Alstom Hydrogen Multiple Units

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Will they even bother with fuel cells?  All you need is a converted internal combustion engine, preferably supercharged but depending pn the way the system is arranged you can can nitrogen oxide in the emissions.   F dont forget taht some folk have been running cars fuelled by hydrogen for years so it's hardly new technology to run an i.c. engine on hydrogen.

Efficiency (either fuel or space for a given output)? Elimination of reciprocating machinery & maintenance requirements? If it's going to have electric transmission (or bi-mode) then a fuel cell doesn't need the generator/ alternator type arrangement as it outputs amps rather than a rotating shaft.

 

[PenrithBeacon]

https://www.railway-technology.com/features/next-stop-hydrogen-the-future-of-train-fuels/

https://www.alstom.com/solutions/rolling-stock/coradia-ilinttm-worlds-1st-hydrogen-powered-train

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_internal_combustion_engine_vehicle

My current reading list!

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

Water vapour, which is what is directly created, is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

 

It just happens to recycle itself out of the atmosphere easily enough. Usually at weekends.

This is in Scotland where they're used to it, yes?

Edited November 11, 2021 by Michael Hodgson

[APOLLO]

8 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Where is the gas coming from?

 

 Joe Biden's rear ?

 

Brit15

[cal.n]

3 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

 

 

The article @JeremyC linked to above states:

 

"The Breeze is a three-car unit that is a conversion of a redundant Class 321 EMU. It has two driving trailer coaches, which each have roof mounted fuel cells and interior hydrogen fuel tanks taking up a third of the coach space. The central motor coach has the traction motors and batteries. The unit will have between 148 and 168 standard class seats which is more than the two-car Class 15x DMUs that they will replace.

 

Alstom’s Breeze has hydrogen stored inside the train behind the driver’s cab.

 

These trains will be designated Class 600 HMUs and so, as far as numbering is concerned, they will be the first of the 6xx category of units, a new classification for alternatively powered traction.  Following discussions with various potential customers for the Class 600 HMU, it is likely that the first deployment will be in the Tees Valley, where Northern Trains have selected the Class 600 HMU as its preferred solution for the operation of zero-emissions rolling stock. This would initially be a fleet of ten trains operating services to Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool, Saltburn and Whitby.  Their deployment will be supported by the UK’s first hydrogen transport hub in Teeside. As part of this, it is proposed to build a hydrogen train maintenance facility on the former Lackenby Steelworks site. This will consist of a three-road maintenance shed, stabling for 16 units, train wash and CET facilities along with a hydrogen production and refuelling plant."

 

 

I suspect this new announcement means the 600s have been quietly dropped. But the 600 and 799/2 as case studies show that to get meaningful range with a UK gauge, H2 storage has to enter space that would otherwise be passengers.

[Bucoops]

Co-incidence? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-59235719

[black and decker boy]

7 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

 

 

The article @JeremyC linked to above states:

 

"The Breeze is a three-car unit that is a conversion of a redundant Class 321 EMU. It has two driving trailer coaches, which each have roof mounted fuel cells and interior hydrogen fuel tanks taking up a third of the coach space. The central motor coach has the traction motors and batteries. The unit will have between 148 and 168 standard class seats which is more than the two-car Class 15x DMUs that they will replace.

 

Alstom’s Breeze has hydrogen stored inside the train behind the driver’s cab.

 

These trains will be designated Class 600 HMUs and so, as far as numbering is concerned, they will be the first of the 6xx category of units, a new classification for alternatively powered traction.  Following discussions with various potential customers for the Class 600 HMU, it is likely that the first deployment will be in the Tees Valley, where Northern Trains have selected the Class 600 HMU as its preferred solution for the operation of zero-emissions rolling stock. This would initially be a fleet of ten trains operating services to Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool, Saltburn and Whitby.  Their deployment will be supported by the UK’s first hydrogen transport hub in Teeside. As part of this, it is proposed to build a hydrogen train maintenance facility on the former Lackenby Steelworks site. This will consist of a three-road maintenance shed, stabling for 16 units, train wash and CET facilities along with a hydrogen production and refuelling plant."

 

Different things.
 

My OP article is for new build units based on the Aventra Platform. The artists impression gives no clue as to where the fuel cells & storage tanks may be placed. The Coradia iLint (UIC gauge) has tanks in the roof. Is that feasible in U.K.?

 

Your comment is based on the proposal to convert 4car class 321 units into 3 car hydrogen MUs which will only have 2 coaches worth of passenger space.

 

the 2nd Porterbrook prototype HydroFlex 799/2 (ex-319) has lost an entire driving car to accommodate the fuel cell & tanks.

