First hydrogen locomotive started working in Poland.

  • Bonehead@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Trains don’t run on diesel directly. They use diesel generators to drive electric motors that actually move the train. How those motors are powered is relatively irrelevant. This just replaces the diesel generators with hydrogen fuel cells…I think. I don’t read Polish well. Or at all.

      • stephen01king@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Because now you have to build an electrified track infrastructure in instead of using an already built railway track.

          • hansl@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Jeez if only smart people thought of that.

            Real answer: it’s actually a lot of logistics and technical challenge to bring overhead lines to the whole of eve a small country like England. A lot of these tracks are in regions where there’s no power lines nearby. You still want the trains to go to and through these places.

            • roguetrick@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              That’s logic comparing the economic costs of diesel to electric. If you compare the economics with hydrogen, it makes much more sense to run the wire with the track, independent of the availability of electricity.

              • hansl@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Hydrogen could be used as a bridge gap measure. It’s relatively easy to move diesel engines to hydrogen. And hydrogen production, even when using gas, is still better than diesel engines.

            • pufferfischerpulver@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              Maybe at the train track end. But creating the hydrogen and the needed infrastructure for both the creation and distribution, plus the enormous amounts of energy wasted in the production, is unlikely to be more cost effective than the investment in electrifying existing railroads.

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Speaking about Germany in particular: We need hydrogen infrastructure anyway, if nothing else then as chemical feedstock and for steel smelting. And the pipeline network is already half-way in place, more and more parts are getting switched over from natural gas (the network started out as a coal gas network (hydrogen content of often over 50%) before natural gas became a thing, it’s built to the necessary standard). Bonus: The pipeline network can store three months of total (not just electricity) of energy usage between minimum and maximum operating pressure.

                Wind farms and electrolysing plants as well as conversion to ammonia (because transport) is getting built in Namibia and Canada, scheduled to be our main energy partners in the future.

            • roguetrick@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              It never is, and won’t be until we essentially have free energy. Any serious economic study has concluded as much.

      • cuacamole@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Sometimes youll need stuff like this. Rail maintenance cant always be done using overhead lines, since the machines will get destroyed by electric breakdown(?).

        Some parts are not electrified yet, some cant be without major work being done to the track.

        It is not ideal, but sometimes you cant do it otherwise, or you’d have to cut of some parts, imo its a useful way to bridge gaps.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        It’s worth the time and effort in a city, and even between two large cities that are relatively close to each other. Sadly, building and maintaining the system isn’t cheap, so we don’t do it in more remote locations.

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Hydrogen technology is still in its infancy, so economies of scale aren’t helping very muc at this point. On top of that, the storage options are far from ideal, and not all hydrogen is green. Currently there are many obstacels, but hopefully hydrogen will find its place in the future.

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            It’s true. Electrified rail lines do exist in a many places, but not quite everywhere. Since there are also non-electric lines, there’s also a time and a place for non-electric locomotives.

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                A line crossing the Rockys can hardly be considered remote, (at least in an integrated system) it should get tons and tons of through-traffic. It’s not about where the line is but what it connects.

                A line can be way less remote, say just ten kilometres from a million inhabitant metropolis, but still see very limited traffic as the area is rural, and only have hourly passenger service and nothing else, maybe a couple of grain wagons in harvesting season and electrifying it would not amortise in a century or ever (because increased maintenance costs). Completely different situation to having through-traffic 24/7 bumper to bumper somewhere at the arse of the world.

                • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  If the government has full monopoly on everything rail related, then connecting two places becomes a political question. It may not make economic sense, but in the big picture of an entire country and its internal politics it might be a sensible thing to do regardless.

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Distance doesn’t matter as long as the line connects two places that are important in the big picture.