Europe Keeps Powering Up Hydrogen Trains. Is America Next?
Two Italian firms have signed a five-year deal to manufacture and support hydrogen trains.
Alstom's hydrogen train is already in use on a short route in Germany.
"Zero emissions" hydrogen still requires a lot of energy to distill for use in trains.
Italy is on its way to a potential hydrogen train line following a new agreement by two major firms. Train manufacturer Alstom will take the role of making and maintaining the new or retrofitted hydrogen trains, while “energy infrastructure” conglomerate Snam will handle hydrogen production, storage, and refueling.
Does this landmark agreement have implications for the U.S. and the rest of the world?
Since September 2018, Germany has run a hydrogen train on a 55-mile route between Buxhetude and Cuxhaven in the northern state of Lower Saxony. That train, the Coradia iLint model manufactured by Alstom, runs on a single tank of hydrogen for around 600 miles, on par with a diesel train. It's about to be scaled up to a 40-mile line in the Netherlands in addition to the 41 trains already in Germany. And these working models are helping to bolster support for the new deal in Italy.
In the U.K., more than one-third of all trains are electric, but they require overhead wiring. Meanwhile, HydroFLEX, the country's first trial hydrogen train, circumvents the need to rely on electric wiring infrastructure and could eventually cut out the U.K.'s many remaining diesel lines.
And if buses are more your speed, London’s public transit authority has ordered 20 hydrogen double-decker buses that should be on the roads this year.
There are downsides or misnomers in the idea that hydrogen is “zero emissions.” Like with electric infrastructure, how the energy source is made or distilled is important. Making hydrogen is still a little fraught, which is one reason the hydrogen trains go such short distances in these pilot programs. The BBC reported in February:
“The cheapest and most common method at present uses natural gas and high-temperature steam to produce hydrogen. In order for hydrogen power to be truly sustainable, other methods of producing it that don’t rely on fossil fuels would need to become mainstream.”
Those methods exist, but they need to fall in cost and increase in scaleability as fast as possible.
In November 2019, California's San Bernardino County—the largest county in the contiguous U.S.—announced a deal with Swiss train manufacturer Stadler Rail to install the first U.S. hydrogen train by 2024. The planned route is just nine miles from a San Bernardino train station to the neighboring city of Redlands.
These plans pale in comparison to those happening in Europe, but for decades, the U.S. has shown reluctance about passenger rail and public transit in general, let alone cutting-edge hydrogen trains. In this case, even a small pilot program is a great step.
Some experts suggest the ideal way in the near term is for multimode trains. Maybe they run on hydrogen at certain times or in certain conditions, then they switch to electric or even diesel as the fallback. This isn't that different from hybrid cars, where the electric engine is used to “cruise” on the highway, but a fuel engine still handles most acceleration. There’s no reason to travel with just one mode when a combination can work better.
And, as the BBC notes, the best use case for hydrogen trains in America might not carry passengers at all. “A recent report sponsored by the U.S. Energy Department and Federal Rail Administration notes that while powering freight trains with hydrogen is more technically challenging, it would ultimately have ‘the highest societal value’,” the BBC explains.
If experts here can develop that technology, the case for lighter, easier passenger trains should follow.
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