Hydrogen Class 614 - It moves!

[Bletchleyite]

The problem with hydrogen is still making it.

And the reason this makes sense in Scotland specifically is that there is industry making it as a byproduct.

 

[snowball]

Indeed - that was in my mind with my comment above re inefficiency and heat losses. As others have said, hydrogen often looks to be a rather inefficient way to carry energy around...

Indeed it is, and I've never seen any competent person claim otherwise. Fuel cells are not magic, hydrogen is not magic. But if it's produced by electrolysis using green electricity, then it's a lot greener than diesel, which is the whole point of the exercise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Aug 2022 ==

And the reason this makes sense in Scotland specifically is that there is industry making it as a byproduct.

I thought there were already enough uses for hydrogen to use up the hydrogen that is a byproduct. I thought the plan for hydrogen on remote lines in Scotland was to use hydrogen from new electrolysers.

 

[Royston Vasey]

The problem with hydrogen is still making it.

Quite so. Electrolysis from green electricity is the supposed future route, effectively via a reverse fuel cell, rather than chemical by-product (chloralkali process) or gasification of biomass/waste to syngas. Gasification is inefficient at small scale and it's much more useful to make sustainable diesel and jet fuel from the syngas.

But in my opinion, if you are going to generate all that green electricity, why make hydrogen from it to make electricity from it? Why not just store and transmit the electricity through batteries. Hydrogen is not a good energy vector, like, say, diesel.

In automotive applications, generally, battery technology has improved and will continue to improve to increase the energy density of the batteries (sodium ion, solid state electrolyte, silicon anode). As such, fuel cells struggle to find a sweet spot where you wouldn't just use battery or wires instead. Certainly not cars, maybe trucks and buses, and yes maybe trains. And probably not aviation because electric aviation would need some enormous magnets for the motors, an electric/fuel cell 777 would never get off the ground, literally.

I have worked in or in adjacent spheres to battery, alternative fuel and fuel cell for a long time. There's no one answer, but I retain a dose of scepticism about fuel cells, as I can't help thinking that they will be caught up for powertrain applications by batteries, which don't care how the energy was produced and which have fewer complications around manufacturing, transporting and storing the fuel. But range will be the clincher, and trains are not cars.

I love what this project has achieved and actually used to work with a very senior stakeholder in the project. Whether it has a place may come down to its range and rechargeability vs a battery train. Ballard believe that 1000 km is possible, Alstom's Coradia Lint train is running now with 1000 km range, whereas Vivarail's battery demonstrator has a range of 100 km. So already I would say that fuel cell is ahead of battery in rail applications.

 

[Wyrleybart]

I love what this project has achieved and actually used to work with a very senior stakeholder in the project. Whether it has a place may come down to its range and rechargeability vs a battery train. Ballard believe that 1000 km is possible, Alstom's Coradia Lint train is running now with 1000 km range, whereas Vivarail's battery demonstrator has a range of 100 km. So already I would say that fuel cell is ahead of battery in rail applications.

I am quite ambivalent about the technologies but recognise that at the moment electric is an easier form to handle. For example a battery electric unit from York to Manchester via say Doncaster, Sheffield and the Hope valley could run on AC from York to Donny via the ECML then pan down as far as Hazel Grove, then pan up again. The onboard fuel would only be a portion of the journey. Would I be right in thinking the hydrogen unit would be hydrogen only, or is that also planned to be an AC Bimode too ?

 

[Domh245]

But in my opinion, if you are going to generate all that green electricity, why make hydrogen from it to make electricity from it? Why not just store and transmit the electricity through batteries. Hydrogen is not a good energy vector, like, say, diesel.

Hydrogen is (AIUI) more suited to longer term storage than batteries which helps with some of the seasonal issues with renewables. It also has the advantage (in Scotland's case) of being a bit easier to transport than batteries too, meaning you could for example generate a load of hydrogen through electrolysis on an outlying island with abundant renewable (tide & wind) sources, then ship back to the mainland

 

[Royston Vasey]

I am quite ambivalent about the technologies but recognise that at the moment electric is an easier form to handle. For example a battery electric unit from York to Manchester via say Doncaster, Sheffield and the Hope valley could run on AC from York to Donny via the ECML then pan down as far as Hazel Grove, then pan up again. The onboard fuel would only be a portion of the journey. Would I be right in thinking the hydrogen unit would be hydrogen only, or is that also planned to be an AC Bimode too ?

