One of the main problems with hydrogen fuel is leaks, and I don’t mean the potential for explosions. Hydrogen molecules are significantly smaller than other fuels, so if there’s the slightest gap or crack it will escape. And hydrogen causes metals to be more brittle over time, which increases the likelihood of small cracks. While hydrogen isn’t a greenhouse gas itself, it _can_ interact with greenhouse gases and prolong their lifetimes. So leak management will be very important for switching to hydrogen to be successful.
@@archlinuxrussian It’s a 56 mile tourist line that runs four months out of the year with only three trains in total. In Western nations, electrification of tracks has cost at minimum around $2 million/mile (and doesn’t include the cost of EMU sets). Meanwhile, deployed hydrogen fuel cell trains have cost $6-7 million plus another $2-3 million for a refueling depot. If this were a major trunk line then stringing up wires absolutely should have been done, but I think in this case a hydrogen fuel cell train isn’t unreasonable.
@@bubbledoubletroubleOh, I agree, a tourist line like this may be a great use case. I just have seen some people/groups push for hydrogen trains or battery-operated trains instead of overhead electrification in scenarios of public mass transit. ☺
@@FkCCPspiesinYT Reread what they wrote. They said some advocate for hydrogen *or* battery power *rather than* overhead electrification. They did not make any claims about the environmental friendliness of batteries.
Don't forget, most diesel engines are electric too. The diesel generator powers the electric traction motors driving the engine. Short of stringing overhead wires to power electric motors, hydrogen seems to be a much better alternative than diesel.
Yes, hydrogen is very power dense and can be produced from water and electricity but unfortunately most is made from propane or natural gas as it is easier and cheaper. But my hope is that changes along with the public opinion on liquified and pressurized gas’s.
Stadler Rail has also developed a hydrogen multiple unit train, which is planned to begin service on the Arrow (in San Bernardino, California) next year. Honestly, I'm surprised that Alstom seems to have beaten them to it even though I haven't heard anything about this train until now.
Its not even a particularly new train. Alstom has 2 prototypes of these Hydrogen trains which have toured various countries since 2016 from Germany, Austria, Sweden, The Netherlands, and many others before one of them got shipped to Canada. They're based on a design called the "Lint" which is commonly used in Northern Europe for small local branch lines and regional secondary routes. A few diesel versions have made their way to Canada already where they've run for years in Ottawa on the O-train Trillium line (the one thats being rebuilt right now going north to south, not the one with all the problems). Alstom did sell a few units in Germany but operators are quickly backtracking on Hydrogen. Mainly due to the expenses, since its so much more expensive to generate green hydrogen, and to run the train with this equipment compared to Battery trains.
Arrow is already running, are they adding more unit to their line? Doesn't seem like they generate a lot of passengers though (I work in San Bernardino and my daily route crosses path with Arrow pretty often)
Yes, they've been running for a while but they have planned since the start to add a hydrogen multiple unit to their fleet. Unfortunately I do think their ridership is quite low, which I would guess is due to poor land use near downtown San Bernardino.
A new trainset is being added in order to improve the service frequency of Arrow, and, at that point, the existing Diesel-fueled trains will be converted to hydrogen.
Mike! I haven't seen you post a video in a while. It's good to know you are still alive and well. I hope everything is going well with your dad and mom.
Thanks for this great content, Mike. I use the echo strips for laundry and dish soap as part of my "plastic-free" household and learned about this from you. It's so easy to reduce plastic use now. But still a challenge to go totally plastic-free. Keep up the good work.
Hi Mike. That hydrogen-powered train, looks a bit more like a tram that Alstom also makes...😂 But a lovely looking train, and a great scenic route. The science behind how the hydrogen is used is pretty cool!. The " old time" cartoon graphics explaining the science behind how it works were fun to watch, and made the process easily to understand. Thanks. It's great to have a DownieLive video to watch on a Sunday again, too ❤
The Coradia iLint is based on the Lint 54. According to Wikipedia Lint stands for “leichter innovativer Nahverkehrstriebwagen”, translating to “light innovative local transport rail vehicle”; that may be where the tram feeling comes in!
Ein wie immer hervorragend gelungenes Video! Ich hoffe, dass Wasserstoffzüge bald viel mehr verbreitung finden. Züge der selben Typenfamilie (Alstom Coradia LINT) fahren bei mir um die Ecke auch, aber alle leider als Diesel. Hier wurde aber auch schon ein Wasserstoffzug getestet. Das war schon echt fastzinierend! Der Dieselzug am Ende vom Video sieht exakt aus, wie die deutsche Klasse 628.2, alles was man sieht stimmt überein! Kann das sein, dass die als Gebrauchtfahrzeuge importiert wurden?
