Hydrogen Power for trains and cars..

[Anonymous]

Hydrogen takes electric power to produce so it in it self is not a primary sorce of energy. But Hydrgen is more of a carrier of electrisity and as a gas it is ealy trasportable and it is easy to store. What is the issue is how the electrisity is gernerated by coal,oil,nuke,solar,hydro,wind,wave,human power ect.
What needs to be looked it here is that with Hydro and solar and wind the generartion is not always at a constant and having batterys to store the energy that is needed is impratical. Hydrogen offers a aleternive to batterys and Pumped storage resorvers to generate electrisity. Hygrogen-Deasal electric Locomotives off the ecomnomys of scale not possible in automobles in that that in a train you can store the "Fuel" in tank cars behind the train in almost unlimted quetintys since Hydrgen takes up more cubic feet then Gasoline which gallon for gallon and cubic feet per cubic feet is the most portable fual today.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfinder22

Hydrogen takes electric power to produce so it in it self is not a primary sorce of energy. But Hydrgen is more of a carrier of electrisity and as a gas it is ealy trasportable and it is easy to store. What is the issue is how the electrisity is gernerated by coal,oil,nuke,solar,hydro,wind,wave,human power ect.
What needs to be looked it here is that with Hydro and solar and wind the generartion is not always at a constant and having batterys to store the energy that is needed is impratical. Hydrogen offers a aleternive to batterys and Pumped storage resorvers to generate electrisity. Hygrogen-Deasal electric Locomotives off the ecomnomys of scale not possible in automobles in that that in a train you can store the "Fuel" in tank cars behind the train in almost unlimted quetintys since Hydrgen takes up more cubic feet then Gasoline which gallon for gallon and cubic feet per cubic feet is the most portable fual today.

Very interesting, but Hydrogen has a small problem,it is very unstable and is one of the kings of combustability. The Germans tried the use of hydrogen in the transportation business back in the 30's. The Hindenberg pretty much says all that needs to be said about its uses and the hubrus of thinking that the element is easily worked with. Your thoughts with this in mind would be welcomed in the forum. Much has happened since 1936, Something new in this subject area would be interesting.

[Junctionfan]

It would be dangerous (as piouslion pointed out), to use liquid hydrogen as a fuel source. It would be safer to use water and the engine could an atomic converter that breaks down the water molecules and combusts them safely.

[Anonymous]

It would be safer to use water and the engine could an atomic converter that breaks down the water molecules and combusts them safely
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Atomic conveter eh??[?][?][?][:)]

[Junctionfan]

Something like that. I know they exist but probably got the name of the thing wrong. I know the technology is there for sure.

[tree68]

I doubt you would see an internal combustion engine fueled by Hydrogen. LP and LNG haven't found a home in RR motive power, and both are readily available.

You are more likely to see hydrogen used to power fuel cells, which will generate electricity to turn the traction motors. I have no idea how many fuel cells it would take to equate with a common road engine or switcher.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/ Has some information on fuel cells. I didn't dig in very deep, but it does appear that there is a lot of information there.

[Overmod]

Thanks for bringing this up in its own thread. I was getting ready to address the laughable misinformation in the "AAA" thread, but it's better here.

The point about using hydrogen as a kind of analogue to pumped storage is an interesting one, which is not often mentioned in the 'energy carrier' debate. However, I know of no present plan to use reversible dissociation and hydrogen storage in the electric-power industry -- there are much better alternatives, notably superconducting storage facilities and more flexible generating facilities that are efficient over a wide range of partial loads.

Keep in mind that electricity is certainly not the source of all carrier hydrogen, and not all methods of hydrogen production need to use more energy than the hydrogen provides as a transportation fuel. There are interesting future possibilities for 'semiconductor' photodissociation of water, perhaps in conjunction with photovoltaics, which essentially use a free input (insolation) to produce hydrogen gas.

