LG, this "release" is humor. Don't take it literally.
Not only does hydrogen (gas or liquid) not need to be heated to flow, it may be the most fluid substance in the universe. Anyone one know of a more fluid substance?
Hydrogen can be stored as a liquid but the liquifaction consumes a good bit of energy that is not reclaimed when the hydrogen is reconverted to energy via oxidization.
High compression of H2 into composite tanks involves the same problem.
A third alternative is to dissolve the hydrogen in powdered nickel alloy or misch metal at near ordinary temperatures and pressures and release it as needed by applying waste heat from fuel cells—as on this University of Birmingham hydrail demonstration locomotive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i4zIBeKYgY
BNSF's hydrail locomotive needs no tender for the same reason diesel electric locomotives don't have them:
http://hydrail.org/sites/hydrail.org/files/7_allan_video-USA.wmv
One of the things the DoE's Savannah River National Hydrogen Laboratory studies is development of adsorption materials lighter than nickel or misch metal.
http://srnl.doe.gov
How expensive it is to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen has a lot to do with how much the local electric company charges per kWh during the wee hours of the morning.
In places where hydroelectric power or wind power are plentiful, it's very cheap indeed.
In places where it's a waste product from chlorate manufacture, H2 costs whatever it takes to purify, compress and deliver it:
http://www.linguee.com/english-french/translation/%22by+capturing+waste+hydrogen%22.html
The answer to, "How expensive is it to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen?" probably depends more on where, geographically, it's separated than anything else.
When hydrogen becomes a general energy medium, like petroleum and the grid, most will be made locally—from whatever comes to hand.
lone geep Lehigh Valley 2089 DSchmitt Fifty years ago I read an article about using hydrogen as a fuel. I remember that the authors proposed using electricity to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. They proposed that the facilities (producing?) the hydrogen be built on artificial islands in the ocean, each with a nuclear power plant to provide the electricty. It is called electrolysis, separating the hydrogen from the oxygen. And yes, the hydrogen would have to be stored in the tender as a liquid. Since bunker C oil and hydrogen are both fluids (describes both gases and liquids), I can see why they plan on using hydrogen. However, what kind of firing element would they use? Also, how efficient would the hydrogen be? Those were other questions I though of too. If I have it right, steam was inefficient compared with diesel. Bunker C oil is jelly-like and needs to be heated up to flow but I don't think hydrogen is that way.
Lehigh Valley 2089 DSchmitt Fifty years ago I read an article about using hydrogen as a fuel. I remember that the authors proposed using electricity to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. They proposed that the facilities (producing?) the hydrogen be built on artificial islands in the ocean, each with a nuclear power plant to provide the electricty. It is called electrolysis, separating the hydrogen from the oxygen. And yes, the hydrogen would have to be stored in the tender as a liquid. Since bunker C oil and hydrogen are both fluids (describes both gases and liquids), I can see why they plan on using hydrogen. However, what kind of firing element would they use? Also, how efficient would the hydrogen be?
DSchmitt Fifty years ago I read an article about using hydrogen as a fuel. I remember that the authors proposed using electricity to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. They proposed that the facilities (producing?) the hydrogen be built on artificial islands in the ocean, each with a nuclear power plant to provide the electricty.
Fifty years ago I read an article about using hydrogen as a fuel. I remember that the authors proposed using electricity to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. They proposed that the facilities (producing?) the hydrogen be built on artificial islands in the ocean, each with a nuclear power plant to provide the electricty.
It is called electrolysis, separating the hydrogen from the oxygen.
And yes, the hydrogen would have to be stored in the tender as a liquid. Since bunker C oil and hydrogen are both fluids (describes both gases and liquids), I can see why they plan on using hydrogen. However, what kind of firing element would they use? Also, how efficient would the hydrogen be?
Those were other questions I though of too. If I have it right, steam was inefficient compared with diesel. Bunker C oil is jelly-like and needs to be heated up to flow but I don't think hydrogen is that way.
Right, in fact, since hydrogen is a gas under normal circumstances, it would flow more easily than bunker C.
Since water is the only by product of burning hydrogen, it is more environmentally friendly than coal or oil.
However, another question came to mind. How expensive is it to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen?
The Lehigh Valley Railroad, the Route of the Black Diamond Express, John Wilkes and Maple Leaf.
-Jake, modeling the Barclay, Towanda & Susquehanna.
