Ontario, Bombardier in talks for hydrogen commuter train
Now, let’s remember it’s election time in Ontario, so you have to take comments from a political leader running for re-election with a grain of salt. That said, Premier Dalton McGuinty said today that his government has been in discussions with Canadian train manufacturer Bombardier about creating an “Ontario-developed and built hydrogen-powered commuter train” for the province. “Ontario Liberals think Ontarians can — and should — lead the development of hydrogen alternatives for the world,” McGuinty told a crowd on a stop in Thunder Bay, where Bombardier currently makes GO Transit commuter train cars. The comment was absent of detail, but it certainly raised a few curious eyebrows in the crowd.
As intriguing as the hydrogen train or “hydrail” concept sounds, Ontario wouldn’t be the first jurisdiction to pursue it. A European consortium called The Hydrogen Train concluded a feasibility study last year that looked at demonstrating the first hydrogen-powered train in Europe on a Danish railway. The goal of the project is to launch the first train by 2010. Bombardier has been approached, along with its competitors, and did show interest. In fact, back in 2001-2002 Bombardier applied for European Union funding as part of a project to develop a hydrogen-powered “Green Train.” The funding, however, was never granted.
In Japan, there has also been activity. Earlier this year, East Japan Railway started trialling its own hydrogen train. It hopes to be transporting commuters with such a machine within the next 20 years. In the U.S., North Carolina has shown interest in creating its own hydrogen railway system, while a company called Vehicle Projects LLC has been designing these next-generation trains as part of a collaboration with the U.S. military. There’s even an international hydrail conference that’s entering its fourth year with a meeting in Spain in June 2008.
One of the most compelling arguments for adopting hydrogen trains rapidly is that a vast hydrogen distribution network will not have to be built anywhere near the scale that it will have to be built for hydrogen cars. The decreased mobility of a train as compared to a car will be an advantage in delivering hydrogen to just a few key refueling points along the rail line. Trains don’t drive off-road or in complicated city streets and alleys like cars do, so this is an inherent advantage of hydrail.
Now, a common criticism whenever anybody talks of a hydrogen economy relates to the source of the hydrogen. Is it coming from a fossil fuel and therefore dirty at the source, or does it come from an electrolysis process powered by emission-free electricity, whether that be nuclear or renewables? If one considers the train link between Toronto and Montreal one can immediately see the opportunities. The trains run fairly close to two major nuclear plants, where hydrogen could be produced using surplus baseload power overnight. There’s also the potential of setting up offshore wind farms in Lake Ontario (at least two have already been proposed) that could generate hydrogen when the wind power isn’t needed. What’s interesting with this is that we could use the train system as a way to lay the first building blocks to a much larger hydrogen infrastructure down the road — literally.
Over the past two years I’ve been more critical of the hydrogen and fuel cell markets, perhaps turned off by the marketing and hype we saw in the late 1990s up to about 2002. But we have to remember that fuel cells and hydrogen are not tied at the hip. We can have a hydrogen economy without fuel cells and we can have fuel cells run on non-hydrogen fuels. What’s increasingly clear, and I appreciate this after a recent call with some hydrogen experts, is that we need to start producing large amounts of this clean-burning gas to get economies of scale and to lower the cost of the fuel itself. Once that happens, the market can take care of itself. Trains (like buses) could be part of this crucial first step, and in this sense, it’s definitely something worth talking about in Ontario.
Choo-choo.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
September 15th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Sure, it’s easier to build hydrogen distribution for a train than for cars, but I don’t see why it would make sense to convert clean electricity into hydrogen, and then use it to run the train, when you can just use the electricity directly. Hydrogen will never be cheaper or greener than the electricity used to make it.
That nighttime baseload power could just as easily be used to charge train batteries as to make hydrogen, and the round-trip efficiency of the process is much better.
