this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Why the fuck?
Trains don't run on diesel directly. They use diesel generators to drive electric motors that actually move the train. How those motors are powered is relatively irrelevant. This just replaces the diesel generators with hydrogen fuel cells.
But how about replacing the diesel with fucking electrified rail network?
Because now you have to build an electrified track infrastructure in instead of using an already built railway track.
cough overhead lines cough
Jeez if only smart people thought of that.
Real answer: it’s actually a lot of logistics and technical challenge to bring overhead lines to the whole of eve a small country like England. A lot of these tracks are in regions where there’s no power lines nearby. You still want the trains to go to and through these places.
That's logic comparing the economic costs of diesel to electric. If you compare the economics with hydrogen, it makes much more sense to run the wire with the track, independent of the availability of electricity.
Hydrogen could be used as a bridge gap measure. It’s relatively easy to move diesel engines to hydrogen. And hydrogen production, even when using gas, is still better than diesel engines.
Just put lines above the track...
Sometimes building infrastructure is more expensive than a hydrogen-powered train. I guess.
Maybe at the train track end. But creating the hydrogen and the needed infrastructure for both the creation and distribution, plus the enormous amounts of energy wasted in the production, is unlikely to be more cost effective than the investment in electrifying existing railroads.
Speaking about Germany in particular: We need hydrogen infrastructure anyway, if nothing else then as chemical feedstock and for steel smelting. And the pipeline network is already half-way in place, more and more parts are getting switched over from natural gas (the network started out as a coal gas network (hydrogen content of often over 50%) before natural gas became a thing, it's built to the necessary standard). Bonus: The pipeline network can store three months of total (not just electricity) of energy usage between minimum and maximum operating pressure.
Wind farms and electrolysing plants as well as conversion to ammonia (because transport) is getting built in Namibia and Canada, scheduled to be our main energy partners in the future.
It never is, and won't be until we essentially have free energy. Any serious economic study has concluded as much.
No especially not in the long run and especially especially not regarding efficiency
Sometimes youll need stuff like this. Rail maintenance cant always be done using overhead lines, since the machines will get destroyed by electric breakdown(?).
Some parts are not electrified yet, some cant be without major work being done to the track.
It is not ideal, but sometimes you cant do it otherwise, or you'd have to cut of some parts, imo its a useful way to bridge gaps.
It’s worth the time and effort in a city, and even between two large cities that are relatively close to each other. Sadly, building and maintaining the system isn’t cheap, so we don’t do it in more remote locations.
It’s true. Electrified rail lines do exist in a many places, but not quite everywhere. Since there are also non-electric lines, there’s also a time and a place for non-electric locomotives.
A line crossing the Rockys can hardly be considered remote, (at least in an integrated system) it should get tons and tons of through-traffic. It's not about where the line is but what it connects.
A line can be way less remote, say just ten kilometres from a million inhabitant metropolis, but still see very limited traffic as the area is rural, and only have hourly passenger service and nothing else, maybe a couple of grain wagons in harvesting season and electrifying it would not amortise in a century or ever (because increased maintenance costs). Completely different situation to having through-traffic 24/7 bumper to bumper somewhere at the arse of the world.
If the government has full monopoly on everything rail related, then connecting two places becomes a political question. It may not make economic sense, but in the big picture of an entire country and its internal politics it might be a sensible thing to do regardless.
Its not that expensive in especially comparison to the entire hustle with Hydrogen...
Hydrogen technology is still in its infancy, so economies of scale aren’t helping very muc at this point. On top of that, the storage options are far from ideal, and not all hydrogen is green. Currently there are many obstacels, but hopefully hydrogen will find its place in the future.
A very idiotic statement.
Caucasus was electrifued first in Soviet Union
Distance doesn’t matter as long as the line connects two places that are important in the big picture.
A lot of them do, but there are also ones with mechanical or hydraulic transmission.
European politicians like hydrogen for some reason. Inefficiencies don't matter, they are used to those.