I heard this on NPR Science Friday last week. It presents a possible application that at least makes more sense than in automobiles.
Could Hydrogen Fuel Cells Hit Rails Before Roads? : NPR
Geoffrey Styles wrote a thoughtful blog about the radio program:
Energy Outlook - Fuel Cell Trains
Could Hydrogen Fuel Cells Hit Rails Before Roads? : NPR
Geoffrey Styles wrote a thoughtful blog about the radio program:
Energy Outlook - Fuel Cell Trains
... The key benefits of using fuel cells instead of big diesels for this application include substantial reductions in local pollutants, including soot, along with much quieter operation. Unfortunately, even if fuel cell trains could circumvent many of the infrastructure hurdles that have impeded automotive fuel cells, they still look prohibitively expensive. Diesels are pretty cheap on the basis of $ per kilowatt of generating capacity, while fuel cells are still much pricier, by at least a factor of 10.
Ignoring cost, fuel cell trains would face fewer obstacles to wide-scale deployment than fuel cell cars. As one of the program's guest pointed out, hydrogen storage, the Achilles heel of fuel cell cars, is not a problem in this situation. If necessary, a fuel cell train could carry an entire tank-car of compressed hydrogen behind the locomotive, and it wouldn't alter the train's performance or cost appreciably. That would also reduce the need for a widely-dispersed refueling infrastructure. ...
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... At least for the near-to-medium term, most H2 will likely be generated from natural gas, and that argues for a very different configuration for the fuel cell train than the one considered in this episode of Science Friday. Instead of using low-temperature automotive-design fuel cells, which require a source of pure H2, a high-temperature fuel cell of the type used for stationary power generation might make more sense. Not only do these operate more efficiently, resulting in lower overall emissions, but they can also run directly on natural gas and other light hydrocarbons, producing the H2 they require internally, rather than externally. In that case, the fuel tank for a fuel cell locomotive might just be an ordinary propane tank car, for which the entire supply chain is already well-developed.
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