 

maybe the 769 debacle means ROSCOs are now more wary of investing £millions into bespoke conversions of 30 year old EMUs and then loosing their shirt when they don’t work. Far safer to create a new design from the ground up. Think Tesla vs E-Golf.

[Andy Hayter]

12 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Where is the gas coming from?

 

Currently 95% of the world's commercial Hydrogen is produced by de-carbonising Methane.

 

Methane plus oxygen = hydrogen plus carbon dioxide*

 

So not the environment blessing they would have you believe.  

 

Electrolysis of water (which is how we all learnt at school was the way to make hydrogen) is generally not commercially viable, although in fairness a lot of work is going on to change that.

 

* Some will remember back in September a shortage of commercial carbon dioxide when a fertiliser plant shut down due to high energy costs.  That carbon dioxide came from the above reaction.  The plant needed the hydrogen to combine with nitrogen to create ammonia and ammonium based fertilisers..

[Zomboid]

35 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Methane plus oxygen = hydrogen plus carbon dioxide*

 

So not the environment blessing they would have you believe.  

That rather depends what you do with the CO2. If it's just vented to the atmosphere then clearly that's not going to help much, and if there's a massive shift from Petrol & Diesel to Hydrogen then the volume produced may get problematic, but as a part of the solution it has a place.

[Andy Hayter]

But it does all get vented to atmosphere.  It could be directly.  It could be injected into bottles of Cola or in a pack of meat.  But once you open the packaging it vents to atmosphere.

[Zomboid]

But it doesn't necessarily have to, if you've got it under control then it there could be other options.

 

I wonder how significant fizzy drinks and food packaging are when it comes to CO2 emissions. I would imagine they're not a big deal, but I've been wrong many times before.

[frobisher]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

Electrolysis of water (which is how we all learnt at school was the way to make hydrogen) is generally not commercially viable, although in fairness a lot of work is going on to change that.

 

Perfectly commercially viable if you're using renewable sources of electricity generation, especially in areas where there is an excess of such production compared to what can be used effectively in the national grid.  Like the far north of Scotland

[Dungrange]

1 hour ago, black and decker boy said:

My OP article is for new build units based on the Aventra Platform. The artists impression gives no clue as to where the fuel cells & storage tanks may be placed. The Coradia iLint (UIC gauge) has tanks in the roof. Is that feasible in U.K.?

 

Your comment is based on the proposal to convert 4 car class 321 units into 3 car hydrogen MUs which will only have 2 coaches worth of passenger space.

 

the 2nd Porterbrook prototype HydroFlex 799/2 (ex-319) has lost an entire driving car to accommodate the fuel cell & tanks.

 

I think the common factor is that there will most likely be a reduction in passenger space on UK trains to accommodate hydrogen fuel cells.  Hydrogen, at current pressures, takes up something like eight times as much space as a diesel fuel tank to get the same amount of energy, so the choice is really between introducing trains with a much shorter range (where hydrogen is stored in tanks of similar size to existing diesel tanks), or using up some of the passenger space to accommodate larger fuel tanks that will give a similar range to current diesel multiple units.  Unfortunately, the smaller UK loading gauge means that the options for placing large hydrogen tanks on the roof, as per the Concordia iLint are probably limited.

 

To be honest, I don't think any of the demonstrator trains will be the start of a significant production batch - they are effectively just proof of concept trains.  The advantage of reusing an existing body-shell is that it is more environmentally friendly, than building from scratch, so when presenting to an audience, such as at COP26, it ticks the right boxes.  However, in the longer term, I'd expect most of the production batches to be built from scratch.

 

 

[Mike Bellamy]

8 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

I think the common factor is that there will most likely be a reduction in passenger space on UK trains to accommodate hydrogen fuel cells.  . . . . . . . .   Unfortunately, the smaller UK loading gauge means that the options for placing large hydrogen tanks on the roof, as per the Concordia iLint are probably limited.

 

Looking at the Rail Engineer magazine article quoted on the previous page, I see that Arcola plan to use underfloor storage on their 314 conversion. Have a look near the end of the article in the link below - there is a drawing there of how they plan to make it all fit.

 

Link to Rail Engineer Feb 2021 about Arcola 314 Conversion

.

[JeffP]

22 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

They used to be called Alsthom (a contraction of Alsace and Thomson) but they changed it to Alstom because some people were unsure how to pronounce it.

Ah...I was basing it on seeing it on cast plaques on the sides of French locos back in the 90's and noughties.

[Zomboid]

A template like the bi-mode Flirts could be used for a hydrogen power pack, which could then be made to whatever size is needed. All the electric traction kit is in the passenger vehicles so that lump is purely a generator, and could in theory be anything; diesel, batteries, hydrogen, exercise bikes...

