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Rail company that launched first H2 line opts for all-electric future
- thriftwy 3y agoWhat's so hard about having overhead wires?
- toomuchtodo 3y agoThere's a lot of folks with a vested interest in pushing a hydrogen future (market participants who will see financial loss as fossil fuel use declines, natural gas infra, automakers who are trying to cling to non battery platforms), so it takes orders of magnitude of additional effort to bring folks back to boring, reliable tech (overhead wires or charging points) and batteries versus the "innovator hand wave" of various colors of hydrogen marketing (green, blue). Building new catenary systems can be expensive (anywhere between $1M-$5M/mile in the US), but can possibly be avoided with batteries and charging at stations (or energy provided via rails). https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-green-hydrogen/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-green-hy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago> Building new catenary systems can be expensive (anywhere between $1M-$5M/mile in the US) Can you just hire Japan Rail to build it for you, then?
- lmm 3y agoThe problem is political dysfunction at higher levels. California tried hiring SNCF to build their high speed rail, but that fell apart because what California wanted was impossible and didn't make sense. (SNCF built a line in Morocco instead)
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoIs that dysfunction specific to catenary systems? Would H2 or battery-based systems be less politically dysfunctional?
- lmm 3y agoIt certainly seems to be at its worst when it comes to anything that involves building. So technologies that can run on existing lines without modification might find it easier to run the regulatory gauntlet even if objectively inferior. (See e.g. Los Angeles' sunshade-on-a-pole because it's illegal to build a bus shelter)
- bluGill 3y agoIt is political, anything will have that issue. CA politically chose the route without considering geography.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> California tried hiring SNCF to build their high speed rail, but that fell apart because what California wanted was impossible and didn't make sense The third-party claims about the SNCF proposal mutated a lot in response to evidence that seemed to contradict them, the most recent form of it acknowledging that SNCF publicly supported the CV alignment that the story says they later opposed, and also paints the opposition coming after federal funding waa committed under ARRA tied specifically to specific projects in the Central Valley alignment that SNCF America was said to have then opposed.
- TylerE 3y agoIt's hardly a US, or a recent thing. When the UK electrified the East Coast Mainline in the 80s, that cost an inflation-adjusted GBP 600M, for 397 route miles. At that time 1 GBP was approx 1.5 USD. Using 1.5, that's $2.26M/mile. PS: Even in Japan, almost all freight travels by diesel to this day... they run on separate tracks to the passenger trains, although freight in general in Japan is less important since they don't have much bulk cargo, being a major exporter of neither food nor minerals.
- _hypx 3y agoThe only scam here is the battery train. You can simply electrify the rail lines fully and eliminate all battery needs. That is the obvious solution. At least hydrogen makes sense for rail lines with no electrification.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_multiple_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_multiple_unit
- _hypx 3y agoI didn't say they didn't exist. But there's very little need for them. The wiki article itself makes this pretty clear that they are rarely needed.
- Bairfhionn 3y agoMaintenance/construction costs? Is my guess. I've driven lots of routes (especially rural) with Diesel trains. It's not rare (in Germany).
- Gibbon1 3y agoProbably cheaper to use batteries at this point. Like what's the cost per mile to install overhead wires? Comments in an online magazine says $1M/mile[1]. You can buy 5-10,000 kwh worth of batteries for a million bucks. [1] https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/189389.aspx https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/189389.aspx
- brnt 3y agoEvery train needs their own battery, all trains can use the same overhead lines. Plus, in Europe, most rolling stock is electrified anyway, and diesel units are only kept around for a handful of peripheral lines. Germans are famous for not being willing to spend anything on infra, but I'm not so sure battery trains make sense for them. On the other hand, it may make for another nice subsidy vehicle for local industry like hydrogen trains were.
