Locomotives powered by Hydrogen?

[densa44]

I'm not trying to start trouble, just asking. How do these engines work? Is it the same technology as steam engines, diesel engines, or something new?

Thanks.

[Stinky Buffalo]

Good question.

If I had to guess:

I suppose that there’s a couple of ways to do it - one is to use hydrogen as a fuel in an ICE engine.

Another way is to use a fuel cell to convert it to electricity by combining it with ambient oxygen to create the electrical current and provide float charge to onboard batteries.

I believe that many locomotives are electrically driven (diesel powers the generators) so the second option may be the most likely…

[KGB]

And in case of a railroad crash- do we get a thermo nuclear bomb going off? Asking for a friend…

[Au revoir, Gopher]

Originally Posted by densa44

I'm not trying to start trouble, just asking. How do these engines work? Is it the same technology as steam engines, diesel engines, or something new?

Thanks.

Here are two examples of hydrogen fuel cells
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/hydr...city-1.6888891
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-revi...t-revenue-run/

Originally Posted by KGB

And in case of a railroad crash- do we get a thermo nuclear bomb going off? Asking for a friend…

Absolutely! That's why it's called a "hydrogen bomb"

ARG

[SamSteele]

Had an opportunity to see one up close. They fuel up with hydrogen at specific points and are a hydrogen/electric motor. In essence the hydrogen replaces the diesel (with engine mods obviously).

SS


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[Sundog57]

I would expect that given that most locomotives use electric traction engines, that the choice would be to use a hydrogen fuel cell that uses a catalyst to generate electricity from H2 gas.
However whereas the examples cited are for switching engines, the use of H2 as a long haul fuel is problematic because of the volume constraints imposed by hydrogen - H2 contains about 130 MJ/kg vs diesel at 45MJ/kg but a kg of diesel fills approx 1,3 litres whereas a kg of compressed H2 at 700 bar occupies 23 litres. So to put this in context the amount of space required to hold the equivalent heat value of one litre of diesel is about 7.5 litres - it takes a lot of space to transport enough hydrogen to run anything for any amount of time (this was the same problem with conversions to LNG which occupies about 4x the space of diesel)

For ease of transport it is likely that any large H2 fueled engines will use liquid ammonia as a source of fuel as it is much easier to transport and handle - the hydrogen would be split off using a catalyst once again though there is still a volume problem as the heat content of ammonia is quite low.

On trains the issue is that any space used to carry fuel is space that cannot be used to generate revenue. Once again a reason that the whole LNG thing failed to gain any traction. On the LNG trains they were forced to give up a revenue slot to fit in a fuel car slot. In spite of a number of significant advantages gained by using LNG it was abandoned.

[Grizzly Adams1]

So to put this in context the amount of space required to hold the equivalent heat value of one litre of diesel is about 7.5 litres - it takes a lot of space to transport enough hydrogen to run anything for any amount of time (this was the same problem with conversions to LNG which occupies about 4x the space of diesel)

That is the crux of the argument when it comes to hydrogen as a fuel.

[Stinky Buffalo]

Originally Posted by KGB

And in case of a railroad crash- do we get a thermo nuclear bomb going off? Asking for a friend…

lol! It doesn’t work that way!

[barsik]

apart from the corrupt and manipulative politicians, media, and opportunists there isn't anything wrong with using gasoline, diesel, or natural gas as a fuel source. best bang for the buck if you pardon the pun. the only other energy we need is electricity, generated as efficiently and inexpensively as possible, thank you very much.

[densa44]

Lets go back to this suggestion. I really don't care if the pencil neck guys worry about one or two extra cars in a train that stretches for a mile or more. Where does NH3 come from? Natural gas?

Was LNG burned in an internal combustion engine or was it used to generate electricity?

I knew that you guys would know a lot about this.