still probably the most sensible choice with a lot of potential for batteries and capacitors. There is a lot of talk now of banning diesels, but my question is why? Do you want to ban diesels or lower emissions? To me it has became a political argument, people keep talking about NOx and PM but NOx can be knocked out of exhaust very easily using very mature technologies and PM can be effectively abated. Rather than talking about banning diesels it would be more useful to define meaningful emissions limits and engine approval standards.

[rue_d_etropal]

Much of the new technical development with road vehicles is coming from high tech industries, not the car industry. The car/lorry industry could have developed better more eco friendly vehicles but it is not in their interest. New dive-rless taxis are being tested in New York(wityh a person sitting in seat, just in case). It has been predicted private cars may disappear within 10 years.

It might make more sence , financially to use wired supply in the long term, but we have not got the time. Politicians can talk about dates long in the future, but they are just stalling. Reduce the initial cost, ie using non wired supply, and you can get things up and running faster. Running costs will go down, new technology is doing that.

Trouble there are a lot of vested interest in slowing development down, but there is a growing band of high tech companies interested.

 

I was talking this over at club tonight. Friend knows more technically than me, but he agreed with what I was getting at  . Granted it was use for trains, not trams, but we desperately need improivement to train services up here. Using old Pacer units might actually have done us some good. Fuel cell powed trains could easily replace them, and if they were also DC 3rd rail, and AC overhead power, they could operate across a wide range of routes. Spending millions up front just to upgrade a couple of lines is not what most people want, which is better trains for all. These could then also replace the now aging(but still superior to Pacer units) ex southern region DC 3rd rail units. It just needs the political will.

[coline33]

Regarding 'political will', I can recite how a BR Chairman upon appointment got Mrs.Thatcher to write-off £400 million of BR accumulated debt so he could get on with his plans to upgrade the railways not only in infrastructure and management but to the future of rail.   From my "People's Railway" concept based on San Francisco, he developed the "Community Railway" using municipal as opposed to national control and funding - hence the first such changes in Manchester and West Yorkshire.   With the German railways then ordering their first 20 articulated tramcars for the first tram-train operations (Karlsruhr), he looked favourably on such practice in UK until he found there was not the BR money left and could only offer electrically powered 'Pacers' as an onward development as he was just introducing them in the diesel form.   Then I look at the political will with Croydon Tramlink and Midland Metro - Major and Norris wanted both to be approved in 1996 but the Treasury was opposed unless both were severely capped in construction cost.   Result was that both suffered badly in quality that £millions have since been sent to get deficiencies sorted out.   The National Audit Office intervened in 2004 causing Prescott to delay Manchester's 'big bang', Darling to stop the Leeds, Liverpool and Hampshire schemes and defer the other 22 UK proposals.   Then came in 2011 a fresh look by Norman Baker approving tram-trains, placing the order for Class 399 (all 7 tramcars now being commissioned) and getting the light rail industry to sort itself out.   Hence the creation of "UK Trams" with its working parties including researching the prospects for hydrogen powered tramcars as part of the quest for 'wireless' tram/light rail.   This body is now so well respected that TfL called it in to investigate with RAIB the Sandilands disaster of last month.   Had the San Francisco auto-tram control I wanted in 1990 (when my original 'over the tunnel' alignment had to be rerouted via the tunnel) on the planned approach to that tight bend hidden by the banks of a cutting either not been overlooked in later years or on risk assessment cut out because of the Treasury cap, then we may not have had the worst accident on a European tram/light rail system for decades.   So the industry must come together to gain the 'political will' but as one can see it has taken a 'political will' to get the' industry will' going.   Good ole Norman!!!

 

I strongly recommend reading the article "Developing the Guild Line" (Preston) in the January 2017 issue of "Tramways & Urban Transit" (available from W H Smith) written by someone who really knows the difficulties of getting progress in the UK.

 

With Seasonal greetings.

