A Hydrogen Rail Revolution

Why are France, Germany, and Switzerland building hydrogen locomotives? Simple: the vast majority of locomotives in the world, virtually as high as 100 percent in Canada and 50 percent in Germany, are old-fashioned diesel electric. As such, they run on antiquated, non-electrified rails — rails far too expensive to electrify at this point. The only locomotives that can run on them are ones that need to have their own “power source” with them as they travel: steam (in the “old days”), coal, and now diesel oil. All three of these power sources create unacceptable levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada’s unique challenge

Canada is an interesting example of this dilemma. They have a gorgeous 3,000+ mile long country, served with well-run trains that operate through the most pristine of forests. How can they operate trains there in the future? In the “old days,” they used their natural resource of abundant wood along the train lines that stretched from Vancouver to Montreal. They stacked it along the path and could go any distance by just stopping at the assigned point and adding the wood, continuing their journey with minimum interruption. Relying on another of Canada’s abundant natural resources, they positioned water towers along the route fed by local water supplies to fill their steam boilers. The logistics of replacing this entire system are daunting. These railroad tracks traverse total wilderness areas, with no roads, to there’s no way to “truck in” an alternative fuel source.

The first step: A hydrogen locomotive

Canada has taken the first step to resolving this dilemma: they have purchased a single hydrogen locomotive. With Canada’s vast hydro, wind, and solar resources, there will be no difficulty in generating “green” hydrogen from 100 percent renewable resources. How will they get that hydrogen to the locomotives crisscrossing Canada? How will they refuel the trains? Sometimes, the solution to tomorrow’s problem is to look back and “borrow” the solution from history. Why not set up the equivalent of a water tower every 500 miles astride the tracks? The hydrogen could be economically piped to those locations by laying down a rather small hydrogen carrier pipe a foot or two below the ground (encased in an outer pipe for safety) directly adjacent to the track, running the entire distance from Vancouver to Montreal. That small pipe, operating at fairly high pressure, would be sufficient to keep each “filling station” topped off for hydrogen available for the next train to come by from either direction. 

The hydrogen could theoretically be pumped into the locomotive’s gaseous hydrogen tanks at similar pressures to those used for cars in North America (10,000psi). The actual pump could be operated from electricity supplied by the locomotive, augmented by some solar or wind resources supplemented by a very small battery array (e.g., a miniature microgrid), or the hydrogen itself operating through a fuel cell. 

The operational system described above hits all the key items needed for hydrogen locomotives to economically begin incrementally traversing Canada and connecting all its major cities within a very short time. Notice the entire system is 100 percent “green” and incrementally eliminates the use of the diesels from the first day of operation. By building out the buried pipeline infrastructure one mile at a time, the hydrogen locomotives could advance across the country as fast as the pipe could be laid — just as it was with steam engines in the 19th Century. This would also allow the system to be paid for as it attracts paying customers. And, since the hydrogen locomotives would run on the same tracks as the current diesel locomotives, a massive “switch over” day would not be required; new locomotives would be added to the fleet, each one replacing a single diesel, as the system was incrementally deployed.

An independent analysis of the cost of hydrogen kilograms used for refueling would be somewhat less than $5 CAD delivered. This would bring the operational costs at or below conventional diesel, after amortizing existing equipment and providing a 30–50-year amortization schedule for the new equipment (locomotives, pipeline construction, and filling stations). Best of all, the hydrogen could be created from renewable resources anywhere and everywhere in the country where natural resources exist to create electricity inexpensively (5¢/kg or less) with adequate adjacent water, then injected directly into the pipeline as it passes through.

Key requirements for revolutionizing rail

To revolutionize the rail system globally, there are several key requirements: 

1)    Substitute clean hydrogen locomotives that use “off the shelf” gaseous storage tanks. 

2)    Provide a simple hydrogen filling (pumping) station every 500 miles (all hydrogen locomotives currently offered for sale have distance ranges of up to 1,000 miles) which allows for double the safety margin.

3)    Lay a certified, fully encased, hydrogen pipe along the rail track for the full distance, operating under pressure to maintain the ability to fuel trains traveling in both directions.

4)    Develop an incremental marketing/deployment plan so that diesel trains are only removed one at a time as they are replaced along their existing routes.

This approach avoids having to build new tracks or finance and build the entire system before the first train runs. Additionally, it avoids the need for electrifying thousands of miles of railway track, currently underutilized but capable of scaling up dramatically as demand grows.

A practical and scalable solution

Removing all diesel engines from the railroads of the world is incremental, practical, economical, highly reliable, and completely free of greenhouse gas emissions from inception. In one phrase, this would constitute a hydrogen rail revolution.

Rinaldo S. Brutoco is the founding president and CEO of the Santa Barbara-based World Business Academy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that engages the business community in better understanding and practicing the role of business as an agent for positive social transformation and solutions to humanity’s largest challenges. Rinaldo is co-founder of JUST Capital, and founder and CEO of H2 Clipper, Inc. He’s a serial entrepreneur, executive, author, radio host, and futurist who’s published on the role of business in relation to pressing moral, environmental, and social concerns for over 35 years.

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