- TylerE 3y agoThe German network is only 55% electrified on a per-mile basis. France is 53%, Portugal 49%... others like Greece are in the low 30s EU wide it's 56%, brought up a good chunk by Scandinavia and Switzerland. Italy and Spain are the only two countries in Southern Europe over 50%. There are a LOT of infrequently used industrial lines that see no passenger traffic, and maybe only see a freight train once or twice a day, if that.
- brnt 3y agoI meant lines used for passenger traffic, which this article is about.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- o_m 3y agoThey fall down pretty often. I commute 30 mins, and it is the main reason for cancellations.
- throwbadubadu 3y agoThey.. just.. fall down? Like the front fell off? Sorry, but never heard of that here, neither for the local trams, nor the >50% electrified on rail.. it is more likely some unhappy guys cut the signaling wires. Where is that?
- inferiorhuman 3y agoSure, they do just not very often (at least not here). Out here I'd imagine worn out pantograph shoes (since most trains here don't have auto lowering pantos). Otherwise the wrong tension on the wires or pantograph at the wrong height can cause some pretty spectacular failures. If it's happening all the time you're doing something wrong. https://youtu.be/Ou73R_wIwiA?t=113 https://youtu.be/Ou73R_wIwiA?t=113 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YqLB-TMvhg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YqLB-TMvhg
- inferiorhuman 3y agoOh and sometimes they fail of their own volition and sometimes due to poor quality materials. https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/one-injured-after-overhead-muni-wire-falls-near-third-and-mission/article_a50a43f7-d7d7-5c9b-a3de-2c12a2eab533.html https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/one-injured-after-overhead-m... https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/09/02/bad-splices-point-to-fundamental-problems-at-muni https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/09/02/bad-splices-point-to-f... https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/muni-wires-fall-on-san-franciscos-market-street/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/muni-wires-fall-on...
- bluGill 3y agoOverhead wires have been around since the 1950s (actually the 1800s), they are old technology, everyone wants to support new technology. Nobody cares that the new is worse than the old (this is both in practice and in theory).
- danhor 3y agoOverhead wires take quite a while to plan and build and for non-frequent service (1tph) and/or short trains installation costs and maintenance are quite high compared to buying e.g. BEMUs. Many of these services are shuttle runs with electrification at one or both ends and route lengths of less than 100km, so e.g. a Mireo Plus B with ~120 seats only a 580kWh battery (or less than 6 Tesla Model X batteries ) is used (https://www.vde.com/resource/blob/1979350/a41e9c3559af76fee9c91befbc1e9216/studie-klimaneutrale-alternative-zu-dieseltriebzuegen-data.pdf https://www.vde.com/resource/blob/1979350/a41e9c3559af76fee9... page 24) HEMUs for these types of services I don't understand. It's laudable that transit providers want to get away from fossil fuels (and putting up overhead wire is a long and arduous process, fraught with delays), but getting hydrogen today almost certainly isn't "green". Maybe "Technologieoffenheit" virtue signalling. But looking at the plans of various german transit agencies for future service on non-electrified lines, it's pretty obvious that hydrogen has already lost for rail-based transit, with almost every tender that doesn't prescribe a technology going to BEMUs and studies showing that BEMUs and partial electrification or full electrification almost always makes more sense than HEMUs
- thriftwy 3y agoOptimizing ecological impact of non-frequent services leads to diminishing gains. In this case, a diesel train you already have may be the best option.
- _hypx 3y agoBEMUs make zero sense. Just electrify the full route. You eliminate all battery related costs by doing this, nearly guaranteeing it will be cheaper in the long-run. I get the feeling that Germany is overran with "consultants" who are playing games with finances or are trying to harvest subsidies. The whole story feels like propaganda intended to defend against some kind of scam.
- athenot 3y agoInterestingly, the total amount of rail is about the same for EU and US, however in the EU, 55% of it is electrified, and only 1% in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_tran...
- chrisco255 3y agoWhat percentage of freight in either continent travels on an electric train?