A critical difficulty, however, for hydrogen-engine schemes is that the energy density of hydrogen gas as an engine fuel... and for all intents and purposes as a fuel-cell fuel for large applications like locomotives... isn't sufficient for practicality. Note that I'm talking about pressurized hydrogen at ambient temperature here. I'm also not considering any added effect of the inert nitrogen in combustion air (which is a primary absorber/re-emitter of hydrogen-oxygen combustion energy). Not that there isn't plenty of power -- just that you need lots of expensive and heavy pressure vessels for a comparatively tiny amount of total heat...

First lesson, children: Hydrogen at normal temperatures is a gas. It also has a very low gram molecular weight, which means that for a given gauge pressure there is restricted heat content. Do not mistake high energy of reaction for good fuel value! Meanwhile... has anyone actually asked how much a "tank car" capable of holding 165atm+ of pressure might have to weigh? (Hint: helium cars...)

In practice, this means that an 'effective' fuel giving any kind of meaningful range for a road locomotive will be either cryogenic fuel ("liquid hydrogen") or some form of hydride storage. You do not just put these fuels in "tank cars behind the train" as if it were something relatively benign like methyl isocyanate (note: being humorous here; I'm perfectly aware of that chemical's nature and history!) Liquid hydrogen is extremely cold, it will easily cause valves and lines to freeze if even small concentrations of moisture are present, and the tanks require extensive insulation. Oh yes: as the tank heats up, you have to vent the gas, or deal with substantial overpressure... in alloys not known for their tolerance of cold stresses. And leaks... well, the tanks won't go off like bombs, but hydrogen-oxygen is a critical mixture from something like 2% to 96%, so a plume from a leak will flash completely upon contacting any flame source above the transition temperature. I think it would be insane to advocate this as a solution for normal American railroading... even before we address the question of fuel tenders that lengthen consists and impose other forms of operating limitation.

Turning to hydrides for a moment: They cost a lot, and they are not exactly friendly when they come in contact with water. At present it isn't particularly practical to recharge these with LH2, so there's an inherent situation with refueling via pressurized gas -- much more complicated than just running liquid fuel into a vented tank. BMW has a fancy automated system for hydrogen refueling; for a good laugh, imagine it in a typical engine terminal.

This is all hydrogen combustion (or, to look at the 'cycle' a different way, a reversible reaction between gaseous hydrogen and water). It is NOT nuclear fusion. That is a different principle, a different kind of energy release entirely. Cold fusion as discussed so far in open literature is a provable crock.

Where in heaven's name calcium comes into this is a mystery to me. Carbon, yes... but only in stars. Californium, perhaps... but that's a neutron source in initiators, and quite obviously NOT an exothermic fusion reactant. Atomic converter for water... there are devices that do this, but none is suitable for a transportation device (or is particularly safe without beaucoodles of high-mass shielding, or is at all cost-effective for the amount and rate of dissociation required for locomotive service.

We've covered the sense, or rather the lack of sense, involved in using nuclear power directly on locomotives in the past.

My own opinion is that hydrogen, as a practical element in transportation fuel, is best used in conventional liquid-fuel synthesis, from either renewable or fossil carbon feedstock sources. Aside from eliminating the waste and danger involved in the transport of carrier hydrogen, it allows retention of convenient fuels and operations.

Note on the Hindenburg: you'll find that the proximate cause was much more likely a Goldschmid reaction in the skin than a hydrogen explosion. A much, much, much better cautionary tale would have been the Challenger.

Of course, you don't burn hydrogen in 'Deasal' engines -- compression ignition is actually a drawback for this fuel, and a general waste of "opportunity shp".

'the point about fuel cells is the best -- if you're using a form of energy storage, like the batteries of the Green Goat, or a supercapacitor bank, the actual size of the fuel cell unit required to keep this charged can be quite small (compare the output power of the genset currently used on the Goat to determine the fuel-cell capacity required for the chosen technology). The heat exhaust of the fuel cells can be recovered usefully via a variety of bottoming cycles, including ORC and thermoacoustic (TAC) motors, and can be used to maintain some of the better exotic battery chemistries, notably sodium-sulfur, in a proper state. However, the fab cost is still astronomical for any of the production-ready technologies, the chemistry is extremely sensitive to some very common forms of feed-gas pollution, and maintenance is not shaping up to be either cheap or pleasant. We're still short of adequate breakthroughs that will give us the required high output currents on demand. I think it will happen, too, but not real soon...

