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GO Transit Electrification | Metrolinx

ssiguy2 said:
You cannot draw any analogy between electrification in Britain and what Metrolinx has to deal with.

According to wikipedia as of 2019, 38% of the UK's rail system was electrified using catenary. It makes sense for further catenary electrification because many of the non-electrified routes will be able to "piggy back" onto the main electrified routes. It also means a lot of the maintenance, garage, sub-stations, and know-how are already in place whereas Metrolinx's only electric service is the light bulbs.

The term electrification has also become a loose one. A route maybe considered electrified because most of it is but the end of the routes can still be served by back-up batteries where they once couldn't have.

Either way, the longer this draws out {and we all know Metrolinx will be running late in the final announcement to say nothing of actually starting construction} the higher the chance these will be battery trains with contact-less charging at stations due to the much shorter construction times and having less disruption on the routes.

It will be interesting to see if Ottawa offers help if Toronto goes hydrogen as Ottawa is about to announce it's hydrogen policy and from all accounts it's going to be a really big plan to create a hydrogen economy. Ontario Hydro may also be pushing this behind the scenes as they {like Hydro Quebec} are trying to create their own hydrogen production thru electrolysis due to having an over supply of hydro at night.
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Other things equal, I'd rather see Metrolinx chose Battery and not Hydrogen. Unless they have solid technical reasons to conclude Hydrogen is better / cheaper / more reliable / cleaner etc.

Battery is compatible with the future catenary addition. A system that has catenary over the busiest sections, and relies on batteries to serve the branches (and perhaps some mainline sections that are hard to equip with catenary) can emerge as a result.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, requires the fuel supply infrastructure that's completely separate from any electric feed. Hydrogen-powered trains will not regenerate hydrogen on-board, because hydrogen needs to be stored at a very high pressure and that's a job for stationary plant. Hydrogen will need to be produced at the plant, then delivered to the railroad and loaded onto the train.
 
I still think that battery is the best option. It would require the least amount of infrastructure, is a proven technology, and expanding the system doesn't require any further infrastructure.

That said, as the world quickly moves into a hydrogen economy, the costs of production and operations are plunging. This while combined with what is expected to be a MASSIVE expansion of hydrogen infrastructure over the next decade and beyond as the ICE finally come to an end. The technological advancements of fuel cells and hydrogen are coming at a truly numbing pace.

Hydro companies are also more prone to force the government to use hydrogen. Hydrogen power can be produced overnight when there is amply supply and rates are at their cheapest as opposed to battery and catenary which need power when demand is at it's highest as well as the prices.
 
ssiguy2 said:
That said, as the world quickly moves into a hydrogen economy, the costs of production and operations are plunging. This while combined with what is expected to be a MASSIVE expansion of hydrogen infrastructure over the next decade and beyond as the ICE finally come to an end. The technological advancements of fuel cells and hydrogen are coming at a truly numbing pace.
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This is wishful thinking. Hydrogen is still languishing, as it has been for 30 years. It might have some potential in HGVs or maybe aircraft, but regardless of the cost of the power train or refueling infrastructure, the cost of the fuel is inherently higher than BEV.
 
ssiguy2 said:
I still think that battery is the best option. It would require the least amount of infrastructure, is a proven technology, and expanding the system doesn't require any further infrastructure.

That said, as the world quickly moves into a hydrogen economy, the costs of production and operations are plunging. This while combined with what is expected to be a MASSIVE expansion of hydrogen infrastructure over the next decade and beyond as the ICE finally come to an end. The technological advancements of fuel cells and hydrogen are coming at a truly numbing pace.
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Got any relevant links handy? I'd be interested in reading about this.
 
ssiguy2 said:
I still think that battery is the best option. It would require the least amount of infrastructure, is a proven technology, and expanding the system doesn't require any further infrastructure.

That said, as the world quickly moves into a hydrogen economy, the costs of production and operations are plunging. This while combined with what is expected to be a MASSIVE expansion of hydrogen infrastructure over the next decade and beyond as the ICE finally come to an end. The technological advancements of fuel cells and hydrogen are coming at a truly numbing pace.

