GO Transit Electrification | Metrolinx

[DirectionNorth]

All jokes aside, this is a REALLY big deal and not just for freight.

If VIA is to decarbonize it's fleet by 2050 {at the very latest} then hydrogen is the ONLY option unless they essentially get rid of every route except Windsor to Quebec City.

Why would it, besides, will the mainlines allow hydrogen charging stations on their corridors? How do you get hydrogen to Nowhere, northern Ontario or somewhere near Churchill, or Senneterre?

The idea of catenary or even battery for such a huge system is laughable and VIA knows it. When CP/CN begin to really embrace hydrogen as the technology progresses and the political heat piles, they must build out the hydrogen infrastructure to accommodate it and VIA can piggy back onto that infrastructure to offer a true zero emissions nation-wide service.

Have they though? I'd assume they would also be looking at electrification. You're making lots of assumptions. As much as I doubt they will electrify their network nationwide, I also find it hard to believe they will hydrogen-ize within 30 years.

I have been saying this for ages only to be ridiculed but seems I will be getting the last laugh.

Don't count your chickens before they've hatched.

 

[ssiguy2]

I never said catenary was not possible for some core routes but you are using an Ontario viewpoint. The VAST majority of the VIA network is not in the Corridor and putting up catenary along these thousands of km of track would bankrupt VIA to say nothing of the fact that it would take many decades.

As for hydrogen infrastructure, that is already being developed and it will continue. The government Hydrogen Plan expects nearly one-third of all our power needs being filled by hydrogen by 2050. VIA also does not have to buy new trains to go green as the UK has shown. They have begun reconfiguring their diesel passenger trains over to hydrogen ones with great success. ScotRail wants to be completely carbon free by 2030 and expects hydrogen will be the preferred option in most of the routes while battery will be for routes that are only partly electrified.

 

[DirectionNorth]

I never said catenary was not possible for some core routes but you are using an Ontario viewpoint. The VAST majority of the VIA network is not in the Corridor and putting up catenary along these thousands of km of track would bankrupt VIA to say nothing of the fact that it would take many decades.

As for hydrogen infrastructure, that is already being developed and it will continue. The government Hydrogen Plan expects nearly one-third of all our power needs being filled by hydrogen by 2050. VIA also does not have to buy new trains to go green as the UK has shown. They have begun reconfiguring their diesel passenger trains over to hydrogen ones with great success. ScotRail wants to be completely carbon free by 2030 and expects hydrogen will be the preferred option in most of the routes while battery will be for routes that are only partly electrified.

I don't think that hydrogen will remain unused, but the logistical.challenges of setting up filling sites makes me skeptical that it will see wide adoption in this country on that sort of timescale. And electrification would be cheaper (in the long run) in denser areas - again, my advice for the long-term is to wait and see.

 

[crs1026]

^What seems to have been missed is the reality that CP, which owns hundreds and hundreds of locomotives, is commissioning a single hydrogen unit, which is not even enough to pull a single train. So it’s a test of concept and certainly not close to a pre-production prototype.
A step forward, but hardly a sign that we’re on the cusp of anything.

- Paul

 

[Rainforest]

I don't think that hydrogen will remain unused, but the logistical.challenges of setting up filling sites makes me skeptical that it will see wide adoption in this country on that sort of timescale. And electrification would be cheaper (in the long run) in denser areas - again, my advice for the long-term is to wait and see.

Hydrogen tanks can be delivered to fueling stations in the same way diesel fuel is getting delivered today. There could be challenges; hydrogen by itself is very lightweight but it has to be stored under high pressure and that required heavy containers. We'll see how it evolves.

For the suburban / commuter service, catenary is the way to go. For the long haul lines stretching thousands of kilolmeters, hydrogen technology has a chance. And it is more relavent for the freight than for VIA; if freight is to be decarbonized, hydrogen might win over catenary because the latter is more expensive in maintenance.

VIA long-distance routes by themselves aren't even relevant to this discussion. At today's miniscule level of service, those routes never need to be decarbonized, as the amount of CO2 they produce is negligible. But the freight shipments is a much more significant source of CO2, and if those can be decarbonized, then naturally VIA will piggy-back on whichever technology is chosen for the freight.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

The flip side of that is that between the marketing potential, limited infrastructure involved (assuming use of hydrogen tenders there don't need to be many fueling stations) and nationwide visibility I've thought a few times that the Canadian might actually be a good option to demonstrate hydrogen.

