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General railway discussions

drum118 said:

The world's first hydrogen-powered passenger trains are here​

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roger1818 said:
Interesting, though there is no mention of how they will be producing the Hydrogen gas. Hopefully it won’t be by steam reforming Natural Gas, as not only is it carbon intensive, but Germany will be short on Natural Gas for the forceable future. Electrolysis can be greener, but it’s very inefficient, requiring far more electricity to produce the hydrogen gas than the fuel cell will produce, and Europe will need all the electricity it can get this winter as an alternative to natural gas for heating. Not that diesel is all that great an option either, but in the short term it might be the easiest to import (we are still trying to figure out the best way to transport hydrogen gas in bulk)
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There is more information in this article. They do say “On-site hydrogen production using wind power for electrolysis is planned for the future” but no mention of how it will initially be produced (so most likely steam reforming).

www.railwaygazette.com

Hydrogen fuel cell trains enter regular commercial service

GERMANY: Regular commercial operation of series-built Alstom Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel cell multiple-units was officially launched by Eisenbahnen & Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser on August 24. Alstom has now delivered five of the 14 iLint units which were ordered by Land transport authority LNVG...
www.railwaygazette.com www.railwaygazette.com
 
roger1818 said:
There is more information in this article. They do say “On-site hydrogen production using wind power for electrolysis is planned for the future” but no mention of how it will initially be produced (so most likely steam reforming).
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There are no natural gas pipelines on Newfoundland. So if they were intending to use it as a source, it would need to be delivered by ship.
 
roger1818 said:
There is more information in this article. They do say “On-site hydrogen production using wind power for electrolysis is planned for the future” but no mention of how it will initially be produced (so most likely steam reforming).
Click to expand...

While the article describes the implementation as the first "Regular Commercial Operation" it is really a pilot, albeit a promising one.

Whatever the current supply is, really doesn't matter in the short term. I'm sure high capacity Hydrogen production will follow once the service proves itself and the issues about how and where to produce will flow from that,

For the next while, the fun part to watch will be how reliable these trains prove to be - and how scalable their power units are to other applications (these are fairly small trainsets).

- Paul
 
rbt said:
There are no natural gas pipelines on Newfoundland. So if they were intending to use it as a source, it would need to be delivered by ship.
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Not sure how Natural Gas pipelines in NL helps with H2 production in Germany in the short term. In the long run we need to move away from grey H2, but the economics of either blue or green H2 aren’t competitive yet. Only time will tell which one works out. Either way we need the cost of carbon to increase significantly. Having Canada blow its carbon budget on grey H2 so that Germany can look green doesn’t make sense.
 
crs1026 said:
While the article describes the implementation as the first "Regular Commercial Operation" it is really a pilot, albeit a promising one.

Whatever the current supply is, really doesn't matter in the short term. I'm sure high capacity Hydrogen production will follow once the service proves itself and the issues about how and where to produce will flow from that,

For the next while, the fun part to watch will be how reliable these trains prove to be - and how scalable their power units are to other applications (these are fairly small trainsets).

- Paul
Click to expand...

True. My concern is that Germany gets about half of its natural gas from Russia, If that tap turns off this winter, they are going to be in a lot of pain, and using some of it to make H2 for trains will only make things worse. Even if the amount needed is small, the optics of people not being able to heat their homes while trains are effectively converting to Natural gas using an inefficient process isn’t good.
 
roger1818 said:
Not sure how Natural Gas pipelines in NL helps with H2 production in Germany in the short term. In the long run we need to move away from grey H2, but the economics of either blue or green H2 aren’t competitive yet. Only time will tell which one works out. Either way we need the cost of carbon to increase significantly. Having Canada blow its carbon budget on grey H2 so that Germany can look green doesn’t make sense.
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Sorry, it doesn't help with Germany in the short-term.

The Canada/Germany deal is for a wind plant located in Newfoundland. I was only intending to point out that this deal is unlikely to be natural gas based, if built, because there is no convenient source of natural gas nearby to the selected location.
 
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Maybe I'm missing something. I thought the proposal was to use windpower to crack hydrogen from seawater then compress it and ship it to Europe. No natural gas or pipelines needed.
 
lenaitch said:
Maybe I'm missing something. I thought the proposal was to use windpower to crack hydrogen from seawater then compress it and ship it to Europe. No natural gas or pipelines needed.
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And I read somewhere that ammonia was what was to be produced and shipped, because while hazardous it’s easier to transport safely, and can be broken down easily into hydrogen at the destination.

- Pul
 
Bordercollie said:
Why couldn't they get funding to keep the Orangeville Brampton railway running? Seems more like politics rather than economics if you ask me.
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My understanding is that the main pressure for abandoning severely underused or disused ROWs is indeed economic, since you have to pay property taxes for every meter of track you own, regardless of how often (if at all!) it is used. Ripping out the tracks can save you a lot money…
 
Urban Sky said:
My understanding is that the main pressure for abandoning severely underused or disused ROWs is indeed economic, since you have to pay property taxes for every meter of track, regardless of how often (if at all!) it is used…
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Maybe track improvements or capital investment would have attracted more companies to use it. I just feel like the city didn't want to deal with it and got rid of it as fast as possible.
 
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