Comment on Hydrogen locomotive
serratur@lemmy.wtf 1 year ago
Imagine if we somehow could run trains on electricity, that would be even better
all trains, even the speed trains, in france run on electricity for who knows how many decades.
same trains go to great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and maybe some other countries too.
source of the electricity is debatable though. France produces a great majority of its electricity from nuclear since the ww2 trauma.
Oh you mean debatable because it’s one of the cleanest, cheapest, and safest sources of electricity we have?
Which allows France a degree of energy independence which has helped it not suffer the same amount of pain other countries have now that they’re having to kick the cheap Russian gas addiction?
And through huge cross-border interconnects it allows France to sell electricity to neighbouring countries at a huge profit?
Nuclear is not always the answer, but as France has shown, as long as you invest in reliable infrastructure and don’t put it in earthquake/tsunami-prone areas, it can be a huge positive for your country.
And you don’t have to rely on antagonistic petrostates for to power your homes with gas, or on strip-mining huge swathes of land by equally-antagonistic China for rare-earth metals for your wind turbines/solar panels/battery storage.
by “debatable”, i mean that the moment you mention it, debate starts. You proved me right and i thank you 😉
Not trying to start a fight or anything, but don’t we still ‘need’ to burn a lot of coal to fuel electricity? Renewables haven’t gotten close to pushing the necessity of coal away yet, no? Why not alternatives like this in some places to offset the need for electricity?
Hydrogen doesn’t exist randomly in a well or something it has to be created by using electricity - and that transformation is very inefficient if you then use the hydrogen in an inefficient way to power an engine instead of just using the electricity directly
That argument that energy is coal-heavy actually counts against hydrogen…
Hydrogen powered stuff only makes sense when electric isn’t an option like for planes that just can’t carry heavy batteries
Apparently, some hydrogen does come out of the ground like methane: www.weforum.org/…/white-hydrogen-deposit-france/ but it’s not that abundant.
The issue to me in term of effeciency is that the production of hydrogen needs electricity, the movement of it needs electricity, the storage and pumping of it needs electricity, and so on. I’d rather see all that electricity in the process simply be moving the vehicle. Though lugging batteries along is an issue in it’s own.
sorghum@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
They already do, they just have a diesel generator to make the electricity
Seraph@kbin.social 1 year ago
Guessing that replacing that with a large battery that charges at night is unreasonable due to the torque needed? You'd probably need a battery larger than a train engine to be able to even do a few stops and starts. Which is why electric trains are wired all the time.
If someone knows for sure I'm super curious!
kn33@lemmy.world 1 year ago
11-minute version
3-hour version
Seraph@kbin.social 1 year ago
This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is this whole thread a joke or have you people not heard of electrified rail
Seraph@kbin.social 1 year ago
I mentioned it in my comment that you're replying to. "wired" could easily refer to above or below, just continuous current is what matters for this discussion. Why do ask?
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Trains are already pulling what 100 cars. It’s easy enough to have a car that’s a battery. But I think overhead lines are the way to go on the vast majority of lines.
You999@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
The problem with battery trains is that locomotives hardly sit around long enough to charge unless it’s some sort of switcher or in for maintenance. Really the only use case for battery locomotives outside of switchers is passenger service where it’s fairly common for a train to sit for eight plus hours. Amtrak and Siemens are actually doing this with 15 of the new airo trainsets which will run on the empire line. The trainsets will specifically run on battery while within the new York city tunnels where diesel locomotives are only allowed to operate under emergency.
BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
There is probably a use for train with battery on partially electrified lines.
The train charge on the electrified part and use batteries on the rest.
topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 1 year ago
For transport of people, it seems germany has some train with battery. They replace their hydrogen trains.
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 1 year ago
Supercapacitors.
lemann@lemmy.one 1 year ago
If I ran the local power grid I’m not sure I’d want cargo trains using line power for traction, unless there was some mandated weight or length limit 🤔
Without some cargo limit I think sections of the line’s voltage will just collapse under the current being drawn, whenever the cargo train moves off from a complete stop - especially if it’s a multi mile long cargo train that seems common in the US
serratur@lemmy.wtf 1 year ago
The Kiruna - Narvik electrified line is operating just fine with LKAB running the heaviest trains in Europe with a mass of 8600 tonnes.
BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
90% off the cargo trains are powered with electricity in France and can reach up to 750m.
I agree It’s not multi mile long but it’s totally possible to have electric cargo trains.
roguetrick@kbin.social 1 year ago
There's little chance of that happening, but even if there was, they'd just use batteries for the acceleration phase. That's what hydrogen fuel cell trains do anyway, because the fuel cell can't produce enough power on it's own to accelerate the train, so they're used to charge batteries that allow it to do so.
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I really can’t see a train pulling so much that it crashes the entire system.
uis@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think this guy never learned about resistance. Maybe he skipped physics classes, maybe he didn’t even have them yet.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Even better, we could also put cables above the train and connect them to an even bigger diesel generator located somewhere close to the railway. That would make the locomotive lighter and the energy production more efficient. Better yet, replace the diesel with uranium and you can easily power many trains.
QuinceDaPence@kbin.social 1 year ago
That's not an advantage. You want your loco to be as heavy as possible for traction. If they were switching it to pantograph and it was lighter they'd add lead, iron, or something else to make up the difference
uis@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I see you don’t know why Caucasus was electrified. Non-electric locomotives were just too heavy and couldn’t lift as much as mass as electric could.
uis@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Image Show me disel here