 

[KevinT]

Hydrogen tanks can be delivered to fueling stations in the same way diesel fuel is getting delivered today. There could be challenges; hydrogen by itself is very lightweight but it has to be stored under high pressure and that required heavy containers.

Ideally there would be a commitment to green hydrogen, i.e. hydrogen which is not produced by steam reformation of natural gas, but rather good old fashioned electrolysis. Green hydrogen can be made, compressed, and stored at the site of the filling station, the only inputs needed are water and electricity from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro). This eliminates having to deliver heavy high pressure tanks from anywhere to anywhere, and the only tankage involved is at the filling station and in the hydrogen powered vehicles themselves.

I'm pretty sure that unless forced to do so by government however, CN and CP will do whatever is cheapest. In today's market that's buying hydrogen created from petrochemical sources, and schlepped across the country by fossil powered transportation. This new locomotive isn't even a baby step, it's the first attempt at a crawl.

 

[lenaitch]

Ideally there would be a commitment to green hydrogen, i.e. hydrogen which is not produced by steam reformation of natural gas, but rather good old fashioned electrolysis. Green hydrogen can be made, compressed, and stored at the site of the filling station, the only inputs needed are water and electricity from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro). This eliminates having to deliver heavy high pressure tanks from anywhere to anywhere, and the only tankage involved is at the filling station and in the hydrogen powered vehicles themselves.

I'm pretty sure that unless forced to do so by government however, CN and CP will do whatever is cheapest. In today's market that's buying hydrogen created from petrochemical sources, and schlepped across the country by fossil powered transportation. This new locomotive isn't even a baby step, it's the first attempt at a crawl.

Cool. All the scenario needs is production sites alongside rail lines at the right places where fueling is required and larger enough for a solar farm, windy enough for a wind farm, or suitable as a dam site, all of which they will build themselves. How many would depend on range, since it relies only on the tankage capacity of the power units. Seeing as most non-corridor service at least starts in a city, host municipalities might have something to say about that.

The better scenario would be for the RR (or contract provider) to build the required hydrolysis sites where it is safest and most suitable to do so and sign long term contracts with green electricity providers. It's grid-tied, but electron in/electron out.

 

[crs1026]

^Definitely showing my ignorance here…. how much water is consumed in electrolysing enough hydrogen to refuel a dozen or more trains per day for a trip of some hundreds of miles?

A distributed fuelling site in Thunder Bay is easy to imagine….but Moose Jaw or Hornepayne not so much.…. no water to be had without impacting smaller lakes or rivers. Which freeze in winter, by the way….

And just how much hydrogen can a locomotive carry - what’s the range of a full tank? Are you suggesting the need to stop more frequently than at present to refuel ?

- Paul

 

[Allandale25]

Free event.

Thursday, 14 October 2021, 12:00 - 13:00 EDT

https://events.empireclubofcanada.com/minister_surma/begin

Posting it here because previous Market Updates (in PDF) from IO have listed the OnCorr (aka electrification) contract.

 

[Rainforest]

^Definitely showing my ignorance here…. how much water is consumed in electrolysing enough hydrogen to refuel a dozen or more trains per day for a trip of some hundreds of miles?

A distributed fuelling site in Thunder Bay is easy to imagine….but Moose Jaw or Hornepayne not so much.…. no water to be had without impacting smaller lakes or rivers. Which freeze in winter, by the way….

And just how much hydrogen can a locomotive carry - what’s the range of a full tank? Are you suggesting the need to stop more frequently than at present to refuel ?

- Paul

You can recycle close to 100% of water used for the electrolysis. When hydrogen is consumed in the fuel cells, it combines with the athmospheric oxygen and turns back into water.

The cost of that is the need to carry all the generated water back to the electrolysis station. Which will increase the train weight somewhat, and thus increase the energy consumption.