According to this, they are Class 628.1: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Class_628#Class_628.1 Google translation: "Im Jahr 2012 wurden zwei Einheiten - 628 102 und 103 - an die Sodema Inc. Société de gestion des équipements publics de Charlevoix in Kanada verkauft, wo sie in der Region Charlevoix als Charlevoix-Touristenzug verkehren." Original text: "In 2012 two units - 628 102 and 103 - were sold to the Sodema Inc. Société de gestion des équipements publics de Charlevoix[3] in Canada where they operate in the Charlevoix region as the Charlevoix tourist train."
Using electricity to create hydrogen to feed into a train to produce electricity is a great idea! However I think we can make this a bit more efficient What if we fed the electricity directly into the train via some sort of wire running directly along the train line? Feel free to take this revolutionary idea, I'll give it away for free
Great initiative. Quebec and Manitoba are the perfect places to test this as they are almost fully hydro electric base load power. I hope the train proves to be practical. Seems like a great place to employ hydrogen electric power. So much better than diesel electric. The Tru Earth is also a great idea. Sadly 2x the cost of the Tide that Amazon delivers to my door free of charge. For some reason they can move all that heavy water around cheaper, so that needs a little tune up.
Hi Mike, always enjoy your videos and the destinations. The fact that you advocate for the environment…well that’s an added bonus. Thanks and keep up the great adventures. Cheers.
Wow that is so cool about the first hydrogen train and thanks for the graphics that explains on how the atoms make hydrogen and water to produce energy.
Hi Mike, I wish I had paid attention in my Science and Chemistry classes back in school in the 1970s and 80s LOL. Wonderful vid and I learned something. TY sir. 👍👍
I love the graphics you used to explain the hydrogen/water process. It's also good to see a non carbon burning process actually work on something as big as a train.
@@catdemon922 Well, I think you are at least partially right. There is no way for hydrogen to ever compete with pure electricity, if you look at fuel efficiency. But for classic electric trains an overhead-wire is needed, which is not a big thing, if you build it on a mainline with many trains per day. If you have some obscure route with just a few trains per week like in the video, hydrogen could actually make sense, as an alternative, because batteries aren't really better and building a wire is just not worth it, especially if you have a few small tunnels and a lot of scenery to destroy.
@@michaelfaux3137 there are already trains with batteries that are working to solve that solution, and on top of that they can operate with overhead wires therefore only using battery power when no overhead wire. (or third rail if you're insane)
Hydrogen is a solution that looks good on paper, but the nifthy details change everything. We consume a lot of hydrogen already, and 96% of it is produced from gas reforming, which use fossil fuels. Maybe the train was powered by hydrogen produced using (hopefully clean) electricity, but then you could ask why not using that hydrogen to replace some of that 96% non clean hydrogen? It’s also very inefficient compared to battery powered, using 3 to 4 times more electricity. It might have a place, probably more for boats. For train, maybe as a range extender.
2:57 No, it is not "the sound of electrolysis" since "electrolysis" does not convert hydrogen in electricity. Electrolysis produce hydrogen and oxygen with electricity (in a factory).
Merci de nouveau. I half expected you to say Baie-Saint-Paul with your Québec/B.C. accent. Wikipedia provides this delicious tidbit about the city: " It is also where Cirque du Soleil originated back in the early 1980s and the location of the first show using the name Cirque du Soleil during "La Fete Foraine de Baie-Saint-Paul" in 1984." How about that! Happy Thanksgiving!
Other countries are waaaaaay faster with this technology, so its not that new there anymore. 😅 In Germany for example, test with 2 trains of the same model, the iLint, and with passengers started over 5 years ago and they are in regular operation for over a year now, with more to come (and also different train models) in different parts of the country. 👍🏻 They are also using a few battery powered trains, but it's also easier there, because a lot of the network is already electrified, so they can charge while they are using the electrified parts and then use the batteries in the area without overhead lines. Alternatively they'll charge at the end points of the route, before they'll take off again 🤷🏼♂️ But happy to see that this technology finally comes to North America 😎 @DownieLive Also really happy to see some new train related content from you, always appreciated 💪🏼
3:00: "Sound of electrolyzis": The sound might be something about the fuel cell working. But electrolyzis is the opposite process, splitting water molecules, consuming electricity.
Idk if I’ve ever commented on a RU-vid video 😅🤣 hope this actually reaches Mike! I gotta say… your content is some of our families’ favorite! We have minimal screen time during the week but when we do decide to “watch TV” as a family, we’ve enjoyed pretty much all of your videos by casting them on the TV in our front room!! Thank you for sharing your passion and talents with us!!