Don't get me talking about Kyoto -- it's a political con-job and sellout, and doesn't solve the only meaningful issue, which is 'how do you start reducing the injected-CO2 content effectively'. All the blaming and PC handwringing in the world won't fix what's already broke. Personally, I think some aspects of the global-warming hypotheses are not only tenable but make common sense. Unfortunately, some of their other aspects can involve the worst kinds of teleological 'science'. THAT's the problem that needs fixing -- not dismissing the hypothesis completely as either unprovable or crank science.

[Anonymous]

Being a believer in the possible I see that deep thought and wide opinion are still practiced among the members of the forum. That was good information tree I was not aware that so much progress had taken place in fuel cell development. It does look promising for use with future generations. Overmod has given much information about the constraints that are currently in place for this technology and I for one do see his point(s). It is here that the lessons of history can be constructive. As many of you remember Rodolph Diesel got his first patents for his engine in the latter days of the 19th century. It was almost 50 years befor this technology was acceptable and portable enough to be used on the railroads. Fuel cell technology is still mostly in the lab with some opportunities in stationary and high security situations applications. With this in mind, think of how great it is that us folks in the forum can talk about its possibilites for the future while the rest of the world still thinks that the dirty little lie called Kyoto is the only way to cure ourselves of everything that is wrong with the world. But this thread is about the technology of the possible not the theology of depressed dissapointment with a world that has stopped thinking of anything but gloom, doom, and destruction of any good and hopefull thing . [^][8D][:)][2c][swg][tup] THIS IS A TOPIC THAT RAILROADING: ITS FRIENDS PARTICPANTS AND ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES THAT ARE A PART OF THE FORUM CAN KNOCK AROUND A BIT, WHO KNOWS, SOMEONE JUST MIGHT BE CLOSE TO A BREAKTHROUGH IN THIS TECHNOLOGY JUST WAITING FOR SOME ENCOURAGEMENT FROM A BUNCH LIKE US. SHE(HE) MIGHT JUST BE ON LINE WITH US

[Anonymous]

I have heard of hydrogen being stored within a solid material matrix, does anybody know of this?

I have also read that practical materials for the storage of hydrogen are difficult to find because hydrogen atoms are so small that they infiltrate any material over time and can make metals become brittle.

[Anonymous]

A fuel cell might be practical for a green goat application, but that's a yard switcher. What about a road locomotive?

What if hydrogen could be "combusted" with carbon to form hydrocarbons?

[Junctionfan]

Which would be more potent-liquid propellent (water) or a solid propellent (fuel cells) for the purpose of using hydrogen combustion?

[oltmannd]

Overmod-

Boy, facts sure do get in the way of a good arguement!

Not really related, except the saftey issue....AirProducts and BN got about 2/3 of the way toward running a pair of spark ingnition SD40s on liquified nat'l gas somewhere around 1990 when there was a big price differential between nat'l gas and diesel. The thought of a natural gas fuel tender wasn't very comforting, though. About the only thing safer to haul around than good old #2 is water.....

[jchnhtfd]

jruppert -- the hydrides Overmod mentioned are the solid matrix type of storage. They can be made to work. As he noted, however, they do very interesting things in contact with water (you really don't want to be there) and are costly -- and, worse so far, not proven.

One thing to keep firmly in mind here: you can never, ever, get as much energy out of a process as you put into it. What this means in this context is that unless you are creating the hydrogen using a renewable or nuclear energy source, you will use more fuel and create more pollution using hydrogen as an intermediate energy carrier than you would have had you used the fuel directly. This is set out in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is one of the best-proven laws of all modern science.

