South Africa to Test Hydrogen Fuel Cell Mining Locomotive
Posted on January 19th, 2012 by Hydro Kevin

In September 2008, I had first talked about South Africa trying to market platinum for fuel cells worldwide. You see, South Africa mines about 80-percent of the world’s supply of platinum and would like to continue selling this expensive metal long into the future.
But, it hasn’t been until recently that South Africa has actually started using hydrogen fuel cells themselves. And now they have taken another symbolic and practical step in this direction.

According to Mining Weekly, “Platinum miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) expects to put a fuel-cell powered mine locomotive through its paces in the first half of this year.

“The locomotive will initially be tested on surface at Amplats’ Dishaba mine, which is situated in the Limpopo province … The point of the demonstration will be to show that fuel-cell powered locomotives can provide superior efficiency and productivity and offer zero-emission underground transport.”
Amplats is the world’s largest producer of platinum, so it’s only fitting that they would be using a locomotive fitted with a platinum-bearing hydrogen fuel cell to mine, well, more platinum.

The only problem with this scenario is that South Africa is getting into the platinum fuel cell business a little late. I’ve talked about at length over the past 5 or so years about all of the research and development going into creating platinum-free fuel cells, since platinum is the most expensive material in fuel cells used in the transportation industry.

But, if no quality replacement can be found for platinum in fuel cells, then South Africa is in a unique position to capitalize on their abundant natural resource, create jobs and money and help create cleaner air while doing so.

 

 

UK Hydrail Conference Date Change Now July 3 – 4, 2012

Posted on February 14th, 2012 by stanthom

by guest blogger Stan Thompson

The 7th International Hydrail Conference (“7IHC”) will be held one week later than originally planned so that conferees at an important German rail conference can attend both events.

 

 

During the 20th century, coal-fired steam locomotives gave way to diesel and external electric traction power. Now, in the 21st, diesel and external electric railways are poised to give way to hydrogen-powered trains. On 3-4 July 2012, the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Railway Research and Education will host 7IHC, which aims to expedite development and deployment of clean, renewable hydrogen train propulsion technologies.

“Hydrail,” the generic term of art for hydrogen-based rail propulsion, was coined in 2004 to enable universities, government agencies and rail equipment suppliers to access developments in the field via the Internet.

In Los Angeles, in 2009, BNSF Railway began testing the first full-sized hydrail switch engine. It’s the largest hydrogen-powered land vehicle to date.

Taiwan was the first country to transport passengers regularly by hydrail on a miniature railway at a science museum. Japan’s Government Railway Transportation Research Institute and East Japan Railway each demonstrated its own design for hydrail rail cars in the last decade. About the same time, Denmark’s HIRC (Hydrogen Innovation and Research Center) in Herning planned a train in Jutland to be powered by waste hydrogen or wind power electrolysis hydrogen but it fell prey to the recession. In 2010, China announced demonstration of their first hydrail or “new energy” train.

FEVE, the acronym for Spanish Narrow-Gauge Railways, demonstrated a hydrail tram or hydrolley last year and have announced they will place it in revenue service in 2012. Designers of the FEVE project have been invited to present at 7IHC.

Auto manufacturers buy a lot of advertising; train builders don’t. The general media has skipped-over hydrail, leaving a public impression that “hydrogen is a futuristic, automotive-specific technology.” But history indicates the opposite.

Steam autos followed steam trains by about sixty-five years. Electric cars began to appear about a decade after the first circa-1885 electric train and are only now becoming commonplace again. Diesel trains arrived in 1925 but fifty years went by before the public got to drive or top-up a family diesel car.

To me, as a planner, it would seem odd if a luxury, early-adopter, consumer-miniaturized technology, requiring ubiquitous national product support, became common before local, publicly funded hydrail transit systems.

That hydrogen cars have been slow in coming doesn’t reflect on their practicality. The media tendency to put the “cart” before the “iron horse” has simply distorted public expectations.

Truing them up is one goal of the Hydrail Conferences.

Academic hydrail conferences began in 2005 and have been held in Denmark, Spain, Turkey and the United States with presenters from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, the US and the UN.

The Birmingham Centre’s July 3-4 Conference will focus on the status of hydrail projects around the world; on innovations in hydrail technology; and on the environmental, climate, and economic problems driving oil- and copper-limited rail technologies toward a hydrail future.

 

 

 

 

 

HYDRAIL 2012: THE BIRMINGHAM U.K. CONFERENCE

Posted on June 11th, 2012 by stanthom

By guest blogger, Stan Thompson

The Centre for Railway Research and Education at the University of Birmingham, UK, hosts this year’s International Hydrail Conference (IHC) on 3 and 4 July and the trend is clearly toward putting hydrogen on the main line.

 

 

Hosting the Hydrail Conference in the UK was the idea of U. Birmingham Ph.D. candidate in hydrogen railway technology, Andreas Hoffrichter, who also presented at the 2010 Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO-ICHET) hosted the 2010 IHC but, due to the world economy’s impact on travel budgets, there was no Conference in 2011. The University of Birmingham’s ability to regain lost momentum has been invaluable in continuing development of hydrail technology and raising the public’s awareness of its potential.

Hydrail Conferences have always featured prominent academics but this year the bar has been raised. Presenters include Fellows of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Until 2010, Germany had been conspicuously missing from the slate of 15 countries who have presented at the six IHCs. But this year three presentations bring German perspectives, including one of the very earliest hydrail visions: a wind power to hydrogen electrolysis design that predates even Denmark’s similar 2005 proposal.

