Germany's new hydrogen powered train

[kamnet]

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/ ... in/501575/

[Pyoro]

Fascinating. Bahn here tries very hard to go for an environment-friendly image, and this fits right in. I agree with the article that of course the more important aspect is how the electricity for the electric units is generated, those are after all the bulk of the German train fleet, but nobody says there needs to be a "one for all" solution. So, why not? Always good to see innovation. Maybe the trains work out, maybe not.


Love that it's tested in Buxtehude. Don't know if it's a saying in all of Germany, but here in the South that's the town we use when we refer to some unknown, far-away place in the middle of nowhere, where nothing ever happens.

[Train<In>Vain]

Wouldn't the best thing for the Earth be for all of us to kill ourselves?

[Pyoro]

Meh, it's not like "Earth" cares what we do. It was presumably perfectly happy to be a molten rock of lava. It's just in our best interest to keep it from reverting to that state

But, seriously, Germany is one of the many traffic-choked countries. Public transport is direly necessary, whether you care about the environment or not. But for that to happen public transportation needs to be affordable, and although there's other ways to achieve it, if it's from the start cheap, economically, well, nobody can complain. Fossil fuels might be in a bit of a prize drop right now, but long-term they are only going to get more expensive. So, good thing to explore alternatives to diesel engines before that happens.

[YNM]

Hmm... Alright, apart from the oblivious "isn't making H2 and O2 for fuel is energy-intensive or sourced on fossil fuels as well ?" question that immediately appears on my mind, does Germany have lots of unelectrified lines ? (I know some, but I don't think it's significant). Are electrification plans underway, I mean with electricity easily generated by fully "green" sources already ? Or are there any dimensional obstacles (like what the UK usually have thanks to small trains) ?

EDIT : Interesting there that they plan to use open-end fuel cells by using atmospheric oxygen !

[Pyoro]

Depends how you look at "significant". It's something like 40% unelectrified tracks. I'd say that's something But - everything major line is electrified, so some 90% of all trains are.
But those busy, main lines is not what that project is for anyway. It's about all those local branch lines in the middle of nowhere, and as that % implies Germany has still loads of those - ~40000km of tracks altogether, which is of course less than for countries like the US or Russia, but we don't have those crazy-long, continent-stretching lines. Electrifying all those little branches everywhere would take a huge effort.

As for the electricity used, about 40% should be "green", there rest is coal, gas and nuclear. If you believe their marketing they want 100% "green" by 2050, but their goal for 2022 is to go from 42% to 45%, which is kinda - unambitious, if they really want to make it there (admittedly, their last mile stone was supposed to be 35%, and they exceeded that by 7%, so maybe future plans haven't been adjusted, who knows. It's pretty much just marketing, announcing goals that far ahead anyway).