If you plan to use electricity somewhere in the chain, the most efficient way to do it (for railroads) is with electrified lines, and there might be a good deal to be said for powering the existing electric railroads and transit lines with a relatively non-polluting source of electricity; unfortunately, the only one of those of which I am aware is politically impossible.

In non-electric territory, I'm with Don... the only thing safer to haul around than good old #2 is water, which latter doesn't burn too good. It's very very hard to beat a modern diesel locomotive for overall transportation fuel efficiency (pounds hauled per mile per unit input of energy at the mine/well/wind farm/what have you).

[Anonymous]

I think the most feasible solution for the future is... hybrid diesel electric locomotives. I' m not talking about the green goat (a very good idea of course), but about a new generation of hybrid road locomotives. I think it will all depend on the developement of "ultracapacitors", extremly compact units capable to store and release huge amounts of energy in short time intervals.

Currently, ultracapacitor makers are trying to figure out how to make those things at a reasonable cost.

In the end, hybrid diesel locomotives would be very similar to current AC locomotives, except for the ultracapacitor and (probably) the lack of dynamic brake grids. Dynamic braking would store energy in ultracapacitors for later. No fuel conversion needed (still using the safe diesel fuel) and full compatibility with conventional diesels would be very easy.

[Anonymous]

Here's a link to an article from TRAFFIC WORLD concerning UPS testing a small number of fuel cell powered trucks...

LC

http://www.trafficworld.com/news/dailynews/08272004a.asp

[Anonymous]

Fuel cells and hydride storage are now off-the-shelf items. The company mention in the above link was manufacturing generators using them in 2002 IIRC. NASA had fuelcells in space craft in late 60's. They are less expensive now, but not cheap. UPS is probably factoring in a PR factor to justify them or else the are getting help from "an interested party."

Large capacitors are nasty beasts. If you short one out your world may suddenly end. One the size of your coffee mug can easily kill you. Ask your friendly neighborhood radar technician. Not likely you would want to carry one around in a vehicle that was subject to collison and derailment. Also, the capacitor would be very large.

A city bus, unlike a locomotive, spends a lot of time slowing down and stopped picking up passengers and waiting for traffic signals, so the engine in the hybrid power plant has time to recharge the storage device. Locomotives are the opposite, except maybe in switching service.

A lot of people have no idea of the physics behind some things and expect a "break through", similar to the changes in the computer in the past 50 years, that will give them a 1000KVA power source in a suit case.

[rrnut282]

I'd say piouslion is on the right track. I think any use of a fuel cell in a railroad locomotive application is a minimum of 20 years away. There are just too many unknowns at this point like material costs and performance.

[Anonymous]

There goes the fuel tax revenues the gov't. collects! Don't think they would like that too much (the gov't. that is). This kinda reflects on an earlier post about providing more mass transportation, via the railroad. And, someone had commented a public official had stated "we don't want to do anything that would reduce our fuel tax influx".

That made me think. Then, I once remembered we were going through a drought one summer. The Water Dept. told everyone to conserve water, they even ran ads telling you that when you took a shower, soap up, turn off the water, when you're done lathering up, then turn the water back on to rinse.

Well, everyone did what they could to save water, and, it worked!! Then, our Water Works Dept. raised the fees for our water bill because they weren't selling as much water! Bobble Heads !!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrnut282

I'd say piouslion is on the right track. I think any use of a fuel cell in a railroad locomotive application is a minimum of 20 years away. There are just too many unknowns at this point like material costs and performance.

I just love it when great minds run together. I do hope that a fine active mind gets the encouragement to pursue this potentialy great breakthrough.

[Anonymous]

Duh! I was thinking of some way to produce a hydrocarbon fuel when I suggested combusting carbon and hydrogen. Even though it was a half hearted suggestion, I should have seen that's only the reverse of regular combustion! So how can energy be gained - duh!

I think this subject came up before, only the question was different. If you ask me for my uniformed opinion, I think some type of synthetic diesel fuel is the best bet, because then existing engine technology can be used.

