Hydrogen Fuel Cell Locomotive!!!!

Re: hydrogen fuel cell locomotive!!!!!

Here's a link that sheds more light: http://www.bnsf.com/employees/communications/bnsf_today/2009/06/2009-06-29-a.html
And here's a video: http://www.wibw.com/localnews/headlines/49459622.html#

It's a federally-subsidized money-sink.

My job position involves hybrid technology and alternate energy vehicles. In a nutshell, Hydrogen powered vehicles are not cost effective nor necessarily eco-friendly using traditional methodologies top produce the hydrogen. The energy required to produce the hydrogen in the first place exceeds the energy released when the hydrogen is used. Hydrogen can be most efficiently produced conventionally by one of two methods; fuel reforming (breaking hydrocarbon fuels into hydrogen and CO2) or electrolysis (using electricity to break H2O into H2 and O2). With either process there is waste heat that represents energy lost. In either case it is more efficient using the original energy source to propel a vehicle than using two sources to produce one. Therefore hybrid technology, using existing fuel sources, is more efficient especially because of the energy recovered during regenerative braking.

Incidentally, using photovoltaic solar cells to produce electricity to perform electrolysis would contribute to global warming. In the areas of the country where the sun shines the most, the light-colored soil's albedo (reflectivity) is high. When that high albedo soil is covered by dark photocells, the soil's albedo is lowered causing more absorption of ultraviolet light and more radiation of infrared (light) energy. Ultraviolet light can bounce back out of the earth's atmosphere but infrared can not. Additionally, the solar energy that IS converted to electricity will ultimately end up inside the earth's atmosphere as waste heat from the work that is done during its use. Hence, use of solar energy contributes to global warming. Take that environmentalist-wackos!

The methodology that makes the most sense is using wind energy, when the wind blows, to produce the hydrogen, which can be stored and then transported. Wind energy is not consistent enough to be very viable for nearly any other use, since the electricity produced is extremely variable and the electricity itself cannot be stored for later use when the wind isn't blowing. Using wind-produced hydrogen with electrolysis eliminates the environmental consequences of reforming hydrocarbon fuels and of capturing solar energy within the earth's atmosphere by any method. By 2015, the cost of hydrogen as an energy source using fuel cells will match the cost of gasoline as an energy source to propel a vehicle along the road, and we will see hydrogen fuel cell hybrid vehicles coming to market by then.

 

Re: hydro eletric fuel cell locomotive!!!!!

Thanks klrwhizkid. As an obsolete old chemical engineer, I appreciate the clear explanation of the facts of the hydro-electric fuel cell idea. There is so much energy released when hydrogen and oxygen combust (that's why water is so stable) it only makes sense, given the inefficiencies that always exist, that it takes more energy to pull H2 & O2 apart than you can possibly get back.

Perhaps you could write a similar clear and to the point explanation of alternative energy economics for our silly political leaders? Keep it simple!

Ken

 

Re: hydro eletric fuel cell locomotive!!!!!

There are no engines in this locomotive to produce any power.
The technology IS the same basic Fuel Cell technology that was used on the NASA Apollo missions. The hydrogen is mixed with oxygen or air inside the fuel cell and what comes out is electricity, heat and water vapor. A fuel cell produces power at fixed rate, so the only way to control output is to "turn on" more or fewer fuel cells; but they don't come on instantly - therefore the need for the huge battery pack (NiMH - Nickel Metal Hydride) to absorb the fixed output from the fuel cells.
The battery stores the charge for acceleration and stores the energy the traction motors generate during "braking" using instead of sending the generated electrical energy to a dynamic brake resistor and wasting it.
The output from the fuel cells can drive the locomotive at some steady pace, but must use the power from the battery pack for acceleration.

This basic concept of a master power source generating a relatively fixed power output that can propel a vehicle and charge a battery pack and use the battery pack for acceleration or regenerative braking is what drives the 3 hybrid vehicle models my employer is so well known for. Our company also has a fleet of Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicles that are running around on both coasts in the hands of engineering schools. The range of these is now up to 420 miles, but the bugaboo has been the availability and cost of the hydrogen. That will not be a factor sometime around 2015.