Cummins Hydrogen Engine Spells Doom for Diesel 

After working on natural gas trucks for the last few years diesel isn't going anywhere anytime soon

Building an engine that can burn hydrogen is the easy part. Making green hydrogen and developing an effective way to carry it in the vehicle is the challenge.

Remember that no matter what you use to power an engine you will still need to lubricate all the moving parts in the engine and all other parts of the drive system. So in other words we will still need crude oil for lubrication.

As a 47 year old diesel tech, I’m glad I’ll be retired when diesels are totally phased out . And I’ll finally say goodbye to an old friend that caused me many headaches and pains throughout the years, but earned me a pretty decent income to where I was able to enjoy the good life.

No such thing as zero emissions ever, in anything.

The huge problem is that there is virtually no nationwide fuel network. Would cost billions and a heck of a larger carbon footprint to make it a reality. So you can still have emissions anyway.....

This was a headline back in the early 90s. Fewer things are more sustainable than a diesel engine if government regulations didn’t interfere as they encourage ethanol fuels that create more low level ozone emissions and push environmentally unfriendly “Green” energy. It’s never been about being environmentally friendly but about power.

Here's some background you may find helpful - when thinking of climate and energy - especially wrt CO2. In the Precambrian era there was about 5,000 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. At that time, the earth was lush, green and healthy. However, as shellfish in the oceans began to flourish, these creatures began to strip CO2 out of the air and capture it in the shells of the dead shellfish (i.e. the white cliffs of dover and limestone in the earth's crust are a good examples of gigatons of CO2 that's been sequestered). Over a half a billion years the plants in the oceans pulled lowered the CO2 in the air from 5,000 ppm to 180 ppm! And 180 ppm is only 50 ppm above where the plants begin to die! So, because of man adding CO2 to the air we have essentially saved the planet from extinction. This was by accident, of course, as was the plants taking CO2 out of the air and storing it in the earth. But each process has had critical implications to our planet. So, if these evil, greedy eco-idiots are successful - which thank god they won't be - they will destroy the planet, as we know it. And we can all see the benefit of man's added CO2. The planet has gotten greener, as man added CO2 to the air! We have seen this from satellite data. It is real - we have proof. Unlike the lying climate models - the real data shows the facts. BTW did you know that greenhouse growers add CO2 to their facilities? Yes they do - because it increases plant health, growth and crop yields. Just like crop yields have gone up all across earth due to the extra PLANT FOOD called CO2. Don't believe me - go watch this video to see for your self - "Meet Dr Patrick Moore: Greenpeace co-founder who left the organisation hijacked by political left". Cheers.

We're all screwed if they think this will ever be 'zero' emissions. There is no such thing as zero emissions.

So does this solve the problems of hydrogen energy density, collection, storage and transport? Burning hydrogen in an engine to generate torque is not particularly difficult. It is all the HUGE technical issues with providing an infrastructure that would allow us to store, distribute and use it efficiently. that have always been the limiting factor of our ability to use it…

There is no free hydrogen, most is in the form of H2O, so these engines are indirect coal and natural gas powered from the electrolysis of water by electricity. Huge 10,000 psi compressed hydrogen tanks vs relatively safe diesel fuel. Just transferring more load to the electric power grid.... just like coal powered electric vehicles.

I am encouraged by the engine configuration options Cummins is producing. Biodiesel is still a reasonable option.

Toyota and Cummins are paving the road and the right path with this technology, it’s only a matter of creating the infrastructure to make it feasible. Electric is not the answer but hydrogen 👍

Everyone just needs to follow the steps of Edison motors up in Alberta, do a smaller diesel powered generator under the hood, which will top off a battery bank. The truck itself is fully electric though. Absolutely love the applications that setup will bring.

The 6.7 is also a bus engine used in hybrid buses

Hydrogen has been tried and failed several times before, and Diesel just works, it is simple, easy, reliable, robust, cheap, etc

I hope they make a retrofit kit for existing Dodge and existing Ram trucks a crate system

What do you think of Revolving Intake/Exhaust Camshaft Valves, or Integrated Overhead Camshaft?

yet another problem with Hydrogen is energy density, how much power/work can you get in a 20 gal tank

Only if the engineers have designed every part to NOT fail for hundreds of thousands of miles. Seems like they designed some engine parts on GM and the rest to fail. Small very expensive parts that fail to save a damn dollar. It’s ridiculous to do use plastic etc inside an engine. Like timing chain tensioners and gears etc. How damn stupid

They need to do this to ships and trains which would do more than putting in trucks and cars

Hydrogen has been tried before in trucks and it didn't work, hope improvements work

Hope it works better than the cng failure

How big will the explosion be when one of the vehicles are involved in a wreck?

