First hydrogen locomotive started working in Poland.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    If I may?

    Hydrogen, green hydrogen, can be produced from water, using electricity produced from renewables, like solar amd wind.

    My own country is in the process of converting a decomissioned refinery into a hydrogen plant.

    It may not solve much in the short term but as an energy reserve, hydrogen can find use directly as a fuel or for running gas turbines to produce electricity in replacement of conventional gas.

    • n2burns
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      1 year ago

      Green Hydrogen from Electrolysis is extremely inefficient (<30%). Renewable energy isn’t without cost or environmental impact, so we need to responsible with how we use it. Unless the grid you’re pulling from is 100% renewable and has excess power that is just being wasted, that renewable energy could be used elsewhere in a more efficient manner.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Siemens quotes 80% for their electrolysers, fuel cells run at about 60%… in steel smelting if you squint right over 100% (reducing directly with electricity is possible, but less efficient in practice than going via hydrogen). Similar for chemical feedstock where “just use electricity bro” really isn’t an option in the first place.

        Precisely because of those uses hydrogen (and by extension ammonia) will be a massive energy carrier in the future anyway. And both, and definitely ammonia, doesn’t self-discharge, or have cycle life limitations.

      • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Regardless, it is a start. Unless we are to stumble upon the secret of cold fusion, we need to compromise in order to make any kind of move away from fossil energy.

        The project I mentioned is to be a self contained system, reliant on renewables only, hence the green classification.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        but it’s not either /or is it? there places where overhead cables are not a good option for trains so a Hydrogen train makes sense there it’s a niche but it’s use case is there

    • arc@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It can be made from water and renewables at about 3-4x the energy cost of charging a battery. In train terms, that means you could be charging 3 battery trains instead of 1 hydrogen train. Or you could have 3 battery tenders and have more logistical flexibility in how they are deployed.

      • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        To what I know, the hydrogen to be produced is intentended to replace fossil gas in northern europe countries. It’s meant to be a stockpileable energy resource.

        It’s not ideal but we either make middle of the road commitments and actually get something done to move forward or just call it all off an let things fizzle out

        • arc@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Unless someone figures a way to sequester hydrogen into an inert, reversible form you really don’t want to be stockpiling hydrogen for obvious reasons.

          • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            It’s not like we have had disastrous events related to hydrogen.

            The objective is to built a trans-iberian pipeline for the liquified hydrogen. So, it will be interesting.