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Siemens Mobility to test hydrogen train on Bavarian rail route:
Siemens Mobility has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to test a hydrogen-powered train in the German state of Bavaria.
The company signed the MoU with the state government of Bavaria and local railway company Bayerische Regiobahn (BRB) to conduct the trial.
The two-car train will begin test runs from mid-2023 on the Augsburg – Füssen route and will enter passenger services in January 2024.
The pilot operations will initially run for 30 months. During this period, the train will be stationed in Augsburg.
The train is being developed on the basis of Siemens Mobility's Mireo Plus H platform. The vehicle will have a range of up to 800km and will be capable of running on non-electrified rail lines.
As primary modules of the hydrogen traction drive, two fuel cells will be placed on the train's roof. The system will utilise the newest generation of batteries from the Saft company that will be deployed beneath the floor.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday July 19 2021, @03:53AM (3 children)
How is this a troll?
Facts:
- The US is backwards when it comes to railways. Like, way backwards. Germany isn't supposed to be in that respect.
- Hydrogen as an energy vector is incredibly inefficient
- Hydrogen today is mostly extracted from non-renewable energy sources
- Running diesels on natural gas at 35% efficiency is more efficient than turning natural gas into hydrogen at 70% efficiency, then creating electricity out of it in a fuel cell at 60% efficiency and running a electric motor at 85% efficiency - and those are best case figures. Not to mention the cost of developing the hydrogen locomotives when there are plenty of diesels around that could be converted easily
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday July 19 2021, @06:11AM
At high pressure, there are complications (diffusion, metal embrittlement).
At moderate pressures, not so much - it all depends on the hydrogen distribution pipeline and Europe is growing one [gasforclimate2050.eu]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Monday July 19 2021, @07:52AM
It's pure market forces, not inability or lack of foresight. In Germany, the railway system is being held publicly, but run privately (as in a publicly traded company). This implies that electrification of a line is a pure business decision: maintenance of electricity infrastructure vs. additional cost for running diesel engines. For quite some lines, diesel is more efficient (rural, passengers only).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @03:08PM
i think it's a "half-assed" problem. ofc it gets mathematically when comparing infinities but if you have a infinite energy SOURCE (and infra to gather it, duh) then storing it and releasing it again even at crazy bad efficiencies of say ... oh ... ah ... 1% is still infinite.
the problem is that germany might not have natural gas or lithium but has potential to gather from an infinite source and use a abundant available storage medium, that is water.
ofc, methinks "just stringing" a overhead wire would be the simplest way?
then again, and here i am on limb, yes, maybe if you add the two together, that is the train had accesd to an overhead line AND a tank of water with an electrolyzer it could, maybe, "go faster then the wind"?