Caterpillar, BNSF Railway, Chevron pursue
 

hydrogen-powered locomotive.



This is a very smart move IF they can get the first couple of Rail Cars, (Tankers), set up to contain the Hydrogen gas.
Did a lot of work in/ on this subject over a 10 year period.

Biggest issue is sealing up the tanks as hydrogen will permeate thru all known containment materials over time.
But trains have a enormous containment (Volume) capability. So if you figure out the places where they need to
go and built Hydrogen Fuel Stations for the trains in those locations you are in good shape.

They talk about getting hydrogen from fuels which is really backward when one square yard of water in a ocean
30,000 feet deep holds massive amounts of hydrogen fuel. The ocean has lifetime volumes of hydrogen fuel capability.
Water is 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

Interesting article.

https://www.axios.com/caterpillar-bn...a28e20155.html

Tom V.

The big problem with splitting off hydrogen from water is coming up with a way to do it that will be economically feasible.

AGREE Stuart.

Stuart, This is a very good and easy to read article on Hydrogen as a fuel.

https://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydroge...fs/fcm03r0.pdf

Tom V.

There already are cryogenic hydrogen rail cars so doesn't seem like there is much to be gained there. But I suppose when diesel is outlawed it might make sense as a fuel. Then will it be internal combustion or fuel cell to make the motive power? Seems to me railroads would just use catenary lines to supply electricity if forced to abandon diesel.

I too looked into hydrogen fuel.

High Octane but Lower HP due to the inhale displacement compared to the liquid fuels Gasoline or disel.
Hydrogen fuel injection solves the oxygen displacement issue.

Potassium Hydroxide makes the water-cracking least power. My H2/O cell draws about 70 Amps at 14.4 Volts to make a decent gas ratte. Toilet bowl sytle water valve is needed to keep the water level during use. Very clean chemistry due to sizing the stainless plates for corrosion-free operation and non-operation.

Best stored as a liquid and crack on-demand, best to include a small hydrogen gas tank for acceleration capacity.

Here is a good article on some real world hydrogen uses.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...onise-shipping

In a previous life I was an oxygen generator technician on submarines. Oxygen was made by using electrolysis to split the water into O2 and Hydrogen. It takes a large amount of electrical power to do this. Our units required 1050 amps at 480 volts. To upscale hydrogen production to meet current transportation needs is going to require 3 to 4 times more electrical generation capability than we have today.
Cryogenic storage is also going to require a percentage of the hydrogen production for generating electricity to continuously operate the storage plant.
The other part is the requirement that the water must be distilled prior to it being supplied to the electrolysis process.
In any large scale application these are real costs that must be borne. There is also the disposal of the impurities that are removed from the water. Again another toxic waste issue.

All Trains, freight or Passenger can cut huge costs by using a steam catapult to start them moving. 80% of fuel costs on Trains are getting it rolling.
I used to use distilled water in a tiny hydrogen converter in my car I used for work. This did improve the fuel economy about 6%. That car had a carburetor. (87 Nissan Sentra).

we should do the same with spacecraft. Please fling thy shuttle skyward!

Well there is an effort to use a rotary arm to fling payloads up. Replacing the first stage. Not for human payloads I expect.

Remember the Hindenburg!

Exactly!!!
I not wanting to sound like a negative nelly...

The idea needs time and money spent on it!

The whole “Electrifying the world” idea, won’t work, UNTIL someone(s) figure out how to generate massive amounts of electricity, without using coal or natural gas to make it happen! Efforts are ongoing now, in a few directions, BUT are still more expensive to do than fossil fuels.

My take on the electric car is a complete zero... just my opinion. The first car manufacturer that drop out of the electric car clusterflub, will be a huge winner!!!

Smokey Yunick fiddled with hydrogen, many moons ago. His dilemma has the ability to control the burning of hydrogen. He couldn’t control the combustion process. The burn really liked to turn into a boom, instead.

The Hindenburg is a reminder of how volitole “H” is!!! If there was a way to make hydrogen safe, THAT would be our needed answer!

Nasa, with the NSF tried to expand on Ben Franklin's Ideas and tried a long metal "wire or rod" hanging down from the shuttle.
This passed through static and eventually broke. I am not sure, but think heat got the best of it.
I would think Gravity generators in the ocean near New Scotland would produce a lot of power.
Electric new?? Nah...
1911,1912... GMC Truck... Nine models of electric trucks were added to the Rapid line, ranging from ½ to 6-tons capacity. 173 of them were built as Rapids before they were changed to the GMC brand in 1912.* The electrics were designed by John M. Lansden, who had left his own electric truck manufacturing company in New Jersey to join GMTC.

