CSX Hydrogen-Powered Locomotive Ready for Service

[davesnow]

 

[blueodessey]

Hello Ole Friend,


Thank you for elegant picture of Hydrogen Loco. It never ceases to amaze me, we have Electricity Tesla, that supposedly could be harnessed from the Air.

Hydrogen from our Water, oh yeah, our little planet is literately covered 7/10 with Water!

We have the Purest and most free available amount of Hydrogen on this Planet, Universe yet with all this, we slog along like a Snail.

Maybe for once, the true potential and possibilities of Hydrogen can come to fruition.

Hydrogen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[davesnow]

Yes. It's a shame that after over 100 years the earth is still using explosions to make our vehicles move. This includes gas motors, Rocket Fueled space vehicles, etc.

 

[wreeder]

But the Hydrogen powered loco is simply exploding hydrogen gas in its internal combustion engine as a replacement for diesel fuel. And while we have an abundance of sea water, it is hardly an unlimited supply if we start breaking it down to create hydrogen gas.

 

[steammy]

This Loco is not powered by burning Hydrogen in an engine it is a chemical reaction between Hydrogen And oxygen which produces Electric current with the exhaust being 100% pure water

 

[pware]

Speaking of Hydrogen and explosions, the thought of a hydrogen powered locomotive, car or anything else always seems to bring up memories of the Hindenburg

 

[pware]

This Loco is not powered by burning Hydrogen in an engine it is a chemical reaction between Hydrogen And oxygen which produces Electric current with the exhaust being 100% pure water

Combustion engines have always worried me. They work by burning a fuel (be it wood, coal, petrol, diesel or hydrogen) with oxygen thus removing from the air the very element that we need to breathe for our survival. It always seems like we are lemmings rushing towards the cliff of our own destruction. That is why I prefer renewables that don't consume oxygen but I appreciate that making the metals needed for the wind turbines, solar cells, water pumps etc also consumes oxygen - at least until we can use renewables to heat our furnaces.

My idle thoughts.

 

[wreeder]

This Loco is not powered by burning Hydrogen in an engine it is a chemical reaction between Hydrogen And oxygen which produces Electric current with the exhaust being 100% pure water

As much as it pains me to quote wikipedia, I assume you are referring to this:

A key technology of a typical hydrogen propulsion system is the fuel cell. This device converts the chemical energy contained within the hydrogen in order to generate electricity, as well as water and heat.[10] As such, a fuel cell would operate in a manner that is essentially inverse to the electrolysis process used to create the fuel; consuming pure hydrogen to produce electricity rather than consuming electrical energy to produce hydrogen, albeit incurring some level of energy losses in the exchange.[10] Reportedly, the efficiency of converting electricity to hydrogen and back again is just beneath 30 per cent, roughly similar to contemporary diesel engines but less than conventional electric traction using overhead catenary wires. The electricity produced by the onboard fuel cell would be fed into a motor to propel the train.[10] Overhead wire electrification costs are around EUR 2m/km, so electrification is not a cost-efficient solution for routes with low traffic, and battery and hydrail solutions may be alternatives.[

Note the process only returns 30% of the electricity needed to produce the hydrogen for the fuel cell. Fuel cells are hardly new technology. The space program in the USA used them to produce power the Gemini and Apollo missions. They fell out of favor when one blew up during the Apollo 13 mission almost killing the crew.

 

[wreeder]

at least until we can use renewables to heat our furnaces.

Dried animal dung worked for a very long time but I guess according to Saint Greta they produce too much CO2.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

Combustion engines have always worried me. They work by burning a fuel (be it wood, coal, petrol, diesel or hydrogen) with oxygen thus removing from the air the very element that we need to breathe for our survival. It always seems like we are lemmings rushing towards the cliff of our own destruction. That is why I prefer renewables that don't consume oxygen but I appreciate that making the metals needed for the wind turbines, solar cells, water pumps etc also consumes oxygen - at least until we can use renewables to heat our furnaces.

My idle thoughts.

If i understood physics/chemistry in this way it would bother me too, but fortunately for us that isn't how it works.

We learn a lot with these types of hydrogen experiments but you still wont see these in common use until this technology is mature and efficient enough.

 

[pware]

If i understood physics/chemistry in this way it would bother me too, but fortunately for us that isn't how it works.

Huh? My science degree included chemistry (not my favourite subject I must admit) but the definition of combustion has always been "the rapid chemical combination of a substance with oxygen, involving the production of heat and light." Combining with oxygen involves removing it from (most commonly) the air around us - the same oxygen we breathe. In the majority of cheap combustion processes (i.e. the ones we most commonly use) the oxygen is returned as a variety of different chemicals gases (CO, CO2, NO2, etc) most of them toxic. So we are replacing a life giving gas with poisons - hence my Lemming analogy.

Even hydrogen fuel involves combining hydrogen gas with oxygen gas to produce heat and water - thus removing the oxygen from the air.