Hey btw, 50kg of Hydrogen sounds not much, but it's a lot. Hydrogen is super light. At standard atmosphere pressure and temperature, 50kg of hydrogen would occupy approximately 600000 Liters of volume. It's a lot of hydrogen.
On the other hand, it's not nearly the energy equivalent of 500 liters of diesel, this would be 150 kg of hydrogen. The fuel cell propulsion system is more efficient than diesel propulsion, but not THAT much more. He might have got the number wrong. It might be 50 kg of hydrogen on each segment of the train.
I was in Baie st-Paul last June when the Hydro Train first rode by ... very quietly. Impressive! And so was your vidéo (as well as yiu French prononciation). Merci!
It is nice to see even major railroads such as Canadian Pacific Kanas City and CSX are trying hydrogen fueled larger engines to try and reduce their carbon footprint. Full scale electrification is only useful where there is heavy traffic either freight or passenger or both using a common main line. That is why about the only place where we see it used is here in the USA on heavenly traveled commuter rail lines and on Amtraks northeast line that has frequent intercity passenger trains as well as electrified commuter trains running over the route. But even here some commuter trains like MBTA and Marylands use diesel engines even though they run under electrified tracks. I am sure there are other routes where electrification would work and even help freight trains be able to provide faster service due to the ability to accelerate better than existing diesel powered trains. They also could be even more fuel efficient if they used dynamic breaking to feed power back into the overhead wires they use. But the investment is so high most privately owned railroad companies are reluctant to make such a large investment to achieve long term returns.
YAY! I knew you didn't fall off the face of the earth! Turns out, you fell off the hydro-waterfall! LOL We always miss you, and as a mom, I'm going to worry! Enjoyed the video, like always!
Just today while crossing the tracks, I was thinking what if we had a fuel efficient train with lesser cars here in Vancouver Island, turning the tracks useful again connecting north and south of the island. Or an electric train like Europe. This seems like a perfect fit
Imagine a hybrid-hydrogen train that could service railroads like the LIRR in New York and the MBTA Commuter Rail in Boston. It could run on third rail and pantographs in New York and electrified Northeast Corridor portions of Boston respectively but then run on Hydrogen on the non electrified territories.
There are already plenty of battery trains, with just enough batteries to cover the gap between electrified parts of the line. In France, old diesel-electric locomotives are retrofitted with batteries.
If you look in the cab, everything is in German. Why would a French train be entirely in German? Glad you asked! LVNG, which is a german state owned operator bought 14 of these trainsets in 2018 in an effort to decarbonise their fleet. They started operating them in 2022 but never got to full fleet and gave up on them after a year, switching to battery electric because they're cheaper, simpler, and more reliable to run. This was supposed to be one of those trains but it was never delivered because the project was such a disaster. That's how a French train ended up in Quebec, Canada with a fully German cockpit. 95% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuels and green hydrogen like this costs 3 times more than regular hydrogen because the process is incredibly inneficient. Just look at how many fans are on the fuel cell part, it's because it generates so much heat. We're talking like 30% total efficiency on a good day compared to 75-85% efficiency with battery electric, plus the trains get the same range and don't need expensive fuel cell infrastructure. It needs one entire truck a day to carry enough hydrogen for the train compared to a diesel tanker truck that could deliver enough fuel for 2 weeks. It also takes an hour to refuel. Hydrogen is energy dense in terms of weight but by volume, a diesel truck can carry the equivalent energy of 14 hydrogen tankers. Add to that the issues with refueling in the winter that LVNG faced and the fact that fuel cells really struggle to get going when they're cold and it explains why the trial ended before things got cold in the fall. It's a neat train and I appreciate that people are excited about clean energy but hydrogen is being pushed almost exclusively by the fossil fuel industry because at the end of the day, that's mostly what it is, while costing twice as much as diesel.
Oil companies probably pushing for this so that operators make a big mistake having hydrogen be expensive to be replaced by diesel just leading back to them using diesel once more or have battery electric power station run on diesel
Thanks for a very enjoyable video ! It came up on my RU-vid feed so I gave it a shot because I was just surfing aimlessly anyway. I have to say that I'm quite impressed with your laid back style and the quality of your work all of which means that you have me as a subscriber and I am looking forward to enjoying more of your work !
OK Downie, I have a hat I wish I could find again. I used to own what I call a Corduroy peak less ball cap that had a puffy 1 inch diameter corduroy cushion all around the edge. It could be rolled down one fold to give more ear cover in cold weather. I think it was some type of winter mechanics hat. I lost it years ago and want another one.
in cities/burbs maybe. When you're 100+km from the nearest town you end up with hard to support infrastructure. Also loses over long cables means you'd have to run at high voltages which can be dangerous if they make contact with the ground/people/trains/etc.