- thriftwy 3y agoSoviet Union and later Russia had entirely families of electric mainline freight locomotive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VL85 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VL85 If the line is electrified then freight travelling on it will be travelling on electric trains.
- WeylandYutani 3y agoThe railroad network had to be rebuilt after WW2 in Europe and Japan. War can be good for something I suppose.
- brnt 3y agoIf by Europe you mean Germany, or by rebuilt mean maintenance, then, yes. The level of rail maintenance in America (barely any) is illegal in the rest of the western world. Tenders for maintenance specify certain speed and safety limits that basically require rebuilding every few decades. Only on private rail could a hedge fund approach work, where the capital of the infrastructure is extracted by way of not maintaining it, but instead slowing trains down and increasing their length to compensate for bandwidth loss.
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- TylerE 3y agoOne of the bigger issues is that it requires much more vertical clearance. Rebuilding tunnels and bridges is expensive - tunnels especially are practically never built much larger than required. Stations, depots, carriage washers, and other related infrastructure will need to be rebuilt or heavily modified to account for the extra height of the panto, wires, and poles. If you're building NEW track, sure, OHLE is the way to go. But there is well over 1 million route kilometers of rail in the world, and less than a third of it is electrified. Of the countries having at least 20,000km of track, only India and Japan are above 70% electrified. Cost of electrifying is estimated at at a miniumum of $1 million per track kilometer. (10 route km of a quad-track mainline would be 40 track km). A large freight yard might be 40 tracks wide by 2 or 3km long... that's over $100m right there, and that's assuming the yard tracks are spaced widely enough, which they aren't always.
- _hypx 3y agoYou do not need to electrify every meter of track. Trains have enough momentum that you can coast for fairly significant distances. The idea that you need an entire fleet of battery trains just for those short sections beggars belief.
- TylerE 3y agoAn obstacle appears appears, and the train goes into emergency braking. You’re now stopped between electrified sections. It’s going to take hours to get moved, and the delays will ripple through the system. A diesel will have to be dispatched… except it’s entirely possible it won’t be able to get you because there are trains stuck between you, and it’s not like they can pull onto the shoulder. These sections are sometimes miles long.
- _hypx 3y agoA rare event. And the solution is to keep these unpowered sections short. Not spend millions on a fleet of battery powered trains.
- narrator 3y agoHydrogen is a better solution for ocean shipping, long-range airplanes, and industrial processes that need very high heat. Even Elon Musk admits the last one will be necessary. Fuel cells are not a good idea because they require expensive catalyst metals. Hydrogen, in the form of ammonia running in combustion engines, is just about the only decarbonized solution that work for the big container ships. Large scale ammonia engines have been successfully tested and may go into production in the next few years for these applications[1]. For trains, it's not a good idea because you can more easily supply power with overhead wire and you don't even need to deal with batteries. [1]https://www.power-technology.com/news/man-ammonnia-engine-test/ https://www.power-technology.com/news/man-ammonnia-engine-te...
- hannob 3y ago> Hydrogen is a better solution for [...] industrial processes that need very high heat. Why would that be, except maybe in rare cornercases? You can electrify almost anything, and it'll be more efficient and less polluting.
- bluGill 3y agoThat depends on your ability to get access to electric. While you can imagine wires across the ocean (or at 35000 feet), it doesn't seem practical or cost effective to install them. However if you are in more populated areas odds are you already have electric close and so it is more cost effective to connect to the grid. For transit use, a rule of thumb is if you have a bus every 10 minutes or less then it would be more cost effective in the long run to have wires to the bus (better than diesel or battery buses). However even when you have a bus every 10 minutes odds are you have enough other routes that don't have that frequency and so overall it isn't worth it even though in some places it would be.
- prennert 3y agoLots of lines are not electrified, because of the infrastructure cost of raising bridges for the overhead line. In some places it might be simpler to switch diesel electric train engines to hydrogen engines.
