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.
__________________
"The well meaning have done more damage than all the criminals in the world" Great grand father "Never impute planning where incompetence will predict the phenomenon equally well" Father
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…
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
__________________
In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir, gopher'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sjemac
It has been scientifically proven that a 308 round will not leave your property -- they essentially fall dead at the fence line. But a 38 round, when fired from a handgun, will of its own accord leave your property and destroy any small schools nearby.
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).
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.
__________________
Why hunt when I could buy meat?
Why have sex when I could opt for artificial insemination?
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.
__________________
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there is no place, that they be alone in the midst of the Earth.
Locomotives powered by Hydrogen?
Linear Mode
