Image Credit: Inhabitat
In case you’ve heard of the hydrogen-powered trains entering service in Germany and are wondering if we’ll be seeing them any time soon, Lloyd Alter on Treehugger has been busily collecting the cold water they presumably spew and is ready to dump it all over you:
All the blogs seem really excited about this, even though rail electrification with overhead wires has been going on in Europe for decades and, though expensive, is the tried and true method. But hey, hydrogen is clean and green, right? I must admit that I have always been a skeptic of the hydrogen economy, but is it time to admit I was wrong? Perhaps things have changed. After all, as Daniel Cooper writes in Engadget,
Hydrogen’s strong energy density and relative ease of generation and transportation makes it ideal for heavy loads. And while it’s currently not a clean material, the hope is that companies can push towards creating H2 with 100 percent renewables in the future.
I read that and thought, no, I am not wrong. This is classic hydrogen hype. Let’s deconstruct it.
Just one of his critiques:
Energy Density: It’s true, hydrogen has the highest energy density per mass of any fuel; the trouble is it is the lightest fuel and has a very low energy per unit volume; a gallon of diesel has many times more energy than a gallon of hydrogen. So, according to the Department of Energy, “its low ambient temperature density results in a low energy per unit volume, therefore requiring the development of advanced storage methods that have potential for higher energy density.”
So energy density is a head fake. And then there’s the creation of hydrogen, which apparently is mostly fossil-fuel based.
I remember reading, oh so many years ago, that Mazda engineers had modified rotary engines to burn hydrogen (rotary engines were used in Mazda RX-7s and RX-8s, of which I own an example of the former and a cousin in Georgia owns an example of the latter). It appears it still doesn’t mean much.
Here’s a promotional video:
Gotta admit a quieter rail engine has its attractions for both humans and other creatures.
