fuel cell engine

[Anonymous]

what ever happened to that engine that they where going to put a fuel cell in?

[daveklepper]

Contact the Physics department of the City College of the City University of New York and ask them for their report on fuel cells and the hydrogen economy and you may have your answer.

[Anonymous]

There was a show on History channel recently where they said commercial hydrogen is produced from natural gas and oil refining! Is there a cost effective way to get Hydrogen from seawater or is this another 'more energy used than produced' scenario? Are we 'saving' resources or the oil companies?

[Junctionfan]

It would be nice to see the fuel cell engine available before I get grey hair.

[Overmod]

Hydrogen's only 'purpose' at present is as an "energy carrier" -- a convenient or otherwise desirable way to provide it at an appropriate place, in an appropriate form, to do useful work.

Hydrogen is useful, in part, because its combustion liberates fairly high specific energy (which makes it useful as an engine fuel) and, controlled properly, produces only 'dihydrogen monoxide' as exhaust -- no carbon oxides, no NOx. The unspoken premise of the 'hydrogen economy' is that (somehow) no carbon will be released in exhaust gas. If that seems weird to you, go read about technologies in the 'clean coal' initiative that propose to do 'zero-carbon-emission' with COAL-FIRED POWERPLANTS!)

Do not ever expect to see hydrogen synthesized -- let alone distributed to end-users -- for 'less energy than produced' -- remember that it's a carrier, a fuel-of-convenience, an eco-friendly alternative. There are technologies that promise to produce the gas inexpensively (photodissociation using specialized types of solar cells, for example), and of course nuclear-generated electricity can be used to produce hydrogen for vehicles that can't use direct electric power effectively... or cost-effectively... in which category I put most practical automobiles at present. (EVs are fun, but you'd better be an enthusiast or live places you don't have to drive far, unless you have some form of on-board generator)
I have been expecting some results from biological systems, but these have their own interesting risks.


My own opinion is that hydrogen is better used directly at its point of generation, as a means of performing coal gasification or fuel synthesis, and carbon remediation be handled as a separate, and separately-costed, operation. We have a fairly-well-developed distribution infrastructure for fuel gas (e.g. natural gas, propane, butane) and one for liquid fuels (gasolines, diesel, #2 home heating oil, etc.), and the technologies needed to run these fuels in various kinds of vehicles are mature, relatively safe, and familiar. None of this is true for hydrogen, and I can make strong claims that it might never be in a common-sense world.

[jchnhtfd]

overmod -- I quite agree with you! However, who ever claimed that we live in a common-sense world?

[daveklepper]

There are developments that may point to safe nuclear power generation.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

There are developments that may point to safe nuclear power generation.

There are developments that provide safe nuclear power since, oh my, sixties...

As a point of trivia - usual coal power plant generates more radioactivity per kW then nuclear PP.

[railman]

nuclear trains....hmmm.

[daveklepper]

Nuclear power for generating electricity for economical operation of ELECTRIFIED main lines

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

There are developments that may point to safe nuclear power generation.

I agree it's time to re-visit that option. Maybe have a group of scientists and engineers come up with some standard 'operator-proof' designs, then have the plants operated and maintained by a public/private firm supervised by the NRC and not connected with the power companies.

IMO too many electric utilities are relying on natural gas peaker plants, we're starting to import LNG, and people who heat with natural gas aleady know what's happening to the price.

For diesel, most of the power company trucks around here are running on bio-diesel. I don't know how it's energy content compares or how that would work for the railroads.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by railman

nuclear trains....hmmm.

Modern steam/nuclear powered locomotive with hot intermodal train

up829: it already exists. Unlike RBMK reactors (the one at Tchernobyl) all of sensible plants have reactors that extingui***hemselves when running too hot. Tchernobyl meltdown is impossible on 'modern' reacors.

[Overmod]

Just for the record: I consider a number of nuclear technologies, including pebble-bed reactors, safe enough for use in modern society. I am not nearly as convinced that they're as 'safe' in the hands of current electric-power operators, however!

The effective heat content of biodiesel can be comparable to typical diesel fuels. The problem with it is that the cost is still higher than fossil-derived fuel. Theoretically, you could adapt a locomotive diesel to run on the 'used French-fry oil' type of biodiesel -- even the kind that hasn't been treated with lye and such -- but I would not want to run something like that in typical railroad service, even if there were assured sources of that volume of used oil. Temperature, batch quality, etc. are simply not good enough for a mission-critical locomotive application...

If the price of diesel gets up above the $2.40 range per gallon, expect to see some major investments in biodiesel infrastructure and production/distribution capability. Once those are done, the equilibrium price of biodiesel will begin to fall relative to fossil, and perhaps in time drop to equity or even below. I wouldn't expect biodiesel at 'traditional' diesel prices, however...

[Anonymous]

I believe the problem with nuclear energy plant operations is long gone. What the real problem is, is disposal of nuclear waste.

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by uzurpator

QUOTE: Originally posted by railman

nuclear trains....hmmm.

Modern steam/nuclear powered locomotive with hot intermodal train

up829: it already exists. Unlike RBMK reactors (the one at Tchernobyl) all of sensible plants have reactors that extingui***hemselves when running too hot. Tchernobyl meltdown is impossible on 'modern' reacors.

technology is not foolproff..no matter what safty systems or computer overrides they might have built into it... technology fails...and the people that use it also make mistakes.... they thought the titanic was unsinkable becouse it was a techological marval of the day...but it now sits on the bottom of the sea 2 miles deep ..and it sank on its madian voyage.... placeing to much trust in technology is a fools way of thinking....
csx engineer