So, I wrote two earlier articles on Germany’s experiment with cheap fares for public transport to help its population with the economic shock of Russia cutting off the gas. But that is not the only solution Germany has been looking into – they have been planning new trains/routes. And as a part of that they just opened their first passenger route with only Hydrogen fueled trains. The development of the Coradia iLint™ was funded by the German government as part of the National Innovation Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP).
These new trains are 100% CO2 emission free. These trains have been tested for two years , and at the end of August they were given their first regular passenger route in Bremervörde, Lower Saxony and will be replacing the Diesel trains that use to handle this route.
“On the route between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude, 14 hydrogen-powered Alstom regional trains will be operated by evb on behalf of LNVG, gradually replacing 15 diesel trains. They will be fueled daily and around the clock at the Linde hydrogen filling station. Thanks to a range of 1,000 kilometers, the Alstom multiple units of the Coradia iLint model, which are emission-free in operation, can run all day long on just one tank of hydrogen on the evb network.”
The link is to a photo of the new train
The trains are quieter compared to the Diesel trains they are replacing, also the trains they are replacing put about 4000 tons of carbon dioxide into the year annually, and now that will be zero.
The 14 trains cost around 92 Million Euro’s which is cheaper than converting the fleet to electric (since there are additional infrastructure cost in that conversion). Germany has committed to no more new Diesel trains. The trains are more expensive than diesel trains, but cheaper to run. Now France,Netherlands, Denmark,Norway,Canada and Italy are in talks to buy these trains for their systems, the speed up of buying is no doubt caused by the fuel crisis, and the climate change weather impacts from this year.
“Hydrogen isn’t a fix-all, however. Though it’s the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen must be separated from other elements to be used to produce energy. Extraction typically involves non-renewable resources—namely, natural gas and fossil fuel-powered electricity—and some of the hydrogen used to power Germany’s new trains is produced with fossil fuels.”
There are several cool videos and articles on this, I highly recommend you go look at them – for me this is about the envy as an American looking at countries that are actually using their pocketbook to try solutions.