Fuel Cell Powered Vehicles IRL

alex_greene

alex_greene

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China Unveils Fuel Cell - Powered Train

China's newest transportation venture demonstrates yet another energy source for mass-transit solutions.

Developed through a partnership of the China North Vehicle Yongji Electric Motor Corporation and the Southwest Jiaotong University, the new energy fuel cell light-rail train combines hydrogen fuel cells and an advanced permanent-magnet synchronous motor/frequency converter to achieve top speeds approaching 220 miles an hour.

Where's my copy of Civilian Vehicles? I need a pen and some Tippex ...
 
Nice! However, it isn't an energy source. It is a chemical battery that needs energy to charge it. Still more expensive than gasoline by far. Pity we haven't gone nuc. We could produce more energy for things like this.
 
China is going nuclear in a big way (for energy production!). But nuclear is only cheap if you don't count decommissioning costs. I guess with China that will be less of an issue.
 
Vile said:
But nuclear is only cheap if you don't count decommissioning costs. I guess with China that will be less of an issue.
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Nope. Those costs are mainly artificial gov b.s. Also, even with those costs it is far cheaper than solar or wind base load generation.
 
phavoc said:
It's sad to say, but the french have arguably the best nuclear program around. The french!
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They are consistent, each nuclear reactor is the same design rather then the mess we have here in the US where each one is a unique design.
 
DFW said:
Also, even with those costs it is far cheaper than solar or wind base load generation.
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Not cheaper than coal, though. Especially for China. Although coal doesn't have such a handy little by-product ... :wink:
 
Vile said:
Not cheaper than coal, though. Especially for China. Although coal doesn't have such a handy little by-product ... :wink:
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You got that right. In India they are well on their way to having Thorium reactors. Which means, as much fuel as you need 'till the Sun burns out. Almost. :)

That's where the future lies. The U.S. will be left in the dust by Asia.
 
DFW said:
The U.S. will be left in the dust by Asia.
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Only because we've been convinced that our own civilization is a blight upon the earth, and we don't deserve the success that we've made for ourselves (by "raping the earth and exploiting the less-fortunate"). If we decide that we want to be successful once again, there is little to stop it from happening.

What I don't understand is why it's GOOD when the (formerly) exploited peoples do it, but BAD when "the West" does.

And that is the limit of my commentary on this; it's far too political as it is, and will only get worse if it continues.
 
FreeTrav said:
DFW said:
The U.S. will be left in the dust by Asia.
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Only because we've been convinced that our own civilization is a blight upon the earth, and we don't deserve the success that we've made for ourselves (by "raping the earth and exploiting the less-fortunate"). If we decide that we want to be successful once again, there is little to stop it from happening.
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Right but, it'll take a major econ disaster before people wake up to the fact that it is the right direction to go.
 
I hope I don't end up having to regret opening this post. I did not want to spill blood and politics all over these fora. I only thought it'd be interesting to see a little bit of Traveller, i.e. fuel cell power plants, appearing in the real world - or maybe more of the real world intruding into Traveller.
 
alex_greene said:
I hope I don't end up having to regret opening this post. I did not want to spill blood and politics all over these fora. I only thought it'd be interesting to see a little bit of Traveller, i.e. fuel cell power plants, appearing in the real world - or maybe more of the real world intruding into Traveller.
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I firmly and emphatically agree, re: the politics - thus the comment in red in my previous posting.

On the tech side, while I think it would be nice to see it happen, I don't think fuel cells are really "there" yet - the energy density is still too low, ultimately.

There is one NYC police precinct that is completely off the grid and using fuel cells for power, but it's a special case (it's in the middle of Central Park). The fuel cells take up basically half the building, and a nearly identical-appearing building that's on the grid elsewhere in Manhattan supports a regular precinct of 400 cops plus admin/logistical tail, plus a special-duty unit of about 100 personnel all told. The precinct that uses fuel cells is rostered as a "light" precinct (fewer personnel than normal), and still needs fuel deliveries about twice as often as the city was 'sold' on, because the reported energy density was higher than actually achieved. The City is trying to negotiate with Con Edison and deal with state and federal regulatory agencies to permit them to put this precinct onto the grid.

Energy density is the big bugaboo for almost all alternative sources. The ones that are the best alternatives in terms of energy density and total demand-yield to burning fossil fuels have been made politically unviable by scare tactics with no science behind them. That may change - perhaps IS changing, slowly - but for now...
 
FreeTrav said:
There is one NYC police precinct that is completely off the grid and using fuel cells for power, but it's a special case (it's in the middle of Central Park). The fuel cells take up basically half the building,
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The most hilarious thing about the NYC police idea is that the H2 has to be generated somewhere, someway. So, they will be "off the grid" in name only. Not for real. But, gov's in the Trav universe often pull the wool over the eyes of uneducated people.
 
DFW said:
FreeTrav said:
There is one NYC police precinct that is completely off the grid and using fuel cells for power, but it's a special case (it's in the middle of Central Park). The fuel cells take up basically half the building,
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The most hilarious thing about the NYC police idea is that the H2 has to be generated somewhere, someway. So, they will be "off the grid" in name only. Not for real. But, gov's in the Trav universe often pull the wool over the eyes of uneducated people.
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Well, "off the grid" in the sense that their power is "locally generated", that is, it's not cabled to the rest of the city (because it's in the middle of Central Park). They're certainly not "self-sufficient"; they do need to import energy (in the form of whatever they dump into the fuel cells - it's not H2; that was deemed too dangerous. I think it might be natural gas; my knowledgeable contact at that precinct has been transferred out and I don't know where he is now - somewhere in Queens, I think.

The idea was simply that they weren't - and couldn't be - connected by cable to the rest of the grid in the city, so other provisions for power had to be made, and diesel generators were deemed absolutely not acceptable on pollution grounds.
 
FreeTrav said:
Well, "off the grid" in the sense that their power is "locally generated", that is, it's not cabled to the rest of the city (because it's in the middle of Central Park).
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I understand what you're saying. Remember, a fuel cell is in fact, simply an open system chemical battery. It would be no different if they ran on rechargeable "AA"'s" ;) and simply recharged them off site. That was the illogic that I was referring to.
 
Yes....well, that's the case with electric anything. Whenever someone refers to electrified railways/tramways as being cheaper the inevitable response is "where is the power generated?"

Bah. Bring on the TL12 fusion plants.
 
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