I think different horses for different courses.

I haven't seen any announced plans for an AC bimode but if you think about it there isn't very much point, as the range is already high as a self powered unit on clean fuel. Fuel cells also produce direct current so although you could feed the motors from wires, you'd need to convert the AC to DC onboard. There may or may not be much room onboard for that equipment but it would be technically possible of course.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with battery as an in-fill and rescue powerpack for shorter distance flexibility. You'd never run a train on it all day but recharging from wires to run off-wires is an ideal use case. I think the Alstom Coradia battery demonstrator and the existing Japanese BEMUs already follow this operational model.

 

[47550]

Great to see progress with this. Isn't it a bit low down to be emitting water vapour at track level - over 100 degrees would be a problem if the unit was at a platform or in a depot. Better to have an exhaust pipe between the carriages ?

 

[Royston Vasey]

Hydrogen is (AIUI) more suited to longer term storage than batteries which helps with some of the seasonal issues with renewables. It also has the advantage (in Scotland's case) of being a bit easier to transport than batteries too, meaning you could for example generate a load of hydrogen through electrolysis on an outlying island with abundant renewable (tide & wind) sources, then ship back to the mainland

Large scale electricity storage facilities are planned around the UK (think big banks of batteries in empty fields and disused power station sites) but you're right of course.

Electricity on the other hand is much easier to transport/distribute albeit with some losses. But the infrastructure is already there.

Hydrogen pipelines are proposed and in use around the world but are much harder than natural gas pipelines to operate due to leakage and hydrogen embrittlement of steel.

In the island case its probably easier not to collect the renewable energy in the first place, you'd lose a lot of efficiency making hydrogen, and if the energy was that abundant it might be better to lay a cable to the mainland and let the grid distribute it to Glasgow, London or wherever its needed, including export.

There will be a place for a lot of solutions and the chances are we will need them all! Again, horses for courses!

 

[Bill57p9]

Don't forget that the Scottish use case - and Scotland has a railway decarbonisation strategy - is BEMU for "hard to electrify" gaps and hydrogen for remote rural stretches (Far North, West Highland and Girvan to Stranraer).
In these latter cases, I don't see battery as an option: the distances between population centres (and the meaty power supplies required for flash charging) are simply too big.

Great to see progress with this. Isn't it a bit low down to be emitting water vapour at track level - over 100 degrees would be a problem if the unit was at a platform or in a depot. Better to have an exhaust pipe between the carriages ?

Steam heating making a return??

 

[315801]

I saw the youtube video last night and I have to admit that its great seeing a former class 314 unit moving on its own, the thing I found hard to get used to was seeing the unit moving with no wires above it.

I hope the unit is preserved and running as a passenger unit whether it is under the wires or not.

 

[Domh245]

Great to see progress with this. Isn't it a bit low down to be emitting water vapour at track level - over 100 degrees would be a problem if the unit was at a platform or in a depot. Better to have an exhaust pipe between the carriages ?

The exhaust water vapour is (on average) well below 100°, even if the individual molecules of water vapour are at a higher temperature. No different really to standing in front of a condensing boiler flue - unpleasant but not massively dangerous (well, in the boilers case it is dangerous because of the other combustion byproducts!)

Large scale electricity storage facilities are planned around the UK (think big banks of batteries in empty fields and disused power station sites) but you're right of course.

Electricity on the other hand is much easier to transport/distribute albeit with some losses. But the infrastructure is already there.

Hydrogen pipelines are proposed and in use around the world but are much harder than natural gas pipelines to operate due to leakage and hydrogen embrittlement of steel.

In the island case its probably easier not to collect the renewable energy in the first place, you'd lose a lot of efficiency making hydrogen, and if the energy was that abundant it might be better to lay a cable to the mainland and let the grid distribute it to Glasgow, London or wherever its needed, including export.

There will be a place for a lot of solutions and the chances are we will need them all! Again, horses for courses!