I suppose if you want to look at the big picture, then take a step all the way back. The fossil fuels we are using are concentrations of energy from millions of years occuring at a natural density being used in a few moments at an accellerated rate. In effect we are robbing time. If all the fossil fuels were completely gone, to store the same amount of energy in the same way would take millions of years, no? Of course, us humans are smarter than that, we'll just collect energy somewhere else right? Hmmmmmm.

I am not predicting doom and gloom when I say this at all, because such values are truelly relative. I think that when the advantages of fossil fuels are gone, we will still have energy sources, but none that release energy at rates we are currently accustomed to. Currently, the paradigm of dialy existence is mass consumption supports mass production, and I believe that in the future, this will have to change to high quality in small quantities.

[Junctionfan]

Too bad you couldn't make plastic a form of fuel. It last a long time in the landfills.
I don't think nuclear cars would be a smart idea. Think what terrorist could do with something like that.

[adrianspeeder]

I have a solution that would use existing diesel-electric drivetrains for locomotives and would really be for ANY diesel engine with no mods.

Ever hear of biodiesel? No, thats because Big Oil wants to keep you in the dark.

Quite simply, take soybeans, ma***hem up, and the resulting liquid pour straight in to the tank.

Hmmmmm, so there is no fossel fuels depleated, no complicated refining steps, only slightly more polution from the stack (but remember no polution from a refinery, so net pollution is a lot less), and could easily be grown from EVERY AMERICAN FARMER and solve their financial problems forever.

That seems like the best solution with CHEAP tech that we have now. Why in the world are we not doing this? Wait, who is that shadowy character standing over there? Ohhhh, man im in trouble, its BIG OIL!

Tink about the BILLIONS of dollers of diesel that America burns every month. I would like to see that money not go to foregn terrorists, but AMERICAN FARMERS. Screw the middle east and OPEC, we could start FARMPEC. Instead of turbins, they would wear John Deere hats, and that is who i want to see in charge. Old rich farmers being driven around in the back seat of ultra lux crew cab pickups.

Anyone here have a problem with that? Ohh man i got to run, Big Oil is right behind me.

Adrianspee......

[Junctionfan]

That is an excellent idea...........ah!.....I'm being shot at by ESSO hitmen........[(-D][2c][(-D]

[Anonymous]

Would not Biodeasal be essetulay polution free since the corn grown for the biodeasal would eat the carbon dioxide put out by the burning of the biodiasal in a closed loop and no new carbons are being added?

Would this mean that we would plant miles of corn along RR right of ways and n highway meadium strips?[8D]

[Junctionfan]

Maybe we should exploit the sewers for the methane gas to power the trains.

That is certainly a renewable fuel. It's also progress......hmmm....progress stinks.
[:D][:D]

[overall]

There are working feul cell locomotives right now today. They are owned by the US Army. There was an article about them in a recent issue of Fuel Cell magazine, I don't have it in front of me right now.

George

[Anonymous]

Re: Biodiesel. Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory! [:)]

There are already millions of tons/bushels of corn and soybeans grown in the US every year. If Soybean oil or corn oil could compete with regular diesel I am pretty sure ADM and Cargill would be selling it!

This is an idea put forward by people who aren't aware of all the facts.

There are a few highly publicized cases of various diesel vehicles running on used cooking oil, but that isn't even a drop compared to the daily usage of diesel fuel in the US. But that oil is more valuable as raw material for other uses.
Waste vegetable oil is worth less than a dollar a gallon but requires cleaning before it can be used for other purposes. "New" soybean oil costs approx. $10/ 1 gal. or $30/4 gal. but you may get a better price in tank car lots.

Besides, using vegatable oil does not eliminate the use of diesel in unmodified engines, unless the oil is specially treated which adds to the cost. Otherwise diesel must be blended with the vegetable oil or used for starting and stopping the engine.

If you want to buy 5 gals of veggie oil to try in your diesel VW checkout

http://highfuelsn.goemerchant7.com

It appears to me that either diesel has to get a lot more expensive or become completely unavailable before biodiesel can become economically viable.

