Three different forms of propulsion to enter service

[spudfan]

Three different forms of propulsion to enter service, battery, diesel and hydrogen.

Joule battery loco unveiled ahead of trial | News | Railway Gazette International

First Dr19 diesel locomotive enters service | News | Railway Gazette International

Hydrogen shunting loco plan | News | Railway Gazette International

[leslie10646]

This hydrogen thing has been blown up (pun intended) out of all proportion. It is NOT a solution except you have electricity to waste creating it!

The UK civil servants have been deluding our "politicians" with it for several years - anything to do the sensible thing and put up the wires.

This month's Modern Railways has a brilliant article pointing out how cheaply branch lines could be electrified and then re-use unwanted, older but serviceable EMUs.

[Broithe]

There is often excess capacity in the generating system, at little extra cost, and this will become even more prevalent as wind generation expands further. You will often hear the nay-sayers repeat 'They have to turn the windmills off, if it's too windy" - this is because there is no spare demand to be filled, you cannot shove energy into the system if there is nothing there to use it. About all the storage that is there now is Turlough Hill, once that is full all you have is the current  'live demand'. There will, eventually, be some battery storage coming on-line and you can export limited amounts, assuming that the export destinations have the demand for it at the time. Fizzing up hydrogen with the nightly excess generation would just really be another form of storage. Even the old 'boiler stations' need to be kept running overnight, you can't just start them up every morning. The gas turbines are a little more 'on demand', but you still have to run some a bit light, to have spare capacity available now, if there are any failures around the system.

Having a mix of systems does allow you to defer to the best one at the time, but there is a bit of extra cost in duplication. The gamble is whether that extra cost is better or worse than being caught out by a dominant system failing, for whatever reason, technical, political or economic.

[Mayner]

There was an interesting piece on Hydrogen as the "Holy Grail" in the June edition of "The Linesider" a NZ railfanning magazine. https://www.nationalrailwaymuseum.nz/shop/the-linesider/

One of the editorial team attended a presentation on a hydrogen powered commuter train built for San Bernadino in California while visiting the Stadler plant in Valencia in connection with an order for new diesel electric freight locos for New Zealand.

One of the main take-aways was that while a hydrogen powered train works and has zero emissions, the overall process is not very efficient or very 'green' in many countries taking a lot of electricity to make H2.

The article commented that it was probably worse taking an electric train to work than a car in countries like India, China or even the States where the majority of electricity is generated from coal.

Straight electricity and battery work out more efficient in terms of energy efficiency than hydrogen mainly as a result of the energy losses of making hydrogen through electrolysis (30%) and 10% compressing the hydrogen into a fuel cell.

Austrian railways worked out that hydrogen trains would be no cleaner than modern diesel trains with almost a third of their electricity generated by coal. In Germany hydrogen powered trains would have twice the carbon footprint of diesel with half of their power coming from coal and gas.

In practical terms a 40' container of hydrogen could power a multiple unit for days, but a heavy freight train for 3 hours.

In terms of batteries 150Km appears to be an achievable range, not dissimilar to the achievement of the Drumm Battery Train with its Dublin-Gorey & return 1934 demonstration run for the Government and press (topped up at Gorey and Bray on return) 

Standler San Bernadino unit is of a modular design allowing the H2 fuel cell/power pack to be swapped out for a pantograph and transformer, a battery pack, a diesel genset or a hydrogen-fueled IC engine, Standler locos are modular design including tripple mode Class 93 for the UK 5400bhp electric, 1200 hp Caterpillar diesel and 540hp battery pack

While NZ generates a high proportion of its electricity from renewable sources (hydro-wind-geothermal) its still dependent on coal and gas for peak loading.

With nuclear energy taboo, I wonder how Ireland stacks up in terms of renewable energy generation

 

 

[Noel]

Yes H is fossil fuel by the back door. That’s why OPEC and their buddies like Toyota are pushing it for cars too. Imho H will probably have a roll in HGVs, construction, rail, and car ferries. Well2wheel H makes no sense for cars.  “If” Ireland stays on target with current trajectory our national grid is due to hit 80% non fossil generation within 5-7 years. H May have a role in Grid storage, but today Battery and pumped hydro have a more compelling economic argument and much more efficient. Ireland also has one of the highest adoption rates of domestic solar PV, which in time further takes load off the grid and assists with grid peaking. It seems inevitable that we end up with all electric rail transport (ie 3rd rail or catenary). Interesting some proposed dart extensions planned to run on battery on sections of line lacking catenary. Electric seems the dust2dust CO2 best way to go (nor perfect, just best), diesel with its NoX seems into injury time these days. Only time will tell but thanks to the Atlantic and the blob Ireland is well placed for wind and solar generation (for now).

[Noel]

Ps the nuclear taboo is both hypocritical and illogical given we are about to import 700MWh of French nuclear generated electricity when the Celtic interconnector goes live, and Ireland’s close physical proximity to many French nuclear reactors in NW France.  The wind knows no political boundaries as tragically Chernobyl proved. 

[DJ Dangerous]

Absolutely can't wait for hydrogen cars! As @Broithe says, if the hydrogen is generated using excess capacity in the system, happy days!