I was thinking transporting in the sense of large floating tanks you could propel between the islands, rather than pipeline!

Whilst ideally we would find more efficient ways of using any surplus energy, I don't think there's much point in not taking advantage of the surplus if you can! It's not a "neat" solution but when the resource is "unlimited" it's daft not to use all you can!

 

[XAM2175]

It's nice to see progress, if nothing else.

Though it is deeply irritating to see the video caption it as "the Class 614209"
(and then it's listed in the description as "Class 614219")

 

[Irascible]

Indeed - that was in my mind with my comment above re inefficiency and heat losses. As others have said, hydrogen often looks to be a rather inefficient way to carry energy around...

About as energy dense as a battery once you've added all the containment, I think? advantage is that it's far easier to refuel swiftly, and as it's used the whole system gets lighter ( which is not really much of a difference to a train ). Not sure what materials you need for a fuel cell, but containing hydrogen doesn't need anything rare like batteries do. At worst you could burn it in an IC engine & it'd still be clean, all of that can use common materials.

Large scale electricity storage facilities are planned around the UK (think big banks of batteries in empty fields and disused power station sites) but you're right of course.

Electricity on the other hand is much easier to transport/distribute albeit with some losses. But the infrastructure is already there.

Hydrogen pipelines are proposed and in use around the world but are much harder than natural gas pipelines to operate due to leakage and hydrogen embrittlement of steel.

In the island case its probably easier not to collect the renewable energy in the first place, you'd lose a lot of efficiency making hydrogen, and if the energy was that abundant it might be better to lay a cable to the mainland and let the grid distribute it to Glasgow, London or wherever its needed, including export.

There will be a place for a lot of solutions and the chances are we will need them all! Again, horses for courses!

I'm not sure the infrastructure *is* there for a large increase in electricity use. Installing local facilities & upgrading local grids really needs to come before anything else, it's hard to sell though. The idea of a giant network of hydrogen pipelines amuses me. Transport the energy via the national grid & use it to generate hydrogen locally if there's an application where it's absolutely better - not going to be many of those unless we run out of materials to build decent batteries.

 

[Trackman]

The fuel cell itself is near silent, but there's a bunch of equipment supporting it such as cooling fans, compressors and driers that will make noise.

Indeed. Fuel cell blower is my guess judging by the sound.

 

[Avidfan]

It seems hydrogen is now blameless as it is seen as green. Much like plastic went from being the antichrist prior to 2019 to our saviour during covid.

And there's no need for the condescension. It may make you feel superior saying 'There's no need for a real life demonstration just to appease people who don't understand the science.' That's the sort of mindset that was used during the Brexit campaign, and we know how effective that was in increasing the Conservative vote in the North.

Shoehorn

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed. Fuel cell blower is my guess judging by the sound.

It does seem that phone microphones make those sort of sounds (blowers, diesel engines etc) sound very loud, possibly because they're in a similar range of frequencies to human speech which they're designed to pick up well. I'm pretty sure the exact same has been said of 195s, 197s and FLIRTs and you can hear this on a good many YouTube videos, but they're not that noisy in person.

 

[snowball]

If you're close to an electric locomotive when its traction motor blowers start, it sounds quite loud, but if a diesel then passes it drowns it out.

 

[xotGD]

Several "blue" hydrogen projects have made the UK Government's shortlist of potential carbon capture projects. If they all go ahead there will be plenty of low carbon hydrogen available in a few years time.

 

[snowball]

And the recently announced Scottish Power green hydrogen project at the Port of Felixstowe.

 

[HSTEd]

Hydrogen fuel, especially zero carbon hydrogen fuel, is going to have absolutely awful end to end efficiency.

It will make third rail look like a paragon on energy saving.

That is unless you believe the hype about mythical "gold" hydrogen.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Aug 2022 ==

Hydrogen is (AIUI) more suited to longer term storage than batteries which helps with some of the seasonal issues with renewables. It also has the advantage (in Scotland's case) of being a bit easier to transport than batteries too, meaning you could for example generate a load of hydrogen through electrolysis on an outlying island with abundant renewable (tide & wind) sources, then ship back to the mainland

Scotland is not the Canadian Arctic - I can't think of a single place in Scotland where shipping batteries around would not be definitely worse than having a cable!