Years ago a guy in Utah invented this type of engine. This is old, but interesting new.

I know that in Australia they're meant to be building a hydrogen gas fuelled power station but the prime mover can only use 15% hydrogen gas & the rest has to be natural gas which is extracted from the ground. Whoever designed the power station says that they can possibly bump that up to 30% hydrogen gas usage !

How reliable will these overhead cam hydrogen engines be? The simplicity of good old push rod diesels can't be beaten.

So... what are the tires made of?

'JCB is moving to hydrogen power for all their big machinery. Here’s why.' is an interesting watch also

It is 12 min advertisement without much information on how hydrogen works in existing internal combustion engine. Cruel.

These people have lots of alternative technologies... they just release them at the right time so that their profits are not affected.

Would be good to see these engines using the Coates rotary valve heads

I think this is a much better option then huge battery banks that take hours to charge. The key part I took away is the existing manufacturing platforms don't need excessive overhaul to make this a reality. For me loving old school hot rods we can just make them run on hydrogen so we can still have fun with cars and trucks.

Town gas has been used for electrical generation for years. Local large hospital has two units. So using hydrogen is no big deal. However storage and transference of hydrogen is still tricky. What is the Cummins solution to this? Noticed that part of the set up is mentioned, but has needing further work.

Briliant we all should go this way no batteries 🎉🎉🎉

What type of metal are they using in the pistons? I know in the past the aluminum ones did not hold up to the high temperatures of hydrogen long term

Believe it when I see it... !

How they address hydrogen embrittlenes of steel?in engine combustion parts and to the hydrogen storage tank?pls reply.

I see a big problem with hydrogen production at affordable prices.

Natural Gas is a smart, low-emission alternative to gasoline and diesel- and it delivers similar horsepower ratings. Premium gasoline is 91 octane, while natural gas has an octane rating of approximately 130.

I think the problem with this "Hydrogen Revolution" is the Hydrogen itself.. Yes it's "efficient" in it's energy and processes after the manufacture of this fuel, but not before. Hydrogen consumes almost twice the energy for manufacture than it provides for work, not good for an "efficient" fuel. Remember when Propane became a popular alternate fuel in the "Energy Crisis" of the 80's, it was extremely cheap with only a small degradation in power and efficiency.. but that didn't last long before "road taxes" etc were added to the fuel as a surcharge and priced it right out of the market. It didn't cost any more to manufacture, greed just came into the picture and the fuel market equalized once again. There is no way you are going to get further on a dollar by using any particular fuel, that's just the way government is going to keep it. Asia has allowed hydrogen fueled vehicles for a while now, just long enough to get some startling statistics regarding safety and refueling.. personally, I don't think the north American markets are ready for the pressurized systems needed to contain and dispense this fuel. Once people begin to understand the difference between a disposable/recyclable battery and a tank of fuel that evaporates and why either works better in it's own environment, we will continue to force ridiculous tech despite it's feasibility.

One can only wonder how much coal will be burned to power the electrolytic generation of enough hydrogen gas to power all those trucks. Adequate purification of enough water for this process is another inconvenient detail. People having fewer kids is the only real answer and few want to talk about it.

Truck drivers like to drive 8-10 hours non-stop. How big is that Hydrogen tank going to be?

The mental simplicity of journalists can be mind boggling

The main problem for all alternative fuels is infrastructure. Unless the government gets behind a fuel and builds the infrastructure to support it, it doesn't matter how great the technology is. Right now, the only alternative is electricity, simply because it is already built and being upgraded for future needs.

Funny thing is hydrogen fuel is perfectly clean to burn , but takes more energy to create than it produces ! Seems like a losing prospect , to burn more than you create ?

I think this optimistic outlook needs a dose of reality... The elephant in the room issue of where is the Hydrogen going to come from needs to be more developed! To my understanding California and Hawaii are the only states to have a supply and distribution network. The current cost of a plant to provide Hydrogen gas is a mere $Billion per each plus a distribution fleet and filling station infrastructure for 48 other States. A serious pricey nut to swallow requiring time and serious funding.