The rising price of copper and public pushback from visible electric superstructure makes track electrification more problematic every year. The costs of highway fuels, railway diesel and jet fuel are cross-elastic, driving up both travel costs and the price of everything that moves to market. This economic impulse, plus growing concern about the climate impact of extracted carbon energy, makes hydrail an increasingly attractive alternative.

If Stanford University’s “unzipped carbon nanotubes” prove a viable alternative to platinum fuel cell catalysis and the Savannah River National Laboratory and University of Toronto commercialize thermochemical water splitting, hydrail trains and streetcars could arrive well ahead of schedule.

To see previews of this year’s International Hydrail Conference presenters and subjects, visit  “http://hydrail.org/conferences/speakers-and-presentations”.

Registration for the 2012 International Hydrail Conference in Birmingham, UK, is available online.

 

 

2013 HYDRAIL CONFERENCE IN TORONTO

Posted on January 16th, 2013 by stanthom

by guest blogger Stan Thompson

Toronto (Ontario) Canada will be the location of the Eighth International Hydrail Conference (8IHC) on 11 and 12 June, 2013. The venue and the first of the slate of presenters will be announced shortly.

 

 

The International Hydrail Conferences are annual gatherings of academic, government and rail industry experts to expedite the powering of trains with hydrogen—rather than diesel or external electric power—in order to reduce consumption of carbon fuels for climate, air quality and job creation reasons.

The Hydrail Conference comes to Canada at the invitation of former IHC presenter Bob Stasko—CEO of Toronto’s Science Concepts International Inc.

Stasko has long worked with Ontario Centers of Excellence, an economic development arm of the Ontario Government, to help drive development of the Province’s economy by creating new jobs, products, services, technologies and businesses.

The Hydrail Conferences were begun in 2005 as a cooperative effort of the Mooresville South Iredell [County, NC] Chamber of Commerce and the Energy Center at Appalachian State University—the Boone Campus of the University of North Carolina.

Canada, and especially Ontario, is a particularly apt location for a hydrail-related event. Identification of rail and marine as the most effective applications of hydrogen to transportation was an Ontario development. Leading manufacturers of railway vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells are headquartered in Ontario.  The non-carbon proportion of Canada’s national energy budget is among the world’s highest.

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology has led in development of mass hydrogen production by means of thermochemical water-splitting. More than five years ago, the Province of Ontario became the first government to propose manufacture and export of hydrail trains.

Previous International Hydrail Conferences have been held in Denmark, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA. At past IHCs, presentations have come from universities, government agencies, and corporations from sixteen countries and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

As global climate change accelerates, and as electric rail operations around the world are increasingly interrupted by thefts of copper, hydrail development and deployment has become a pressing issue. The Hydrail Conferences are convened to expedite the introduction of this new “Green” railway technology.

For information on all the International Hydrail Conferences, please visit:  http://www.hydrail.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydrail and Sandy: Learning the Hard Way

Posted on November 1st, 2012 by stanthom

Posted on November 1, 2012

By guest blogger, Stan Thompson

What you won’t hear, but should, in news coverage about Hurricane Sandy and transit service interruptions is that hydrail—hydrogen fuel cell/battery hybrid—subway trains would  be much less impacted by salt water flooding.

 

 

That’s not to say subway service could have continued.  Signaling, switching and many other essential but shut-down technologies would have prevented anything like “business as usual.”

But it’s likely that work crews could have made it to critical sites sooner if “third rails” standing in salt water were not a factor.  It also seems probable that at least a few emergency evacuations might have been effected underground if free-running, zero-emissions, hydrail equipment had been available to emergency responders.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a transit planner in Europe interested in just these possibilities. I sent him links about hydrail demonstrations in Japan (and Spain: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/panorama-regional/panorama-regional-23-09-11/1205440/)

But the most relevant link I sent was this far-sighted statement from a mining CEO in South Africa—although the violent labor unrest there has since eclipsed their progress in leveraging wireless mining locomotive technology toward general hydrail manufacturing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSZF7UDN-QE).

After Japan’s tsunami, at least some trains—if only for emergency responders—might have been available in Tokyo if blackout-proof hydrolleys, like the ones tested successfully a few years back by East Japan Railways and the Government’s Railway Transportation Research Institute, had been commercialized: (http://hydrail.org/sites/hydrail.org/files/7_smith_video.wmv, http://hydrail.org/sites/hydrail.org/files/7_allan_video-Japan.wmv)

Thousands of passengers stranded on electric trains in India, stopped by the massive grid collapse there in July, might at least have made it to the next station if the hydrail train design that Indian Rail was developing a few years back had made it off the drawing board.

In the last decade, Congress paid for the development of a hydrail locomotive that doubles as a self-propelled power plant for electric restoration after hurricanes and other emergencies. Apparently it works just as planned; but still, years later, only one exists (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6yGTft-xTo).

A hundred and fifty years ago, the term “Underground Railroad” was synonymous with a path to freedom. Hydrail, a technology first developed for underground railroads (mining), could also become a path to freedom from at least some of the consequences of natural and technological disasters. But we seem to be repeating the grade, never learning.  So, harder and harder, tsunamis, grid failures and hurricanes keep ruler-rapping our knuckles in the School of Hard Knocks.