North America’s first zero-emission passenger train comes to San Bernardino County
The Zero Emission Multiple Unit train, called ZEMU, is the first of its kind in North America, using hybrid hydrogen and battery technology to power the train.
#hydrogen #greenhydrogen #fuelcell #fuelcells #train #trains #california
@markno @minibyte Electric trains on catenary are not necessarily a just in time load match with renewable electron availability. Most obvious is Solar PV with the train running at night. H2 produced by an efficient solid oxide electrolyser totally decouples the train load from the renewable electron supply.
@icanbob @minibyte interesting point that I hadn’t considered, thank you.
I suspect that with the right infrastructure catenary would still have the edge - it removes the weight of the battery/hydrogen plant from the train and there’s no reason you couldn’t have a static hydrogen plant feeding power to the wires. Wouldn’t that give a greater benefit? Also you can have a mix of power supplies which addresses the variability of supply, eg, solar, wind and nuclear.