A diesel engine is compression ignition. An otto engine is compression spark ignition. This diesel engine isn't a diesel engine, not because it burns hydrogen, but because it needs spark plugs to ignite the fuel-air mixture. At the end you say BEV will continue to use fossil fuel energy whereas green hydrogen is CO2 free. First of all, there is no reason for BEVs to use electricity from fossil fuels. Secondly, if electricity is made from fossil fuels, then making hydrogen with that electricity will be no better (it will be worse). At the moment something like 0,5% of all hydrogen production is green, most of the production is from natural gas hence not green.

Everytime I hear hydrogen engine,my brain 🧠 sees the Hindenburg

You can produce hydrogen with a battery, electrodes and water. This is amazing stuff. Great vid.

"California has already banned ... [itself]." This is basically an ad for Cummins' greenwash. ICE is only half the solution, storage/transport is the other more pernicious problem. There was a hydrogen engine on display in a faculty foyer of the Tasmanian University in 1979 ! The only way it will ever be practical is if we can fill up on water, and have a splitting solution live in the semi.

In the illustrations, they showed upright tanks up against the back of the cab. This is a disaster waiting to happen in real world applications of OTR simi trucks. Accidents do happen. Freight shifts. Even in box trailers, the freight can come THROUGH the front of the trailer, crushing those upright tanks. BOOM!!! With that volume of hydrogen, everything in a square mile could be obliterated. If the tanks are made to withstand all but the worst crushing, (and they should be) they would be so heavy, the semi truck's viable usability would be greatly reduced. No one will buy a semi tractor that is too heavy to legally pull enough freight to make a profit.

Stellantis purchase a huge massive share from Symbio and they did introduced a hydrogen power ram truck before this means they are interested in bringing back the Hemi in Hydrogen form because of 0 emissions and on top of that most of their audience are not thrilled of killing off the combustion gas hemi engines

So where will all these trucks be filled at?

It’s not a the doom, it’s a evolution. Let it make light of hydro electric power.

We aren’t even close to no pollution hydrogen is a good start a lot better than lithium powered electric vehicles but there are still hurdles to consider. It takes power to produce hydrogen. I love the idea I’ll love it more when the hydrogen producer is built into the car and yes, you will still need an electric start

Burning hydrogen in an internal combusrion engine is NOT pollution free. It creates a lot of nasty NOx gasses. You still need to add urea to the exhaust. Nitrogen comes largely from Methane gas at the moment.

They talked about using hydrogen in the 60s one of the problems was making and have hydrogen economically the other problem is you would need twice as much liquid hydrogen as it to diesel.

I have listened to the critics for over 40 years, they say "NO WAY". Now use your eyes, and you will see that Hydrogen is becoming a slow reality. You can use that wonderful Lithium to try and get there, but you know who controls the Lithium (China). Have you ever tried to put out a Lithium fire? I hope you don't use water, that will just piss it off more. How about what do you do will all those batteries that need to be thrown away,? I had a person tell me that you need the Lithium Batteries for Fuel Cell cars as well, he did not realize that the Hydrogen is the battery. How about what it does to the earth to extract Lithium. They are figuring out how to store Hydrogen in solid form, it will be a game changer. I'll keep listening to everyone tell me how it wont happen, as I see it starting to take shape. Thank you Cummins.

CUMMINS DID IT AGAIN ✨✨✨🙌❤️💯💯💯

What about the burn rate?

It's time for me to pull my antennas up and find out all I can find out about hydrogen

The water engine that converts to hydrogen on board is the way to go. It would be life changing and it would be much safer .

Hydrogen is cleaner by far, but where will we get the hydrogen fuel and how much will it cost

As long as it is a fuel on demand system then it's a great idea , carry your own water as fuel .

And back in the real world.

Super!

As Peter Zeihan stated just last month, even by the most aggressive progress there will never be enough green energy produced this century (not including the use of nuclear power) to produce hydrogen from water at commercial scale.

Canada is also working on this, half of Europe also, gotta have enough fuel to run turbines to charge batteries, 1 turbine uses 100 gallons of fuel a minute, made in China by GE, hydrogen cooled generators on the end, nuclear for electricity, hydrogen for cars

At what cost.