[rue_d_etropal]

it does sound like there is a possibility the,but I think the biggest change will be as a result of the high tech industry developing computer driven road vehicles, and if the New York trials work it could be rolled out elsewhere. Fewer young people are learning to drive(not surprising given the cost of insurance), and will be willing users of a system where you book a car/taxi and one turns up just as you are opening your front door. Once the ball is rolling then there will be even more interest in light rail and upgraded heavy rail systems. The age of the car is coming to an end. It will be hard for some to give up, but the air polution in Paris at the moment is a timely warning, and to help they have made public trasport free for the current time,

Having grown up down south, and used the extensive train system ,where you can be pretty sure a train will turn up(assuming it has not been totally crippled by private companies),then living up north where apart from the very successful Manchester tram system(which was never predicted to be as successful as it has been) the local train service is pathetic, so the M60 motorway is as busy, possible even more busy than the M25, then if offering an alternative where you are not stuck in traffic for so long will get a lot of support.W

 

When I say the high tech industry, I mean what is in effect the IT industry. . At one time IBM did not think it would develop that much so Bill Gates created Mictosoft.Tradition corporate organisations move too slowly, and the Playstation generation won't hold back.  It develops by someone having an idea and not waiting for bureaucratic approval, developing the idea, and getting it out there. The current dispute about drivers and guards on trains is nothing compared to what will happen when fully computer operated trains(and trams) are developed on a bigger scale than the DLR and one of the tube lines.

It is a bit ironical that one reasin the new Liverpool tram system did not get far as an idea, was that Playstation opened a test facility at Wavertree and paid for a new station to be built there.

Edited December 16, 2016 by rue_d_etropal

[Nearholmer]

RdeE

 

I completely understand your plea for decent rail services "Up North", but what I absolutely don't understand is why you think fuel cells are the right energy system through which to achieve that.

 

If it turns out that the cost of electrification infrastructure is unaffordable, then isn't "clean diesel" the quickest and most certain way to pep-up performance? Chiltern is a famously good railway operation, and they seem to manage very well (if a little slowly by electric railway standards) with diesel.

 

K

[rue_d_etropal]

Diesel is on the way out. Even clean diesel is not good enough. has also been a trend towards keeping older diesels running because  regulations allow them to do so. New diesel engines have to meet tighter rules. There is also the scandal where motor manufacturers making up false test results to improve their image and sell more.

Possibly the best reason for droping diesel is that it is old way ,we need to look at new non fossil fuel technologies. Amazon are already planning to test out drones to do deliveries. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.What if they started saying they wanted to use the Manchester system to deliver to shops and businesses in city centre when it is not being used for passenger use. They could use the  wired system, but could also use fuel cells, or a combination. 

Look at the way wire-free has changed out lives, and it just started with a mobile phone. It is now essentual, not a luxury for many people. Why should we be restricted by wires to supply power to moving vehicles.

The main pressure to keep diesel and other road based transport comes from a powerful road lobby, but it is getting weaker. Insurance companies won't like it, they probably make more than anyone else, but something else will fill their shoes.  It will also bring in big social changes, quite scary in fact and some might want to stay safe with old ways.

[jjb1970]

Eh, we need to drop diesels and replace them with fuel cells because they're old and use fossil fuel? I'm guessing that is said in ignorance of the fact that the fuel cell is older than the diesel engine and that the bulk of hydrogen production uses fossil fuel? Or that diesel engines can run on a variety of fuels other than hydrocarbons.

To advocate replacing a very cost effective, durable technology capable of excellent performance and with a pretty low risk profile with an older technology, which is less durable, capable of nothing like the same performance and with a far more challenging risk profile on the basis that the preferred technology is newer (it isn't) and doesn't use hydrocarbon fuels (not particularly true, if anything it is easier to make a non hydrocarbon fuelled diesel) is bizarre.

On wires, comparing a train or tram with a mobile phone is a bit of an empty comparison. Given that trains are restricted to tracks, where you can put wires or conductor rails, then there is no real issue with a wired or third rail power feed which is capable of supplying as much power as the train needs with no range/endurance limitation and where the electrical supply can be far cleaner than a fuel cell.

[Nearholmer]

Convert Blackpool Tower into one of these, and not only can the tramway dispense with overhead lines, but so can trains across the whole of The North. Maybe.

 

Or, try microwaves http://www.mhi-global.com/news/story/1503121879.html

Edited December 16, 2016 by Nearholmer