Keiichi Tsuchiya taking the hydrogen Corolla around Tsukuba:

 

 

[Liam_Murph]

I have been seeing those Dr19 diesels popping up on test runs over the past year and they are odd looking machines. Apart from the cab, the body of the locomotive is surprisingly low which gives it a 'toy train' aesthetic. Will be interesting to see if they make a difference to the old Dv12 clag in the local yards

[Broithe]

43 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Absolutely can't wait for hydrogen cars! As @Broithe says, if the hydrogen is generated using excess capacity in the system, happy days!

 

The Soviet Union converted a Tu-154 to fly on hydrogen back in the 1980s.

As the Tu-155, the clues were the vent pipe on the tail and the pipe fairings in front of the engines.

It also flew later on LPG.

[Noel]

H is worthy of debate. 20 years ago I'd have bet my shirt on H for personal mobility but it missed the boat and BEV has disrupted the entire auto industry, every home has a power socket so a private filling station outside the front door, whereas there are zero H forecourt fuel pumps in Ireland and 5 in the whole of the UK. H may have a big role for HGVs, etc, but it seems not cars. Dynamic market forces will probably shape the way ahead. H is brutally inefficient well2wheel compared to the existing electricity grids. Rail was already transitioning to electric before climate action took became preeminent. Only time will tell.

 

 

9 hours ago, Broithe said:

The Soviet Union converted a Tu-154 to fly on hydrogen back in the 1980s.

As the Tu-155, the clues were the vent pipe on the tail and the pipe fairings in front of the engines.

It also flew later on LPG.

I flew on one of those yokes many years ago when the Irish passport was welcomed behind the iron curtain.

[Broithe]

26 minutes ago, Noel said:

I flew on one of those yokes many years ago when the Irish passport was welcomed behind the iron curtain.

The stowing of the main undercarriage is just such an elegant thing to watch.

[DJ Dangerous]

I wouldn't be quite so quick to knock hydrogen combustion engines. All it takes is a small network of filling stations to start offering it as EVE's eat into their revenues, and it has a foothold.

We have an EVE for work. Far cheaper than fossil fuel power, and pollution is moved away from the roads and into the electricity generation instead.

However, I doubt I'm the only one who feels a little dead inside every time I drive an EVE. Aside from glaring limitations placed by battery size and charging times, I crave the sound of a combustion engine and the feel of a manual gearbox.

Putting all of ones eggs in one basket is never wise. The future is likely to be balanced between EVE's, FCEV's, hydrogen, and traditional fossil fuels.

[Andy Cundick]

Personally i'm waiting for someone to come up with trolleybuses again Andy

[Broithe]

Hydrogen was, and probably still is, used in large generators for cooling purposes, in order to reduce the windage losses that would occur with 'thicker' gasses.

Sealing issues were never-ending, the tiny molecules will always find a way, it seems.

This did involve rotary seals on the shafts, which were the main source of the leaks, but stuff was kept outside as much as possible.

Leaks did have the handy feature of disappearing upwards very quickly and the fire risk was probably a good bit less deadly than, say, LPG leaks would be.

It was also not 'personally detectable', but I suppose a smell could be introduced for that purpose, as the low viscosity wouldn't be a feature that people would be desperate to keep for vehicle propulsion purposes...

Hydrogen fires are generally not as fearsome as the Hindenburg would lead you to believe, a lot of that was the fabric covering and its associated paint, then the remaining fuel.

 

We also used SF6, a non-toxic inert gas - for insulation purposes, and for controlling arcs during the opening of circuit breakers. It is, at atmospheric pressure, the densest gas around, you can actually float a tinfoil boat in a tank of it, at the air/SF6 surface, and it appears to be just floating in space. The opposite of hydrogen. This gas though, could drown you, if you unwittingly descended into a trench or cellar full of it, and there would be no 'breathing difficulty' to give the game away, you would just faint away with no distress, and then die. If the leak came from a circuit breaker, then there would be a smell, from the liberated fluorides, but if it was 'new' from a cylinder or from gas that was purely for insulation, then it was odourless.

 

54 minutes ago, Andy Cundick said:

Personally i'm waiting for someone to come up with trolleybuses again Andy

The dodgem car has never gone away.

[Noel]

I'll stick with my little BEV for now. Just hope they never do away with DCC!

[Branchline121]

On 15/6/2023 at 8:57 AM, Broithe said:

The Soviet Union converted a Tu-154 to fly on hydrogen back in the 1980s.

As the Tu-155, the clues were the vent pipe on the tail and the pipe fairings in front of the engines.

It also flew later on LPG.

Almost looks like a L-1011!

[Broithe]

3 hours ago, Branchline121 said:

Almost looks like a L-1011!

A good bit smaller - between that and a 727, really.

The story of the one that had an emergency landing at Izhma, ending up in the forest, being dragged back out, repaired enough to be flown out, then repaired properly and flown on for another decade, before being retired and put on display outside the airline's head office is a very 'Russian' thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alrosa_Flight_514

[Mayner]

On 16/6/2023 at 6:17 AM, Andy Cundick said:

Personally i'm waiting for someone to come up with trolleybuses again Andy

Road transport lobbyists keep coming up with the idea of stringing cantenary over the highways and running electric and hybrid trucks.

Apparently its been trailed in Sweden https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a21510/sweden-builds-the-worlds-first-electric-highway/

One bright transport 'expert" produced a report recommending using 'autononus" battery trucks for local delivery and collection that would be marshalled into "trains" that would "run under the wires" between marshalling yards in the major cities, recommending that railway lines should be abandoned.