Lone Geep
\
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Victrola1 Parsons College Media Relations News Release: The Engineering and Archeology Departments of Parsons College have received a Department of Energy grant to study the feasibility of hydrogen powered, external combustion locomotives powering America's railroads. The proposal would involve removing a CB&Q steam locomotive on static display from a nearby county seat and restoring it to operation. "The big difference will be the locomotive will be fueled with hydrogen, not coal," said Engineering Department Chairman I. R. Hudson. Professor Hudson said that hydrogen burned in the locomotive firebox will drastically reduce dangerous green house gas emissions and soiled laundry drying near railroad tracks. "These environmentally friendly aspects of hydrogen were a major factor in our receiving a grant," said Professor Hudson. "Our research shows external combustion is capable of powering a locomotive," added Spade Turner, Chairman of Parson's Archeology Department. "According to legend, great external combusiton enginges once powered railroad trains not far from campus. Digs along longitonial mounds of earth found evidence of railroad spikes and cinders." The Parsons College team hopes to have their prototype locomotive in operation in time for the 2018 harvest season.
Parsons College Media Relations News Release:
The Engineering and Archeology Departments of Parsons College have received a Department of Energy grant to study the feasibility of hydrogen powered, external combustion locomotives powering America's railroads.
The proposal would involve removing a CB&Q steam locomotive on static display from a nearby county seat and restoring it to operation. "The big difference will be the locomotive will be fueled with hydrogen, not coal," said Engineering Department Chairman I. R. Hudson.
Professor Hudson said that hydrogen burned in the locomotive firebox will drastically reduce dangerous green house gas emissions and soiled laundry drying near railroad tracks. "These environmentally friendly aspects of hydrogen were a major factor in our receiving a grant," said Professor Hudson.
"Our research shows external combustion is capable of powering a locomotive," added Spade Turner, Chairman of Parson's Archeology Department. "According to legend, great external combusiton enginges once powered railroad trains not far from campus. Digs along longitonial mounds of earth found evidence of railroad spikes and cinders."
The Parsons College team hopes to have their prototype locomotive in operation in time for the 2018 harvest season.
How would they do that? They would have to get the hydrogen into the firebox like oil, but hydrogen gas and bunker C oil are different things,And the hydrogen would probabley have to be liquified. It would be nice to see steam return but there is a lot more to steam then just replacing coal.
All true, DSchmitt, and the Cugnot front-wheel drive model was a road vehicle too. Germany had some diesel cars in the 1930s.
I was being too general and too "retail." I stand cheerfully corrected! Thanks!
—ST
Stan T. Steam trains predated steam cars by 65 years.
Steam trains predated steam cars by 65 years.
Not exactly correct. Develeopement of steam powered road vehicles was at least contempory with the development of steam railways. Experminents date from the 1770's and there were successful applications by 1831.
Richard Trevithick built several steam carriages before he built a steam railway locomotive.
In England the impetus for the development of the steam railways was in part the damage to roads caused by steam traction locomotives resulting in their use being severly restricted. Latter improved designs, which caused less damage, along with improved roads that were less susceptible to damage, led to a resurgence in their use.
"A practical fuel cannot result in a loss of energy due to it's production."
That includes Saudi oil hauled half-way around the world and assumes that process heat used in refining comes from...where? Willingness to pay pump prices doesn't say anything about well-to-wheel efficiency; only about tradition and market dynamics.
LG,
Hydrogen has been working in fuel cells since the 1800's. It needs no more research than gasoline.
The problem is that the non- technical media have painted is as a car technology; it's not. It's an energy distribution system that particularly suits things that move, from electric bikes to road switching locomotives.
What if steam had been cast as a wagon technology before there were any paved roads, local boiler mechanics or machinists? It wouldn't have worked.of course, but that says nothing about steam. It says everything about technology introduction.
Trains are like early hand-wired electronics with transistors on circuit boards. Cars are like stuff that runs on chips.
Electric trains predated electric cars by about 13.
Diesel trains predated diesel cars (with pump islands to feed them) by 50 years.
Yet the media would have us believe that early-adopter luxury retail products (that require sudden ubiquity of product and support to have any market appeal) should somehow precede streetcars that are just hydrogen buses on easier-rolling steel wheels.
Nescience, not science, is the bottleneck. Science and industry know all that needs to be known...at this point in the paradigm shift.
But until the media become science- and history-iterate and they let the public in on the story, the uninitiated will keep trying to put the H2 cart before the (iron) horse.
From what I can see, hydrogen might become a big fuel, it just needs plenty more research before it can become viable. It took diesels at least 50 years to become a big source of motive power on the railroads and hydrogen might be the same way. There is still a chance that it might not work, but there is still a chance that it will.