@@tomstdenisRussia, China, India, South Africa, and Kazakhstan all have large swathes of their National networks Electrified at 25,000 volts which is already used high speed trains, and on Amtrak's northeast corridor
These (sadly in their diesel version) operate a lot of regional services where i live (in germany) and i have to say they are perfect even for 4 hour rides
That's interesting technology, and a really informative video. However we can get more train options is the best. I hope that more schemes can use hydropower for the hydrogen production; it's sadly so energy-intensive.
What are the cost benefits of using hydrogen? What loads can it pull? How fast can they go? What is the downside of it, if any. I want to take that train. Thanks for doing it for me.
Well, that's a nice novelty that's never gonna be used on a large scale. The proces to make hydrogen requires electricity. That same electricity could have been send to a train directly if you you had overhead wires installed on all your tracks. Then you have to transport the hydrogen to the trains so most likely trucks are involved. Trucks mean fossil fuel so you're not exactly going green to run your hydrogentrains either. As you mentioned in the video, the power from burning the hydrogen first gets stored into a battery which then powers the train. Any form of storing electricity will come with unavoidable losses, not to mention the train has to carry both the hydrogen and batteries with it which means extra weight and extra weight means more power is required to propel the train. Transporting the electricity through overhead wires to the train will also come with some losses so for arguments sake lets say the losses for both hydrogen trains and pure electric trains are identical. Making hydrogen isn't cheap and to run hydrogen trains on the whole trainnetwork there simply isn't enough production available. The hydrogen fuel cell car has allready been outcompeted by the electric car in both europe and america. This hydrogen fueled train just doesn't stand a change of becoming a large scale commercial succes. It's cool that the technilogy works but there's a better and cheaper alternative that's allready been around for several decades.
Powered by electricity that splits water into hydrogen that gets converted back to electricity inside fuel cells to power the electric motors that move the train
I drive these trains in Germany with diesel engines. Unfortunately, every company in Germany saves money, which is why we only have them in diesel-mechanical instead of diesel-electric. But these large windows are quite normal here xD
Awesome video. Was wondering what the brand of shirt is your wearing? It has a great collar, have been looking for shirts like that. You told us about the hat (awesome), but what about the shirt!
Not sure when you filmed this... Currently, the world hydrogen production is mostly offline and most hydrogen cars, trucks and buses are off the road because they can not get fueled... 12 to 16-hour waiting was not common when this last happened last time and when it comes to fueling suppliers limited supplies you are allowed to buy. The current price is topping out at 38 USD KG at the pump in CA, which is over 20 times more than you pay for an oil-based fuel. If they use the power and water (taken from where the train is located) to drive the train they still looking at a fuel cost 4 to 6 times that of oil fuel-based fuel. Add to that if they use a fuel cell every 3 to 5 years that has to be replaced at a cost of 10,000s USD because it is mostly made out of rare earth materials and the fuel cell/tank needs to either be replaced or recertified along with the fuel lines otherwise you losing 3% on a normal day to boil off to up to 20%. Other than that and customers looking at a 300% to 800% increase in ticket prices (depending on transport use) then every things fine.
Its a great idea and i love it... but unfortunately the Dam still can't be build with just producing water.... it still takes sooooo long to get net cero.
My Bro-in-law leased a hydrogen powered Toyota & got a deal, i.e. for two years the fuel was 'paid for' by Toyota. At $25.00 per gallon equivalent, a good deal. So, right now, Diesel Fuel is around $5.00/gallon. But, for a trains use the hydrogen might be a better gig?
I wish I had known this back in August when I visited Quebec City and actually drove past Montmorency Falls. Was this ready back in the middle of August?
I’m glad to see hydrogen pioneering our way to the future, but it is important to remember hydrogen is very hard to mine and takes a lot of recourses to get so until we actually find a clean way to mine it, is it truly helping. But I think this is helping pioneer the way to cleaner mining by showing a need for hydrogen in more then just weaponry.
What is the overall energy efficiency of hydrogen trains when compared to one’s directly on electric through catenary? Pls indicate if any study is done. Incase of hydrogen train, you first expend electricity in producing hydrogen and use it for generating electricity inside the train. Apparent their energy efficiency must be lower. Then why not electric railways?
Ok it's great how they figured out how to get a steam train, truly amazing, so how about making a train to help fight the fires in Canada? Be the Solution! thank you so much Davie!
