this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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I cannot understand the future use case of hydrogen locomotives. Who even funded this thing.
Why not?
Batteries can't keep nearly as much power in a space as burnable fuel can, it's just physically impossible because the oxygen you add to fuel gives it a far higher energy density where batteries need the oxygen built in.
Something like a locomotive also needs an absolute shit ton of power to pull the trains they pull, so you're going to have a lot of difficulty and it's going to be pretty expensive running high voltage lines across these railroads.
Hydrogen, because of railroad can easily control the infrastructure and fill up a train, run it right away, and refill it at its destination, could actually be a pretty viable option
There are zero sources of green hydrogen in the foreseeable future and railways can be electrified. Small runs that aren't electrified can use batteries. There is a zero use case for a leaky fuel that we source from creating CO2 like hydrogen. The idea of using wastefully using electrolysis to something we can deliver power directly to is ludicrous.
Edit: I can think of ONE use case, and that's maybe logging locomotives that will never be electrified.
Electrolysis is wasteful, but so are internal combustion engines.
That's not what folks should seriously be comparing this to. You can run electric wires directly over the damn rail and feed a train off the grid. That's where money should've be going everywhere 20 years ago. Running a train off of a diesel electric generator is dumb too frankly.