Another point. If it was so easy, and cheap, to get soybean oil all the farmers that grow beans would be making their own rather than buying diesel. But they aren't, and these are people that will spend 5 cents an acre to increase their yield by 6 cents!

[Overmod]

There really isn't that much processing required to make 'biodiesel' out of proper vegetable-oil stocks (or waste oil, either) -- someone already has alluded to the steps needed to get the right 'mix' of fluidity and lubricosity for use, and filtration is not a difficult exercise.

The point is correct, however, in noting that the cost per gallon of "commercially marketable" biodiesel is still well above the cost per gallon of #2 diesel. It is simply impractical for railroads to arrange reliable supplies of hundreds of thousands of gallons of old French-fry oil... there are lots of McDonaldses out there hardening away at our arteries, but not THAT many. There will be an equilibrium oil price at which 'virgin' vegetable oil, properly treated, becomes competitive with fossil diesel -- my guess is that this price, much as has been the case with ethanol, will involve political subsidy long before it's expected to 'pay its way' purely on merit.

Farmers don't have the time to tinker around brewing fuel when they can buy it... or to have to worry about whether the fuel in the tanks won't work in a cold snap or might be too hygroscopic. If somebody comes up with simplified 'kits' to make biodiesel, this might change, particularly with fuel prices as they've been for the past few months, and with low-sulfur requirements pending for off-road as well as on-road diesel.

And yes, you can look to ADM to jump gleefully on the bandwagon as soon as the numbers line up...

[jchnhtfd]

There are three really fundamental differences between biodiesel and good ol' #2, as I see it. First, biodiesel uses today's sunshine to create today's fuel; in principle, not a bad idea (practice is something else) whereas #2 uses historic (as in geologic historic) sunshine. Second, biodiesel requres a good bit of work to produce (inputs of energy for planting, fertilizing, harvesting, drying, processing, etc., plus inputs of energy or natural resources for fertilizer and the like) whereas #2 needs to be pumped and refined; the overall energy efficiency (energy source to ton-mile moved) is much worse for biodiesel and for #2. Third, biodiesel is currently politically correct, which will probably overwhelm the disadvantages... never fight politics!

Hybrids will become more and more important in uses which require wide variations in power over short periods of time: switching, mass transit, and the like. Under more or less constant load conditions (road hauls -- say a unit coal train, or a double stack) they offer exactly no benefit at all -- so why hassle with them? As I said recently in another post, rule 1 in railroading: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Plus, as somebody noted above, contact with a very large stored electric supply (either an unltracapacitor or a large battery bank) can ruin your whole day -- even my Honda Hybrid has some pretty fancy warning labels on it to keep folks from poking their fingers into the high voltage supplies.

Fuel cells? Are coming. They will take time. Are they really better than a good high-efficiency (read: modern) diesel? Do they pollute less? Do they use less resources? Uh... not yet, friends. They do have other advantages, though.

[adrianspeeder]

Yes, there are some roadblocks for bio diesel. The infrastructure needs to be changed. You can be sure that “big oil” is spending a lot of money to keep it the way it is now. Bio prices are high now because bio is simply rare. If mass produced, it really shouldn’t cost more than dinodiesel.

An unmodified diesel requires a mix of bio and dino to operate perfectly. That is a step in the right direction. A “simple” injector swap could burn bio completely. There is also a problem with bio gelling in cold temps. Well, dino does that too, and simply adding an antigel or an intank heater (I already have one for my oil pan) would eliminate that disadvantage.

I can also guarantee that if a farmer or farm corp. had billions of dollars and an infrastructure available right in front of them, they could find time to “tinker”. I know a few farmers with a lot of time on their hands now and do quite a lot of tinkering. Personally, I sometimes run a 50/50 mix of bio and dino to make the local farmer’s time worth his while.

Bio diesel is a good thing; it just needs a little push. I just think big oil is pushing back.

Adrianspeeder