I should have said that hydrogen is not a practical fuel. Practical fuels do not include those used by spacecraft unless you are going into space. Say that hydrogen is used in steel production because it might be used for emission control is like saying you car is powered by platinum because it has a catalytic converter.
A practical fuel cannot result in a loss of energy due to it's production.
stan -- there is alot more carbon atoms in any source to make elemental hydrogen. that is excluding hydro that is maxed out or nuclear that is iffy.
Blue streak 1,
Natural gas is a great fuel but it can't be used for transportation without releasing the "C" in CH4 as "CO2".
Last year was the hottest on record in the US by a full degree. Katrina and Sandy and the drought and fires in the South and the West and Australia are real—and they're just for openers.
Unless one's a "solacaust denier," carbon consequences have to be taken into account when capital resources are allocated among future railway technology options.
as some other poster put ---- Hydrogen is an energy storage item not a source of energy. It takes energy to produce elemental hydrogen. much better would be natural gas which is an energy source./.
Re H2 never used as fuel:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/hydrogen/hydrogen.htm
http://www.h2journal.com/displaynews.php?NewsID=391
BNSF is one of the biggest railroads in the US. Loco HH 1205 runs on hydrogen.
South Africa has begun using hydrogen locomotives in mining operations.
"Never" is a bit strong, TDM.
H2 was a viable fuel (energy carrier) for the electrical service on the Apollo flights. When did it cease to be?
How do you explain the existence of Ballard, Hydrogenics, GE's fuel cell division, Nedstack and all the other companies that have been making hydrogen fuel cells for years? And China's 2010 announcement?
Re never used in steel making:
http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/doc/low_carbon_tec_plan/ref_roadmap2.pdf
You're right in saying that hydrogen is used "...where, chemically or physically, nothing else will do." But isn't that also true of the other 91 elements?
Do a little research , Stan. Hydrogen in steel production? Search hydrogen stress cracking. Fertilizer? Natural gas is converted to ammonia. It is NEVER done to produce a fuel. It is done to produce hydrogen for applications that require hydrogen, not as fuel. For instance, in the electrical generation industry, most generators are hydrogen cooled. It is not a viable fuel. Hydrogen is produced for those applications where, chemically or physically, nothing else will do. It is not done for fuel, except for such rare applications as rocket fuel . Not sure why it is done there since carbon based fuels have WAY more BTUs per unit of mass.
Reformate hydrogen is used in petroleum refining and produced nearby for that purpose. Excess from that industry is used in steel production, fertilizer manufacture and a few thousand other ways.
Methane isn't a chemical substitute for hydrogen. "Reform" is a chemical term, not a feel-good neologism.
"Natural gas reformate" is another energy loser. If you have natural gas, why waste energy to get hydrogen? It doesn't just "reform" to make you feel good, you know. This is ridiculous. You want to expend energy ( carbon based, I might add) to get a lesser amount of energy from hydrogen. This is like borrowing your way out of debt. It is a losing spiral.
Natural gas reformate is what I mean by "fossil" hydrogen. Thanks, carnej1
tdmidget " Smart, smart, smart: Germany has a huge excess of wind turbine electricity during late night hours and converting it to hydrogen via electrolysis has proved an ideal way to store it. The main idea of hydrogen is to decouple realtime generation and consumption of electric energy. Without hydrogen technology, intermittent renewable sources such as wind, tide, hydro, PV, solar concentration, etc., would be much harder to integrate into energy systems such as the power grid. There is so much off-peak excess wind energy in Germany that they are looking to use it for cryogenic removal of carbon dioxide from the air and then combining the carbon obtained with electrolysis hydrogen to make methane for distribution via natural gas mains. Efficiency is made important by scarcity. When the problem is excess...not so much. Why would only fossil hydrogen be used when there are so many clean ways to produce it?" The only reason that Germany and other European countries have all this wind and solar garbage is huge subsidies. If you have ever been there or have any knowledge of their climate you would know that Germany is one of the worst places in the world for solar energy. Face it , wind energy is a dead loser. It is only able to produce 35% of the time max, and the rest of the time it is a parasite, using energy to maintain the blade pitch controls, wind speed detection system, gearbox oil heater, and in the winter, blade deicers. If you knew anything at all about the energy business you would know that any time you convert from one form to another there are huge losses. The electrolysis of water is a 50% loser. To then try to convert it to methane would be another loser. Then you have to store and transport it. All this crap with a world wide glut of natural gas. I might point out that there is no such thing as fossil hydrogen.