Watch these guys figure out how to convert the un inhibited no def no egr hydrogen engines back to diesel… these engines will be highly sought after for their convertibility…

They should talk to JCB in the UK, I'm sure they would be happy to collaborate.

How far can you drive in any direction and refill your hydrogen tank ?.😅

Also have Amonia engine technology ,especially for BIG engines .

I find it hard to trust a source that can't even spell check its thumbnail.

We have Deuterium deposit in Pacific Ocean. Deuterium is called a Hydrogen liquid or heavy water by nature because in Philippine deep hydrogen seperate thru water by nature if pressure of 10k psi in deep trench.

Water doesn't mix with water, so any vapor that leaks past piston rings into sump oil will reduce the life of Bearings. So it would have to be a pure burn rate.

By the time hydrogen trucks becomes true, the cyber truck will be a classic

No worst than propane powered vehicles!

nice what will this new truck engine cost

As long as it takes 1 unit of energy to make 0.7 units of hydrogen energy hydrogen will be a stranded asset. Storage and transportation of it still not viable in terms of energy and safety. IF we make hydrogen from wholly renewable energy then it has a chance. Otherwise it is a non starter.

The biggest obstacle for hydrogen is it's very small molecule and the temp it turns into a liquid. The small molecule means leaks. The temp problem means it has to be cooled way down to -427F to make it a liquid. Natural gas is much easier to work with than hydrogen. These problems were addressed by SpaceX when they were designing their newest rocket engine. They went with Methane. Natural gas is about 70-90% methane.

Good 👍

It’s a step in the right direction. Mazda has been messing with hydrogen fuel for 30 years. Water vapor is the only exhaust. Getting the hydrogen to the car is the issue

Is there an I6 hydrogen engines

Exciting stuff. Because I think it's possible

What I have yet to figure out.... is why are they ( EPA IM SURE) so adamant about doing away with diesel when it burns cleaner and hotter than gas???

The biggest problem as with electric vehicles is the infrastructure for the trucks. I would not bet on this technology or electrical powered engines. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to have hydrogen stations with the massive the available of diesel fuel. The wait time would be at least 2 to 4 times to refuel the hydrogen fuel tanks. Of course this could be attainable during the required rest periods required.

where the hydro station on interstate 10,20,40?????

I just wanna know if “rolling coal” works like a water gun in one of these

Why didn't they use in line engines.More torque.Look what a problem the 5.0 for Nissan did.Problems galore.But I do hope they work.If they use "Gaseous" hydrogen...not liquid.

Aren't the combustion engines whether diesel or hydrogen still loud?

I do like the idea of filling up with water... through electrolysis maybe oneday..... Have to have a word with ie shell??

Where is hydrogen sold? How do you find a dealer outside of California?

At 6:50, it is 35MegaWatts, not 35 milliwatts.

Electrolysis is at best 30% efficient. The engines still produce NOX emissions which requires DEF systems to mitigate. Hydrogen is very expensive. There's almost no infrastructure to accommodate the switch. ICE's are also at best about 30% efficient. Wouldn't fuel cell technology make way more sense for hydrogen vehicles?

ITS ABOUT TIME , ONLY ABOUT 100 YRS TO LATE , PERIOD !!!!!

The design itself remains an Internal Combustion engine aka heat engine. At the very best, the energy conversion to mechanical energy is about 40%. The losses are wasted heat and internal friction by design. With hydrogen it is carbon free of course and the emissions are not harmful. Hydrogen itself has to be "made" with the input of more energy than is returned in the form of hydrogen. Currently most hydrogen in use is made from natural gas with left-over chemicals, drilling, pipelines etc. Hydrogen's heat content by volume is very low in BTU output. Hydrogen also has storage issues by either highly compressed gas or cryo storage with layered tanks and venting losses. Since hydrogen functions as an energy storage device, it makes more sense to use a battery to do that. Modern electric motors operate in the 80% energy conversion range. Most of the electrical infrastructure is already in place. The issue with electrics is recharging time down which may have improvements coming and perhaps swap arrangements which have been in use for years in industrial vehicles. Cummins is of course heavy in the trucking field and industrial engines and this hydrogen design may well have special use application as in cross-country trucking or dense metro delivery use where vehicle emissions are a major problem.

Does Hindenberg ring any alarm bells with anyone?

Time will tell 😊