Transports en commun - Discussion générale

[SameGuy]

If you have a phone in your pocket, “they” already know more about you and where you go than your family does.

[Brick]

il y a 1 minute, SameGuy a dit :

If you have a phone in your pocket, “they” already know more about you and where you go than your family does.

Non!!!😱

[mtlurb]

7 minutes ago, SameGuy said:

If you have a phone in your pocket, “they” already know more about you and where you go than your family does.

Yes and no, if they know for a fact that your Bluetooth unique address is actually associated to you then yes. But that’s not really something easy to get and associate with you. 

[Rocco]

[mtlurb]

North America’s first hydrogen-powered train debuts in Canada

It’s a three-month loaner designed to encourage adoption across the continent.

This summer, North America’s first hydrogen-powered train began travelingacross the Canadian countryside. The French passenger train is a short-term demonstration, running through the end of September, that aims to spark adoption in Canada and the US. “I think the most important thing that’s going to come out of it is people’s awareness and comfort with the technology,” Robert Stasko, executive director of Ontario’s Hydrogen Business Council, told CBC News.

The Canadian loaner runs from Montmorency Falls in Quebec City to Base-Saint-Paul — a two-and-a-half hour trip — on Wednesdays to Sundays through September 30th. The train has a top speed of 140 km/h (87 mph) and can carry up to 120 people in its two passenger cars. The French company Alstom, which makes the train, says its acceleration and braking performance is comparable to standard diesel-engine trains — sans the emissions. While much of Europe uses trains with electric rails or overhead wires, hydrogen trains are ideal for places like the Canadian countryside, with its long distances and relatively low commuter density. (Much of the US would fit that bill as well.)

The same model of train, the Coradia iLint, has already made runs in eight European countries. As many as 14 of the same model began running a route in Lower Saxony, Germany, last year. Alstom began testing the trains in 2018 and has additional contracts in Germany, Italy and France. The company says European clients have ordered 41 of the trainsets.

The Coradia iLint uses a ballpark of “about 50 kilograms of hydrogen a day,” says Serge Harnois, CEO of Hanois Énergies, the train’s hydrogen fuel supplier. The same journey using a standard engine would burn around 500 liters of diesel fuel. It only emits water vapor along its journey as a byproduct of combining hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to generate its power.

There are some asterisks to attach to the three-month demo. First, it requires a diesel-powered truck to transport the hydrogen to the train every time it refuels. (Harnois says that, ideally, the hydrogen would eventually be produced onsite to avoid this step.) We also have to wonder about the emissions produced on its presumed voyage from Europe to Canada for its mere three-month demo. However, the train will move on to other North American cities after its summer residence. The long-term goal is for the tour to help promote widespread hydrogen-train adoption across different North American regions, which — if successful — could more than offset the carbon footprint from its diesel-truck top-offs and journey across the Atlantic.

https://www.engadget.com/north-americas-first-hydrogen-powered-train-debuts-in-canada-173019365.html

[Enalung]

No matter how you slice it, a Hydrogen train with current technology is burning fossil fuels. About 50% of all hydrogen is produced from steam methane reforming ( natural gas ). Another 45% is produced from coal and oil reforming. Only about 5% of Hydrogen is produced using electrolysis. Statistically, our methods for producing hydrogen are so inefficient that it is actually more environmentally friendly to burn diesel. Its more efficient to burn coal in a coal power plant and then distribute that energy to a train using catenary than powering that train with hydrogen. It takes a lot of energy to produce hydrogen, and we don't get anywhere near as much energy back when we use it. Its pure greenwashing from the fossil fuel lobby. The only thing on that train that is worth a positive mention is its clean modern interior. We seriously need to modernise the North American train fleet, and we should be doing it with electrical trains powered by catenaries.

[SameGuy]

I wonder how a modern bogie handles the jiggly tracks on the Charlevoix line…

I wrote something similar about hydrogen on one of these forums a while back (or maybe on a car forum).

“Oversimplified, the electrical equivalent net energy density of hydrogen is around 33 kWh/kg; using current electrolysis methods, around 50 kWh of electricity is required to produce 1 kg of hydrogen.”
 

 

[Brick]

Il y a 8 heures, SameGuy a dit :

I wonder how a modern bogie handles the jiggly tracks on the Charlevoix line…

Il se peut que cela soit plus bruyant que le REM.🙂

[mtlurb]

Il y a 9 heures, Enalung a dit :

No matter how you slice it, a Hydrogen train with current technology is burning fossil fuels. About 50% of all hydrogen is produced from steam methane reforming ( natural gas ). Another 45% is produced from coal and oil reforming. Only about 5% of Hydrogen is produced using electrolysis. Statistically, our methods for producing hydrogen are so inefficient that it is actually more environmentally friendly to burn diesel. Its more efficient to burn coal in a coal power plant and then distribute that energy to a train using catenary than powering that train with hydrogen. It takes a lot of energy to produce hydrogen, and we don't get anywhere near as much energy back when we use it. Its pure greenwashing from the fossil fuel lobby. The only thing on that train that is worth a positive mention is its clean modern interior. We seriously need to modernise the North American train fleet, and we should be doing it with electrical trains powered by catenaries.

I know you are referring to worldwide hydrogen production (we had this conversation before)... but that specific train is using electrolysis hydrogen produced in Quebec by Harnois, and that's a major win. It's a good news and gives hope that we can do something clean to gradually replace burning fossil fuels. 

[Enalung]

12 hours ago, mtlurb said:

I know you are referring to worldwide hydrogen production (we had this conversation before)... but that specific train is using electrolysis hydrogen produced in Quebec by Harnois, and that's a major win. It's a good news and gives hope that we can do something clean to gradually replace burning fossil fuels. 

I get what you are saying. We can definitely produce some hydrogen with our electricity surpluses, but its not scalable at a North American scale. That's the stated ambitions of Altsom. Even with a power grid powered purely by renewable energy, the process remains rather inefficient. Again, a purely electrical train powered by catenaries beats a hydrogen train because of all of the efficiency lost between production, transport and electricity generation to power the train. It still remains an inferior solution.

The saving grace of hydrogen might renewable energy. Because of its sporadic nature, wind and solar energy won't necessarily be available when needed. This is the achilles heel of wind and solar. Hydro Québec understands that and has publicly express that they don't want to add too much solar and wind to the grid for those reasons. 

To compensate, it is necessary to build a lot more renewable generation capacity then what is actually needed, and combine that with energy storage. As a result of that, there will be periods when large amounts of excess electricity is generated. We can already see this in several European countries. Hydrogen generation could be a way to use some of that excess electricity. If we had an on demand hydrogen generation plant, then it might be a viable solution.

The keyword is "on demand" and that's also the problem. Most industrial plant owners will want to be running 24/7. The way that things are setup is far from ideal. We could get it to work, but it would require changes that our capitalist world does not yet seem ready to accept.