"
Smart, smart, smart: Germany has a huge excess of wind turbine electricity during late night hours and converting it to hydrogen via electrolysis has proved an ideal way to store it. The main idea of hydrogen is to decouple realtime generation and consumption of electric energy. Without hydrogen technology, intermittent renewable sources such as wind, tide, hydro, PV, solar concentration, etc., would be much harder to integrate into energy systems such as the power grid.
There is so much off-peak excess wind energy in Germany that they are looking to use it for cryogenic removal of carbon dioxide from the air and then combining the carbon obtained with electrolysis hydrogen to make methane for distribution via natural gas mains. Efficiency is made important by scarcity. When the problem is excess...not so much.
Why would only fossil hydrogen be used when there are so many clean ways to produce it?"
The only reason that Germany and other European countries have all this wind and solar garbage is huge subsidies. If you have ever been there or have any knowledge of their climate you would know that Germany is one of the worst places in the world for solar energy. Face it , wind energy is a dead loser. It is only able to produce 35% of the time max, and the rest of the time it is a parasite, using energy to maintain the blade pitch controls, wind speed detection system, gearbox oil heater, and in the winter, blade deicers.
If you knew anything at all about the energy business you would know that any time you convert from one form to another there are huge losses. The electrolysis of water is a 50% loser. To then try to convert it to methane would be another loser. Then you have to store and transport it. All this crap with a world wide glut of natural gas.
I might point out that there is no such thing as fossil hydrogen.
Might "fossil hydrogen" be a term for H2 produced from Natural Gas? IINM, this is a common means for synthezing Hydrogen for industrial uses...
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Actually, the fact that hydrogen rises rapidly away from away from accidents (as it did in the Hindenburg, allowing 2/3 of those on board to walk away) is one of the primary attractions for railroad applications.
A few thousand gallons of diesel pooling and flaming from under a train wreck is not a pretty sight, as the propulsion engine diesel burning in the famous Hindenburg film illustrates.
Re that film, burning hydrogen makes no visible light. H2 easily ignites but doesn't explode unless confined and mixed with oxygen, re the other hoax.
If GM gets involved... will they name their Hydrogen Powered Effort " The Hindenburg TOO" ?
Hydrogen ( gas or liquid) involved in any rail accident(incident) will create apoplexy in the Railroad Risk Offices.. (my Prediction)
From "Who Killed the Electric Car," take away the thought that GM's want of an attention span was the proximate cause of death.
If Apple had run away from the personal digital assistant market (instead of paying intense attention to the biopsy, as they did) we wouldn't be talking to Siri on iPhone 5s, or using Droids and Blackberries for that matter.
GM did the same with the Corvair instead rethinking and refining it toward a US version of the Porsche 914.
Prediction: Despite a cool reception, Japan will sprout even more Leafs and GM will not stay the course with the Volt...though they'll have to re-enter the P-IH market eventually.
Similarly, the US has been far too slow following-up on the 2009 DoD-funded BNSF HH 1205 hydrail locomotive. Look for China and South Africa to seize the initiative.
Watch the movie "Who killed the electric car", one of the arguments made is that the H2 programs by the various manufacturers so far largely are PR efforts designed to impress the public and (more importantly) the government(s) without any real ability to bring such vehicles to market on a large scale.
I wonder if by the time the technical hurdles of storing H2 onboard vehicles have been solved, electrical energy storage systems (supercapacitators, advanced batteries) may be able to match hydrogen's energy density and capacity (in the sense of permitting vehicle range comparable to current fuels).
Both technologies are still a ways down the road(pun intended)..
Erik,
The big number I mentioned is based on Charlotte's experience with the Blue Line. It's loaded to include some grade separation expense, the engineering needed to preempt galvanic interaction with subterranean utilities and a lot of other ancillary costs. Outside cities, where a lot of this doesn't apply, it could well be lower, as you suggest. And I've heard the actual contact wire can be an aluminum alloy, avoiding that much copper.
When CATS planned the Blue Line south segment, Charlotte's first (and very successful) light rail circa 2002, the planned electrification cost was $1.75 million per mile. Completion came in at between $6 and $7 million about five years ago. Since then, copper costs have risen sharply and—though the recession has held inflation to a minimum—material and labor costs have risen too. At the International Hydrail Conferences I've heard numbers higher than $10 M mentioned.
The amount and geographical distribution of hydrail R&D today suggests that a point will come when the 130-year-old complexity of external power will just not be worth it. If hydrail continues to be developed as a means of reducing diesel consumption and pollution, it seems likely to be tapped for electric train line extension to low-traffic routes as well.
A GE has shown, battery tech is advancing fast. But even with their new locomotive battery plant in Albany online, they are still looking at fuel cell hybridization.
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