Hydro companies are also more prone to force the government to use hydrogen. Hydrogen power can be produced overnight when there is amply supply and rates are at their cheapest as opposed to battery and catenary which need power when demand is at it's highest as well as the prices.
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Fair enough, but don't battery techs advance even faster than hydrogen techs? Hydrogen production by electrolysis is relatively simple and it is hard to expect any major improvements there. Some improvements can be expected in the fuel cells that consume that hydrogen on-board, but can that eclipse the tremendous increase in the battery capacity we've seen in the last 10 years?
 
The only hope for hydrogen is for huge amounts of renewable energy causing very low power prices (maybe negative) at times, and cheap hydrogen storage and electrolysis that is economical to operate 10-20% of the time when we have very low power prices. So the electrolysis equipment needs to be very low capital cost per unit of capacity.

Of course, hydrogen will be competing with grid-storage batteries for that cheap surplus power so hydrogen really comes into its own when we have several days of very windy conditions and low demand, for instance. Too much for grid storage batteries to hold it all, so produce hydrogen for seasonal term storage.
 
afransen said:
The only hope for hydrogen is for huge amounts of renewable energy causing very low power prices (maybe negative) at times, and cheap hydrogen storage and electrolysis that is economical to operate 10-20% of the time when we have very low power prices. So the electrolysis equipment needs to be very low capital cost per unit of capacity.

Of course, hydrogen will be competing with grid-storage batteries for that cheap surplus power so hydrogen really comes into its own when we have several days of very windy conditions and low demand, for instance. Too much for grid storage batteries to hold it all, so produce hydrogen for seasonal term storage.
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This makes a lot of sense. I believe the battery storage results in much less energy losses than the hydrogen storage, but at the same time, storing a gigantic amount of hydrogen is easier than building a gigantic battery bank with the same energy capacity.

So, if renewable energy becomes seasonally abundant and seasonally cheap (a big if), then the total capacity considerations might win over the loss minimization, and the hydrogen wins.
 
Towered said:
Got any relevant links handy? I'd be interested in reading about this.
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There are hundreds of articles about hydrogen development. Literally everyday there are new announcements and/or technological breakthroughs. BC just 2 days ago announced another 10 new hydrogen stations to be built within 2 years and 3 of them within a year. California has a huge expansion underway. It already has over 40 public hydrogen filling stations and is on it's way to it's goal of 200 by 2025 and 1,000 by 2030. Germany plans on 900 filling stations by 2030 with France having 600, the UK 1100, and even little Ireland having 68. Japan plans on having nearly 5,000 and S.Korea over 1500.

UK, Denmark, Ireland, France, Norway, Sweden have all announced plans to ban the sale of ICE by 2035 with Germany, Canada, Spain, Italy, and many other countries by 2040. Even India is "hoping" to be able to ban new ICE car sales by 2040.
 
ssiguy2 said:
There are hundreds of articles about hydrogen development.
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Articles =\= deployed systems.

Show one rail network built entirely around hydrail. Show one rail operator planning to convert their entire rail network to hydrail over the never decade (timeframe of GO Electrification).

I don't want government wasting billions of transit dollars, in a country that already under spends, on unproven technology.

You live in BC. Push that stuff out there. Not needed in the GTA.
 
Maybe let's just focus on getting GTA and Metrolinx to a baseline foundation of electrification / RER before burdening them with fancy new technologies that haven't been mass-deployed yet, shall we?

Those that have worked with Metrolinx in the past (either as an employee or contractor) may know this - Metrolinx isn't exactly the most "forward looking" or "risk neutral" organization when it comes to tech adoption. The whole organizational culture is highly risk averse, and has a habit of "adopting" (what others have already adopted) rather than "pioneering". It likes to "window shop" new ideas - ex. let's try out that new AI machine learning software for our customer service! - and then a year later back track on those announcements because the org isn't designed to take risks. I just fail to see how hydrogen trains can even make it past Metrolinx's initial RFI/RFP process.
 
As I said before I do NOT think hydrail would be the best option for Metrolinx so stop the insinuation that I am trying to push it.
 
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