The late actor Dennis Weaver built a practical, road worthy Buick Le Sabre powered by hydrogen in the late 1990s/early 2000s. The only changes to the vehicle were its stainless steel fuel tubing and the hydride tank in the trunk. The greatest threat of hydrogen as a fuel are its “reactivity”(BOOM!...that is why Weaver used stainless steel fuel tubing) and how to protect a hydride tank from a rear collision. It IS viable , but needs far more research to make it practical.

[/QUOTE]QUOTE=hurryinhoosier62;6303244]The late actor Dennis Weaver built a practical, road worthy Buick Le Sabre powered by hydrogen in the late 1990s/early 2000s. The only changes to the vehicle were its stainless steel fuel tubing and the hydride tank in the trunk. The greatest threat of hydrogen as a fuel are its “reactivity”(BOOM!...that is why Weaver used stainless steel fuel tubing) and how to protect a hydride tank from a rear collision. It IS viable , but needs far more research to make it practical.[/QUOTE]

The Ford Motor Company built (with BP -the oil company) 53 Hydrogen Buses (posted about this many times) that accumulated 100,000s of total Hydrogen miles. The Vehicles were at Airports as Shuttle Buses, at the Canadian Parliament to shuttle law-makers,
in the Dearborn, Michigan Ford Engineering complex, in Epcot Center in Florida, and at places in California.

We put GOOD Hydrogen fuel tanks (6 of them) in the rear "trunk space" of the vehicles, not under the vehicles).
No issue what-ever with BOOM or Hindenburg type events. (Hindenburg was a balloon, gez!!!!!!!!).

That being said, as was posted by HH62, Dennis Weaver and others did play with hydrogen as a fuel.
In the 7 years I worked on the program we never had ONE event of a Hydrogen Fire.

Tom V.

Most people weren't aware that Honda built a hydrogen fuel cell electric car for a number of years - the Honda Clarity. In the US it was only available in limited numbers in Southern California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Clarity As the Wikipedia article says, the limiting factor was there were very few hydrogen filling stations available.

I think it was mainly an experiment on Honda's part - it showed that they can make cars that work, but the problems are in producing the hydrogen, transporting and storing it, and dispensing it. There's still a long ways to go for those things before it would be a viable thing for the average individual. Like Tom said, using it for trains (or maybe 18 wheel trucks) is probably more likely in the near term.

The Hydrogen Bus was expensive to build, the fueling stations cost 3 times what each bus cost to build. The issues are:

Getting the Hydrogen, storing the Hydrogen, and being able to pump the hydrogen INTO the vehicles above and beyond the cost the vehicles themselves. Hydrogen would permeate thru the tanks in 7 or 8 days max.

7-8 days earlier you have a full tank. 8 days later your hydrogen tanks are empty, whether you drove the vehicle or not. KEY IS BEING ABLE TO SEAL THE HYDROGEN IN THE TANKS FOR MORE THAN A WEEK.

Been there done that. Hopefully Stuarts daughter has come up with some solutions.

Tom V.

Which the railroads would never figure out . It’s normal for locomotives to be away from service facilities and yards for weeks at a time . Not all yards , even large ones have refueling capability as is . Railroads also don’t like to invest or especially maintain infrastructure lol . The technology might be able to be used in some circumstances l like long haul intermodal trains out west , where they can move a 10k ft container trainer 400 miles in a day from terminal to terminal . I’d say this is more of an experiment to make the federal govt happy . Like when the big railroads experimented with ultra low emission gen set locos for light switching in yards . Looked good on paper , state and federal agencies where excited . Did they work ? They would move lol but not much weight , it would take 2-3 of them together to perform the same task ! The railroads just quietly scrapped them over the years .

Railroads will end up with AMBRI technology, as will long haul trucking eventually.
Liquid metal batteries developed at MIT about 15 or so years ago. They self clean and never wear out.
Storage, but more so, cost of a container is an issue being worked on at present.
Think its crap?, you should see the list of Investors I get, and its Not a publicly traded entity.. yet.
Side note>> I saw GW Bush drive a hydrogen SUV in NY, and filled it there at one time.
Back to Ambri...
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