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- thescriptkiddie 3y agoThis is extremely stupid. We have had electric trains for 200 years and hydrogen was not involved.
- evandijk70 3y agoThe main benefit of hydrogen that it is cheaper to store energy for long periods. When electricity comes mostly from renewables, which is expected to lead to very low, zero or even negative electricity during periods with lots of sun and/or wind, hydrogen could be produced for the cost of capital of electrolyzers + storage, which might tip the scales in favor of hydrogen.
- konschubert 3y agoNegative electricity prices only happen due to subsidies. It's very easy and fast to turn off a solar power plant. Without subsidies, nobody will pay to feed power into the grid. And that's okay, ~0 is a good enough as a price.
- danhor 3y agoRight now this is the case, but if roof-top solar is used more widely, it can happen even without subsidies. For owners of roof-top solar it should never be beneficial to turn run from the grid if not necessary, so coal and nuclear power plants that take a while to spin down might still produce oversupply, leading to negative prices
- konschubert 3y agoYou're assuming that rooftop solar receives a fixed power price or is able to do net metering. Both of these are subsidies. Without subsidies, somebody feeding solar from their rooftop into the grid will need to sell the power on the stock exchange, usually through a power broker company that adds them to their portfolio. (In Germany this is called "Direktvermarktung") This power broker will remotely curtail (turn off) the solar infeed when the spot prices turn negative.
- danhor 3y agoNo, I'm assuming rooftop solar users just use their solar themselves, thus significantly reducing the demand the grid sees. Since there is (and will be) no way to penalize using rooftop power yourself, demand might still be below the generation left even with renewables feeding into the grid turned off. This, of course, assumes widespread rooftop solar usage and a lot of "conventional" slow power generation online (the latter will likely remain the case in France for the next few decades, since they're in no hurry to reduce their nuclear power plant stock). I'm also don't understand why a fixed feed-in price has to be a subsidy? Is a fixed electricity price or a fixed gas price a subsidy? It could be that home owners are more comfortable selling their electricity for a fixed price and power brokers have determined that accurately measuring feed-in over time and adding remote-curtailment functionality is not worth the cost for small installations. I doubt we will see feed-in prices without any subsidies in the near future, but it could certainly happen.
- danhor 3y agoWhile hydrogen EMUs were first used in germany in planned service (with battery EMUs coming into service later this year), it seems that BEMUs might be more mature right now. The only HEMU being used right now is the iLint, and it has been in development for many years while the first "real" deployment is plagued with issues (to be fair, not all of them stemming from the iLint itself). Meanwhile it seems that BEMUs are being offered by nearly every company, with trains from three different manufacturers starting service in the next 12 months. Hydrogen will probably see some use in railways, but more for freight and long-distance applications, mostly outside of Germany. I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of freight and long distance service in the US ran with hydrogen, with commuter trains mostly using batteries and conventional overhead electrification.
- TylerE 3y agoI just don't see it. It's just such a pain in the ass to store and handle. Locomotives are actually a better case for batteries than most, because you could keep the batteries in a secondary car, much like a steam locomotive tender, that can easily be swapped out on a siding when needed in about 10 minutes... or just chain as many together as you need for the trip. Trains, especially freight trains, aren't that weight sensitive, since they tend to mostly roll along at the same speed. Such trains could be fitted with a pantograph and operate directly off OHLE when possible. Actually, don't recall the class but I'm fairly sure the UK has a variant of one it's commuter EMU with a small built in batter. The route it travels has a few miles without wires where is impractical to add wires so it uses batterys to cover that gap.
- kenhwang 3y agoNot being weight sensitive is the very important key point. It means trains of the future could use some non-lithium battery chemistry. Likely sodium-ion, which is projected to be significantly cheaper due to abundant materials, safer due to its chemistry, more tolerant to hot/cold weather, and it's main drawback of lower energy density isn't a big deal to trains.
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