September 15th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Batteries are environmentally problematic, they don’t work very well when its cold either, nor do current generation fuel cells. Electrifying the tracks is probably best but very, very expensive and disruptive; we missed that chance in the 50’s really. A hydrogen combustion loco could be a very good solution and relatively simple as a technology. Don’t forget that by the end of 2008 the Hydro Quebec Eastmain project will have added 307% in output. Canada easily has the hydro-electric and water resources for this sort of thing and the portability of H bodes well for the vast distances we have.
September 15th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Interesting post. Just one nit: nuclear is not emissions free. Lower CO2 emissions than coal for sure, but radioactivity is emitted into the air and water during the mining and buring of the fuel, and of course there is the long-term highly radioactive pollution left behind.
September 15th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Thanks for calling me on that one. The media, and the public in general, too often say emission-free when referring to nuclear, but they do so in reference to greenhouse gas emissions. We shouldn’t be so lazy, we should be specific, because as you point out there are emissions and, broadly speaking, the waste fuel could be considered emissions — though no the type we envision spewing into the air. That said, with reference to CO2, nuclear is virtually emission-free. Yes, you could do a lifecycle analysis and say that’s not the case, but a lifecycle analysis on anything reveals CO2 emissions. I believe, based on studies I’ve seen (and I’m assuming, here, that they’re credible), that nuclear is quite competitive with solar and wind with respect to lifecycle emissions of greenhouse gases. Definitely way better than coal and natural gas.
September 16th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Curious how the eroi numbers on the following combination would turn out:
- electricity baseload from RES (CSP preferably, because of scaleability, proven technology, competitive cost [especially when considering thus externalized cost of non-RES])
- direct drive electric in wheel motors (DDIW), with regenerative braking
- direct methanol fuel cells. These can use the fuel from sustainable forestry and don’t suffer the inefficiency of hydrogen fuel cells
- until dmfc’s become available, hydrogen in combustion engine can be used. Since propulsion is essentially electric, source of electricity becomes a secundary issue. When making electricity generator modular, this issue can be easily addressed in sync with specific circumstances and emerging technologies.
Emil M
September 20th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I cannot see any reason to run a train with hydrogen instead of electricity. It’s on a fixed route, on tracks. Putting up overhead power lines is a trivial cost that pays for itself rapidly. Hell, the Russians electrified the trans-Siberian railway. Why bother with the grave inefficiencies of the hydrogen cycle? Just more bunk from the people who pine for the hydrogen economy.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
The reason for converting rail propulsion to hydrogen rather than continuing to electrify track is the capital and maintenance costs. The capital investment is about US$ 2 million per linear mile (€ 1 million / km, ±) in a technology that almost 120 years old. That’s not an attractive investment for either taxpayers or investors. And then you’ve got to maintain it. Hydrail can be a fraction of that cost.
March 1st, 2008 at 11:02 pm
If the Russians have elctrified the Trans-Siberian, as they have the Red Arrow between Moscow and St. Petersburg, they probably won’t be electrifying any other long routes. In Europe, it costs €1million/km to electrify, and that’s just the capital. The maintenance is very expensive.
The Russians, like most of Europe are part of the UIC’s hydrail study group. Track electrification is far too big an investment risk today. In Bordeaux there is discussion of removing existing overhead supply catenaries.
Diesel faces high and growing prices; electrification is about (after 120 years of good service) to become irrelevant. The paradigm has already shifted. Plant extension engineers who have not noticed that will learn a VERY expensive lesson.
El Hidrailero
January 17th, 2009 at 4:40 am
anyone who claims nulear is not emissions free needs to give their head a shake. Any C02 emissions from mining or processessing of uranium are insignificant relative to a coal plant. Clearly the boneheads griping about nuclear have not been to sudbury in the 70’s or 80’s when there were no trees because of the pollution. To even imply that nuclear is a polluter on the same scale of coal is just ridiculous. This is the problem i have with environmentalists, they always take it to extremes, theres no common sense. I like doing good things for the envrionment i like to recycle, but im not a nazi about it. looking for every fatal flaw.