Indeed very few Scottish islands do not have grid connections at this point.

 

[Surreytraveller]

And when it hits the roof of a tunnel, where does it go?

Up the ventilation shafts, presumably

 

[Hairy Bear]

Up the ventilation shafts, presumably

not all tunnels have ventilation shafts !

 

[Tim.]

Hydrogen is a clean fuel that produces only water.

 

[BigB]

Interesting to see. I thought the unit was now owned by ScotRail, yet I notice the Angel branding on the bodyside; has the leasing company retained an interest in the asset, do we know?

The 614 is owned by St Andrews University - others have sponsored the programme including Scottish Enterprise, but not sure Scotrail were involved. All this makes preservation not a straightforward proposal. If they want to dispose of its that is their choice, and there is the question of where would it be preserved... EMUs haven't been that successful over the years

 

[Razorblades]

The 614 is owned by St Andrews University - others have sponsored the programme including Scottish Enterprise, but not sure Scotrail were involved. All this makes preservation not a straightforward proposal. If they want to dispose of its that is their choice, and there is the question of where would it be preserved... EMUs haven't been that successful over the years

That's useful, thank you. I was only interested in the stakeholders really.

I've no interest in preservation of electric multiple units per se; it all seems rather pointless when they don't generate sufficient interest and nor are they able to operate independently.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Hydrogen fuel, especially zero carbon hydrogen fuel, is going to have absolutely awful end to end efficiency.

Yup but don't forget that its takes energy to create diesel as well even electricity produced by the most efficient gas turbines is only 60% at the power station before you factor in system losses. The real benefit of hydrogen is in its compressed state it has high energy density which with its zero emissions makes it a wunder fuel from an environmental perspective. As you say though its whole future rests though on the ability to produce green hydrogen cost effectively and i would suggest that won't be possible anytime soon if ever.

 

[Irascible]

Hydrogen is a clean fuel that produces only water.

It is, but the process to produce it is not currently - nor the process to produce the equipment that creates, transports & uses it. There'll be times it's better suited than batteries, but large scale electrolysis isn't yet a thing, and we probably need to use the energy those plants would use more directly right now.

The process to make batteries is definitely not eco-friendly either.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It is, but the process to produce it is not currently - nor the process to produce the equipment that creates, transports & uses it. There'll be times it's better suited than batteries, but large scale electrolysis isn't yet a thing, and we probably need to use the energy those plants would use more directly right now.

The process to make batteries is definitely not eco-friendly either.

Reality is nothing is eco friendly so we have to choose what does the least damage unless you want to return to the caves but then burning wood is also not environmentally friendly. Reality is only the extinction of the human race is ever going to neutralise our damage to the planet.

Right now hydrogen can deliver on duration that batteries can't and are unlikely ever to be able to do so. Personally though i see no point in chasing hydrogen for rail as its such a miniscule emitter vs aviation the money would be better spent getting more wires up.

 

[Irascible]

Reality is nothing is eco friendly so we have to choose what does the least damage unless you want to return to the caves but then burning wood is also not environmentally friendly. Reality is only the extinction of the human race is ever going to neutralise our damage to the planet.

Right now hydrogen can deliver on duration that batteries can't and are unlikely ever to be able to do so. Personally though i see no point in chasing hydrogen for rail as its such a miniscule emitter vs aviation the money would be better spent getting more wires up.

There will be places that wiring isn't the best solution to when taken as a whole provided there's an alternative that works on a small scale ( remote branches are pretty likely candidates ) but at a small scale like that then biofuels are also a candidate, surely. Not politically ( in the broad sense of social opinion ) acceptable right now. I'm not sure about hydrogen duration - once you factor containment in the energy density advantage collapses, You can construct a system that's not dependent on rare resources, but if you want to harvest - which is quite critical, if you don't then your efficiency just plummeted - you're going to need some batteries anyway, The whole area is a lot messier than people like to make out :/

 

[McRhu]

The trick with getting the best from hydrogen isn't to combine it with oxygen, but to fuse its atoms together. Get that old reaction going in the underslung equipment and hey presto. And when the unit's not required for moving passengers it can power a small city.