 

These trains are likely to be used away from the major trunk routes where platform length is at such a premium that a locomotive is considered "wasted space", so the fact that to achieve the equivalent accommodation of a 2 car 150, the train needs to be 2.5 carriages long is probably not going to make the whole thing impossible.

[Andy Hayter]

11 hours ago, Zomboid said:

But it doesn't necessarily have to, if you've got it under control then it there could be other options.

 

I wonder how significant fizzy drinks and food packaging are when it comes to CO2 emissions. I would imagine they're not a big deal, but I've been wrong many times before.

 

The amounts of CO2 generated are very significant:

 

https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-ammonia-production-emits-CO2/97/i24

 

I am myself confused by that headline because I had thought that cement manufacture was the biggest CO2 generator but either way the quantities are enormous.

[Reorte]

13 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Currently 95% of the world's commercial Hydrogen is produced by de-carbonising Methane.

 

Methane plus oxygen = hydrogen plus carbon dioxide*

 

So not the environment blessing they would have you believe.  

 

Electrolysis of water (which is how we all learnt at school was the way to make hydrogen) is generally not commercially viable, although in fairness a lot of work is going on to change that.

 

* Some will remember back in September a shortage of commercial carbon dioxide when a fertiliser plant shut down due to high energy costs.  That carbon dioxide came from the above reaction.  The plant needed the hydrogen to combine with nitrogen to create ammonia and ammonium based fertilisers..

The difference between hydrogen as an energy source (I think getting it from methane is a net energy gain although presumably you're not getting the most chemical energy possible out of the methane directly) and a storage medium (which is what electrolysis is effectively doing).

[APOLLO]

Hydrogen manufacture is one complex subject, Hydrogen safety is another.

 

As a gas engineer when on standby duties (1 week in four for 30 years or so) I carried a PPM (Parts Per Million) methane detection meter, this was a flame ionisation unit that burned a small hydrogen flame. Air to be sampled (for methane - natural gas) was pumped through this flame and an ionisation detector indicated extremely low concentrations of methane in air. Useful in properties, cavities etc etc. A much used, accurate and reliable instrument.

 

The unit had a 3000 PSI hydrogen cylinder attached about 10" long, 3" dia. We were told NEVER let the pressure fall below 500 PSI as then refilling was very difficult & dangerous safety wise (we had a special department for doing this in Manchester - did all the North Wests cylinders). I never experienced any leaks at the valve etc as the whole unit was extremely well engineered, and we had quite a few safety related procedures to rigorously follow - which we did. We also needed to inform our vehicles insurance re carrying this equipment, some charged a little extra, some didn't and some refused it all together. Solved when we went to company cars.

 

This is interesting, saves me explaining, worth reading.

 

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/safe-use-hydrogen

 

Would I feel safe in a train with quite a large amount of high pressure or liquid hydrogen either underneath my feet or above my head ? Difficult to say, but having seen the devastating results of several gas explosions throughout my career, it would make me think - a lot.

 

I visited here when it was a British Gas research facility in the 80's - a very "enlightening" experience, watch the video.

 

https://www.dnv.com/oilgas/laboratories-test-sites/large-scale-fire-explosion-and-blast-research-testing-dnvgl-spadeadam.html

 

I'm not trying to say Hydrogen is unsafe, but it needs very high end engineering standards, trained and certified operators and rigorous 100% maintenance standards at all times. It will not suffer fools or take prisoners.

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

 

[Reorte]

21 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Would I feel safe in a train with quite a large amount of high pressure or liquid hydrogen either underneath my feet or above my head ? Difficult to say, but having seen the devastating results of several gas explosions throughout my career, it would make me think - a lot.

 

But to put that in perspective is it more dangerous than, say, being in a car with a tank full of highly flammable petrol? It sounds you'll know a lot more about gas explosions than I do but how many occur in enclosed environments where its built up over time? I'd hazard a guess that as a power source in a vehicle a gas that'll most likely escape is safer than a liquid that'll pool (and give off vapour that can reach an explosive mix too).

 

It's always possible to worry about something - not that hard to get worried about high voltage lines a few feet above your head either if you let yourself, but I think any train, no matter how its powered, in the event of a crash it's the crash itself that'll be the nasty part rather than the effect of the power source adding to it.

[Zomboid]

32 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

 

I'm not trying to say Hydrogen is unsafe, but it needs very high end engineering standards, trained and certified operators and rigorous 100% maintenance standards at all times. It will not suffer fools or take prisoners

That's not unique to Hydrogen though. The technology that makes our life easier than in the pre-industrial era has a lot of capacity to kill us if we're not sensible about it. You know all about gas, and electricity has just as much capacity to kill us. There's a tank of highly flammable liquid on most people's drive, and some of us keep some in a plastic box in the shed.

