China: World's First Hydrogen Fuel Cell Tram Rolls Off Assembly Line

[nationalize the fed]

2015-03-20 Xinhua Web Editor: Gu Liping

World's first hydrogen-powered tramcar rolled off the assembly line in Qingdao on Thursday.

Liang Jianying, chief engineer of Sifang Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of China South Rail Corporation (CSR), said the new tram is the only hydrogen powered vehicle in the field, and makes China the only country in the world to have mastered the technology.


The world's first tram powered by hydrogen energy rolls off the production line at a CSR Qingdao Sifang Co plant in Qingdao, Shandong province. This is the first time that hydrogen energy has been applied in the tram manufacturing. China has also become the first country worldwide to possess the technology to make hydrogen-fueled streetcars. (Photo/Xinhua)

Hydrogen fuel cells are a new clean energy source, widely used in the automobile industry, but lagging behind in the field of rail transit.

"It took two years for Sifang to solve key technological problems, with the help of research institutions," Liang said.

The tram can be refilled with hydrogen in three minutes and can then run for 100 km at speeds as high as 70 km per hour...

Continue: http://www.ecns.cn/2015/03-20/158821.shtml

The only exhaust is water.

Some don't even think Hydrogen is worthy of discussion, while other countries are building hydrogen fueled cars, trains and trams.

[PoliticAverse]

1. So how will they be making the hydrogen they will be using? n/t

[nationalize the fed]

2. Maybe like Honda does in Swindon, England

(which is north of Washington State)

Solar panels are very cheap in China, and getting cheaper every week.

Honda opens new hydrogen filling station in Swindon
Japanese manufacturer hopes to kick start the uptake of hydrogen-powered cars in the UK with the opening of its own filling station


ITV Presenter Rebecca Broxton at the Swindon Honda Solar Park

A solar-powered hydrogen production and filling station facility capable of producing 20 tonnes of hydrogen a year has been opened at Honda’s Swindon factory.

The hydrogen it produces can be dispensed directly into fuel cell vehicles such as Honda’s own FCX Clarity...
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/honda-opens-new-hydrogen-filling-station-swindon

Or maybe from sewage- which is one thing both China and the US have in common

Sewage-powered hydrogen fueling station opens in CA

Could sewage be the holy grail for clean fuel? The Orange County Sanitation District in Fountain Valley, Calif., recently opened the world's first tri-generation fuel cell and hydrogen energy station, which uses sewage biogas to produce heat, electricity, and hydrogen...
http://www.cnet.com/news/sewage-powered-hydrogen-fueling-station-opens-in-ca/

[glowing]

3. The way in which you get energy from Hydrogen is

from breaking the H2 molecule. Breaking that natural bond is the energy. So one needs a molecule that it can break in order to operate. Into the future, it would be extremely awesome to be able to essentially "recycle" the water molecule. Break the bond and then reuse the exhaust to feed back into the system. If someone can break thru a design that allows a closed system loop and manages to do so with a vehicle in a "smal", "light-weight" manner, it would then be the go to for fuel for many transportation vehicles. Could you imagine having a vehicle that doesn't require filling up on?

15 yrs ago when I was in college and taking environmental science course for my minor, hydrogen fuel cells were the "it" for future operating cars, trains, and planes. GE actually ran an entire plant from Hydrogen Fuel, completely self sustaining and "off the grid" from electricity. By using H2O as the molecule to break the hydrogen bond, and create energy. My point of drawback was that the fuel cell required fresh water to operate, and fresh water resources are already becoming limited; especially now with climate change effecting the earth. So, to use sewage as a means to breaking that bond is amazing. We seem to have plenty of that.

The fact that China is embracing technology and development of "alternative fuel" sources for their country, is going to make them a leader in the world for transpiration and general fuel needs. They will become the leaders of this century. Sadly, we have idiotic legislators who don't want to spend any money investing in alternative, clean fuel. We should be attacking this issue head on; treating it much like we did the space race ro the moon. Instead, we have climate change deniers sitting as the head of Senate committees for the Environement... We are willfully allowing this country to go to crap because of these backward asses!!! And all because they are bought by industry that refuses to acknowledge what they are selling energy, rather than selling a particular type of fuel. They really don't care if it's oil or sun, they just need to find a way in which they can make money from renewable energy sources.

[NYC_SKP]

5. The problem with the GE plant wasn't water. The problem is that it takes energy to break the H2O.

And the Law of Thermodynamics holds that you'll use more energy to break that bond than you will using the H2 as fuel.

