California To Start Hydrogen-Powered Passenger Practice Service In San Bernardino

Join each day information updates from CleanTechnica on e mail. Or observe us on Google Information!

The California Division of Transportation, in any other case often called Caltrans, plans to transform its full fleet of intercity locomotives to zero emission, or ZE, expertise by 2035. To realize that aim, trains operated by native transportation businesses will probably be powered by hydrogen, which is taken into account a sustainable, much less polluting, and doubtlessly value efficient various to fossil fuels and different sources of vitality. Hydrogen energy will put California’s passenger prepare fleet on the quickest observe towards a zero emission future, the company says.

The Guardian stories {that a} new prepare powered by a hydrogen gasoline cell will start working between the cities of Redlands and San Bernardino, close to Los Angeles, early subsequent yr. Check runs are being performed as we speak. From the skin, it seems like another commuter prepare, however inside, it’s not like something the area — or the nation — has ever seen earlier than. The $20 million Zero Emission A number of Unit prepare, recognized fondly as Zemu, makes use of a hydrogen gasoline cell and battery system to energy the electrical traction motors and run the onboard electrical techniques. The one byproduct of the gasoline cell is water vapor, which is a welcome change in an space that suffers from a number of the worst air high quality charges within the nation.

1st Hydrogen-Powered Practice In The US

The brand new expertise will make Zemu the primary hydrogen-powered, zero-emissions passenger prepare in North America to satisfy Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) necessities when it goes into service early subsequent yr. The observe between the 2 cities is named the Arrow Hall and it’s only 9 miles lengthy. It is among the area’s shortest rail hyperlinks and carries about 416 passengers each day in the course of the week and greater than 6,430 riders on weekends. Its operators hope that Zemu will pave the way in which for zero-emissions trains to run on a whole lot of miles of observe in southern California and throughout the nation within the close to future.

That would mark the beginning of a clear vitality rail motion within the US, which has historically lagged behind locations like Europe relating to each prepare ridership and innovation. It’s additionally a win for California, which has struggled to get bold rail initiatives like its high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles accomplished.

“What we have now executed with Zemu is transformational,” mentioned Ray Marquez, the president of the San Bernardino county transit authority in a press release. “The event of the hydrogen powered prepare has solidified SBCTA’s place as an innovator in clear passenger rail right here within the Inland Empire, all through the state and the nation.” The debut of this expertise in North America comes because the higher Los Angeles area prepares for the 2028 Olympics, which the mayor of town has mentioned will probably be a “no-car” video games. As well as, Zemu will assist California meet its aim of being carbon impartial by 2045.

For many years, San Bernardino has suffered from poor air high quality introduced on by a excessive focus of freeways, rail yards, industrial amenities, and freight terminals. Motivated by the poor air high quality and a need to cut back the stress on the county’s roads, which are sometimes crowded with vehicles transporting items from the ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seaside, SBCTA officers set out a decade in the past to seek out clear alternate options to their current diesel trains. They landed on the hydrogen-powered Zemu, and in 2019 contracted with Swiss rail producer Stadler, Inc to construct them.

Anatomy Of A Hydrogen Gasoline Cell

Hydrogen gasoline cells mix hydrogen and oxygen molecules to generate electrical energy and produce water vapor as a byproduct. In follow, the gasoline cell features as an onboard generator that expenses the batteries that flip the wheels of the prepare. CleanTechnica readers, who’re all nicely above common, will spot the damaging side of this expertise immediately. Nearly all hydrogen within the US is created from methane gasoline in a course of that almost all undoubtedly does create carbon dioxide, so actually what Zumi is doing is profiting from a zero emissions technique that leaves its carbon footprint some other place. After all, sometime inexperienced hydrogen produced from renewable vitality will clear up this situation. Till then, we’re left to faux these trains are a non-polluting technique of transportation.

Assembly The Security Problem

For passengers, the hydrogen gasoline cell expertise means a quieter trip. “All you’re going to listen to is a pair HVAC blowers and cooling followers,” mentioned Kaden Killpack, a industrial venture supervisor at Stadler US who oversees the SBCTA and Caltrans initiatives. Riders may also discover a smoother journey because of the prepare’s light-weight building. Nonetheless, the light-weight, aluminum physique design posed new challenges for Stadler, which wanted to show its trains may function safely on California’s current rail infrastructure. Lighter trains are extra vitality environment friendly, however as a way to function on the identical tracks as heavy freight, Stadler wanted to show that its aluminum trains may go the Federal Railroad Administration’s requirements for entrance finish collisions.

Growing a light-weight body that handed FRA requirements is a promising accomplishment as a result of it offers a zero emission various to the costly overhead electrification that’s frequent in Europe however is prohibited on freight traces within the US. “As soon as you’re taking that car and also you add hydrogen to it, you make it attainable to have zero emission expertise on the identical corridors the place Union Pacific and NSF run,” Killpack mentioned. “That’s what’s actually loopy and funky about this.”

One Small Step For San Bernardino

Putting the Zemu on the Arrow Hall is admittedly a small first step, Watkins says: “It’s one prepare, so it doesn’t transfer the needle dramatically.” However, he says, “it introduces the expertise as a proof of idea” that would run on greater than 500 miles of southern California’s regional rail system and past. After seeing the early success of the Zemu venture final yr, Caltrans commissioned Stadler to construct longer variations of its hydrogen-powered trains that can run between Merced and Sacramento within the Central Valley on a brand new rail line.

To ensure that these small however promising steps to be economically sustainable in the long term, massive investments in hydrogen infrastructure will required. “You’ve obtained to be promoting no less than a whole lot [of trains] to begin to get some scale economies and convey these prices down,” Lewis Fulton, the director of the Vitality Futures Program on the UC Davis’s Institute for Transportation Research. Whatever the challenges, California officers are pushing hydrogen gasoline cell transportation ahead.

A mix of state, federal, and personal funding, California’s Alliance for Renewable Clear Hydrogen Vitality Techniques will distribute some $12.6 billion to get 1000’s of hydrogen-powered buses, vehicles, and automobiles onto the street and to construct hydrogen manufacturing and distribution hubs to run these rising fleets. Fulton mentioned the Zemu initiatives are a results of these investments. “What we’re seeing in California now’s a way that hydrogen is coming and infrastructure is coming, and so why not faucet into that?”

The Takeaway

My colleague Michael Barnard isn’t a believer in hydrogen gasoline cells for automobiles, vehicles, and trains. Though, he is likely to be persuaded to vary his thoughts if extra inexperienced hydrogen was accessible and if it didn’t suck up each little bit of renewable vitality accessible within the course of of constructing it. Caltrans could also be over the moon about trains and vehicles powered by hydrogen, however till it’s produced commercially with out creating its personal cloud of air pollution, its promise will stay largely illusory.