 

[Rainforest]

Ideally there would be a commitment to green hydrogen, i.e. hydrogen which is not produced by steam reformation of natural gas, but rather good old fashioned electrolysis. Green hydrogen can be made, compressed, and stored at the site of the filling station, the only inputs needed are water and electricity from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro). This eliminates having to deliver heavy high pressure tanks from anywhere to anywhere, and the only tankage involved is at the filling station and in the hydrogen powered vehicles themselves.

I'm pretty sure that unless forced to do so by government however, CN and CP will do whatever is cheapest. In today's market that's buying hydrogen created from petrochemical sources, and schlepped across the country by fossil powered transportation. This new locomotive isn't even a baby step, it's the first attempt at a crawl.

Several good points are touched here, but we might not know all the exact answers. Some notes though:

1. The steam-reformed hydrogen is pretty bad, if the by-product CO2 is simply released into the athmosphere. That kind of hydrogen is probably worse than simply burning the diesel fuel, because it involves more transformations and every transformation loses some energy.

However, steam-reformed hydrogen might be useful if reliable ways to trap the by-product CO2 are designed. I know that extensive research is happening in that area, but do not know if anything suitable for the industrial scale exists already.

2. If 100% of train fuel hydrogen can be produced from renewables, hydrogen shipment is still relevant because you won't be able to set the energy stations everywhere the railroads need them. Maybe you can build multiple autonomous / robotic solar and wind stations somewhere in the middle of Saskatchewan, where space is not a problem and enough sunshine and wind power is available. But where the railroad runs through forests or mountain regions, you will need to get the hydrogen from another place.

Speaking of hydro power, it certainly requires a suitable river, and the station can't be placed just anywhere on the bank.

3. There are big doubts that decarbonization can be achieved without a major nuclear power expansion. All modern nuclear stations are massive. Attempts to design compact nuclear reactors are under way, but again I don't know how close they are to any large-scale practical use. Sticking with what works today, if you get the hydrogen from nuclear energy then that hydrogen will definitely need to be shipped long distances.

 

[KevinT]

However, steam-reformed hydrogen might be useful if reliable ways to trap the by-product CO2 are designed. I know that extensive research is happening in that area, but do not know if anything suitable for the industrial scale exists already.

That's called Blue Hydrogen and the petrochemical companies/lobbies are pushing for it. Studies suggest that it's a bad idea though:

https://theconversation.com/blue-hydrogen-what-is-it-and-should-it-replace-natural-gas-166053

Green hydrogen is the most energy intensive to make, but if you're producing it at times of surplus when you'd otherwise be feathering the props on your wind farms then who cares? Tanking the surplus as hydrogen is a win.

This isn't something the railroads can do on their own, and it will cost more than the status quo. A lot more. But what is the cost of the status quo at a macro level with severe storms, larger and more frequent forest fires, floods, and the resultant property loss and population displacement? More again I'm sure; but there aren't enough people who believe that right now to make commitment to hydrogen a thing.

As to Paul's question about range, I'm sure it's less. Hydrogen isn't as energy dense as hydrocarbons, and the high pressure tanks are heavier. Who knows, maybe tender cars behind locomotives will become a thing again if commitments to this are ever made.

Back to the topic at hand however. Just get the catenary strung for GO already...

 

[crs1026]

3. There are big doubts that decarbonization can be achieved without a major nuclear power expansion. All modern nuclear stations are massive. Attempts to design compact nuclear reactors are under way, but again I don't know how close they are to any large-scale practical use. Sticking with what works today, if you get the hydrogen from nuclear energy then that hydrogen will definitely need to be shipped long distances.

This is doubly meaningful for railways because in the truly sustainable zero-carbon picture, we can't afford to waste energy by continuing to rely on friction and conventional dynamic braking. There is simply too much kinetic energy wasted (ie released to the atmosphere as heat) that ought to be reclaimed. I suppose that hydrogen could be electrolyzed on board during braking cycles, but to my mind it does argue more for either regenerative braking (which requires wires) or battery recharging on board.

- Paul

 

[lenaitch]

^Definitely showing my ignorance here…. how much water is consumed in electrolysing enough hydrogen to refuel a dozen or more trains per day for a trip of some hundreds of miles?

A couple of sites say about 9 litres of (distilled) water to produce 1kg of hydrogen. How far down the track that gets a train is beyond me. The energy required is about 50KWh/kg not counting the energy to compress.