There's always been a lot of hype around Hydrogen, but in the end the laws of science prove that it's not a dream fuel after all.

[NYC_SKP]

4. Well if this isn't the silliest thing. Why not just electrify the rails?

That would be more efficient and they could use solar or wind or whatever.

I'm going to have to see if they have backing from oil and gas interests.

The way the hydrogen economy in the US has backing from Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron.

Hmmmm

[NYC_SKP]

6. Treehugger: Time to drop the idea the Hydrogen vehicles are green.

You may ask: But couldn't hydrogen be created using renewable energy? We've seen numerous stories about that, right?

Yes, in theory, but the point is that creating hydrogen via electricity is extremely inefficient and doesn't compare with today's batteries. The efficiency for hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles is about 18-20% while it's about 77-80% for battery electric vehicles. Furthermore, it doesn't compete with the creation of hydrogen from natural gas, which is why you see the figure above.

"Hydrogen is locked by the force of economics to natural gas and natural gas is increasingly locked by the same force to the practice of on-shore hydraulic fracturing of shales. Hydrogen is the Hydro in fossil HydroCarbons and hence hydrogen cannot be extracted from the ground without simultaneously extracting and disposing of carbon as CO2. Re-capturing the carbon (sequestering CO2) costs about the same as the resulting hydrogen fuel and hence it is simply released to the atmosphere."

Unfortunately, numerous environmentally oriented policies and programs have essentially been hijacked and allow FCVs and related infrastructure to compete for the same funding that BEVs and BEV infrastructure are eligible for, resulting in watered down or even counterproductive efforts to deal with global warming.


http://www.treehugger.com/cars/it-time-drop-idea-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-are-green.html

[NYC_SKP]

7. Autoblog: Affordable hydrogen will require fracking, cheap natural gas

For starters, let's acknowledge that the researchers at UC Davis seem to be optimistic about hydrogen's chances. The lead author Joan Ogden (pictured), said in a statement that, "We seem to be tantalizingly close to the beginning of a hydrogen transition." But there's no guarantee. "The next three to four years will be critical for determining whether hydrogen vehicles are just a few years behind electric vehicles, rather than decades," she said. There are three places where the study thinks a "targeted regional investment of $100-$200 million in support of 100 stations for about 50,000 FCVs would be enough to make hydrogen cost-competitive with gasoline on a cost-per-mile basis." You can probably guess the three locations: California, Japan and Germany.

As for the timeline, the study predicts that it will take five years to get to $7.50 per kg and 12 to make further progress to $6 per kg. But this has a cost: "The boom in low-cost natural gas makes possible low-cost hydrogen," so if you're not a fan of fracking, then you might want to steer clear of an H2 car. Then there's this: "For the US as a whole, we estimate that about $1 billion investment would be needed in a series of lighthouse cities to bring the cost of hydrogen to $7/kg, a fuel cost roughly competitive with gasoline on a cent per mile basis." In other words, Carter might be right, but there are a lot of details to understand.

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/08/14/affordable-hydrogen-will-require-fracking-cheap-natural-gas/

[hunter]

8. If you are using any fossil fuels to make the hydrogen...

... it's just a way of displacing the environmental damage.

China is enthusiastically relocating sources of air pollution from densely populated urban areas to remote places. This may improve the local environment, but can be worse for the overall environment.

If you are using electricity to make hydrogen it probably makes more sense to electrify the tracks.

If you are using natural gas to make hydrogen, a "natural" gas powered diesel hybrid tram is probably the way to go on non-electrified tracks.

It's pretty clear that hydrogen is being pushed by gas interests.

There's a lot of money invested in projects like this:

The largest vessel the world has ever seen

David Shukman, BBC News

Climbing onto the largest vessel the world has ever seen brings you into a realm where everything is on a bewilderingly vast scale and ambition knows no bounds.

Prelude is a staggering 488m long and the best way to grasp what this means is by comparison with something more familiar.

Four football pitches placed end-to-end would not quite match this vessel's length - and if you could lay the 301m of the Eiffel Tower alongside it, or the 443m of the Empire State Building, they wouldn't do so either.

In terms of sheer volume, Prelude is mind-boggling too: if you took six of the world's largest aircraft carriers, and measured the total amount of water they displaced, that would just about be the same as with this one gigantic vessel.








http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30394137

The only attraction of hydrogen I see is that it preserves existing business models.

Fully electrified transportation systems are a very disruptive technology that, with improved batteries, less expensive solar, and extremely efficient power handling circuitry, may now have the technical capacity to put much of the fossil fuel extraction, refining, and distribution industry out of business.