 

Not to downplay it as idiot proof, but if it weren't possible to handle hydrogen safely then the fuel cell tech would either use something else or simply not be proposed.

[phil-b259]

37 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

But to put that in perspective is it more dangerous than, say, being in a car with a tank full of highly flammable petrol? It sounds you'll know a lot more about gas explosions than I do but how many occur in enclosed environments where its built up over time? I'd hazard a guess that as a power source in a vehicle a gas that'll most likely escape is safer than a liquid that'll pool (and give off vapour that can reach an explosive mix too).

 

It's always possible to worry about something - not that hard to get worried about high voltage lines a few feet above your head either if you let yourself, but I think any train, no matter how its powered, in the event of a crash it's the crash itself that'll be the nasty part rather than the effect of the power source adding to it.

 

Its all to do with the Atomic nature of Hydrogen compared to the Atoms in other flammable based fuels.

 

Basically Hydrogen is one of the smallest (and one of the most unstable) Atoms in the periodic table. Its instability is why it is very difficult to handle as it is desperately trying to combine with something else to make it more stable. Also the small number of electrons / small size means it can actually penetrate and pass through ordinary tanks made of steel* where as the Atoms involved in the substance called Petrol cannot!

 

Hence not only is a hydrogen powered vehicle more difficult to make - if it gets involved in an incident where the stored hydrogen is released in an uncontrolled manor the consequences could be far more severe than petrol or even LPG

 

 

* You can make steel tanks 'Hydrogen proof' by the application of specialist coatings that block the 'pores' as it were, but its a complex thing to make and any deficiencies....

Edited November 12, 2021 by phil-b259

[APOLLO]

 

philb259 sums Hydrogen up very well above.

 

A good future fuel (really a store of energy) but treat with extreme caution & care, far more than with Natural gas or LPG.

 

Brit15

 

 

[phil-b259]

19 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

That's not unique to Hydrogen though. The technology that makes our life easier than in the pre-industrial era has a lot of capacity to kill us if we're not sensible about it. You know all about gas, and electricity has just as much capacity to kill us. There's a tank of highly flammable liquid on most people's drive, and some of us keep some in a plastic box in the shed.

 

Not to downplay it as idiot proof, but if it weren't possible to handle hydrogen safely then the fuel cell tech would either use something else or simply not be proposed.

 

However there is flammable and there is flammable!

 

Diesel for example requires lots of heat to ignite it (hence you can extinguish a lighted cigar in it) so in an incident provided the diesel doesn't come into contact with a very hot engine for example it won't ignite. Petrol is more volatile and can ignite far more easily while petrol vapour, LPG or Hydrogen only needs a stray electrical spark....

 

It therefore stands to reason that in an accident / impact / derailment situation there is the potential for fire / explosion is far grater in Hydrogen powered vehicles than it is for diesel powered ones.

 

This is particularly true of the UK as opposed to Europe / NA as we cannot fit the hydrogen tanks to the roof where the Hydrogen can vent easily to the atmosphere and stands a lot less chance of coming into contact with sources of ignition.

 

Another reason why electric solutions OLE and battery solutions should be being pushed through with far more vigour in the UK and the Government needs to ditch this obsession with 'wonder fuels' which save HM Treasury cash (as the costs / risks associated with Hydrogen powered solutions overwhelmingly fall to the 'dynamic power of the free market' instead)

Edited November 12, 2021 by phil-b259

[Reorte]

37 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Its all to do with the Atomic nature of Hydrogen compared to the Atoms in other flammable based fuels.

 

Basically Hydrogen is one of the smallest (and one of the most unstable) Atoms in the periodic table. Its instability is why it is very difficult to handle as it is desperately trying to combine with something else to make it more stable. Also the small number of electrons / small size means it can actually penetrate and pass through ordinary tanks made of steel* where as the Atoms involved in the substance called Petrol cannot!

 

Hence not only is a hydrogen powered vehicle more difficult to make - if it gets involved in an incident where the stored hydrogen is released in an uncontrolled manor the consequences could be far more severe than petrol or even LPG

 

 

* You can make steel tanks 'Hydrogen proof' by the application of specialist coatings that block the 'pores' as it were, but its a complex thing to make and any deficiencies....

Which is all why it's not stored in ordinary petrol tanks. And of course petrol tanks not sufficiently designed to be up to the task are bloody dangerous for handling petrol, but it's a danger we know and understand and have reduced to the level that we're happy enough living with it. The same's true of hydrogen, you're talking of a design consideration that of course needs to be taken into account, but it's one that has been.

Edited November 12, 2021 by Reorte