Future Aussie trucking: silent and green (and powered by fuel cells)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=stp32oxcv5bq

09 November 2011

Future Aussie trucking: silent and green

RMIT University researchers have developed Australia’s first hydrogen fuel cell truck, demonstrating how vehicle design and new sustainable technologies can make freight transport clean, green and silent.

The small-scale model – an exact replica of the Scania Highline series – is operated by remote control and simulates the performance of a long-haul diesel truck, typically used between Melbourne and Sydney.

Professor Aleksandar Subic, Head of the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, said given the carbon tax, emissions trading and rising diesel costs, new sustainable technologies offered industry a way of stabilising costs.

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RMIT Associate Professor John Andrews said students were testing the small-scale truck against pre-defined dynamic loads, with the result being scaled up using mathematical models to predict the performance of a full-scale truck.

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[kristopher]

1. Great idea whose time has come IMO

See also: Fuel cell tractors
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=fuel+cell+tractors&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

Fuel cell bus
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=Fuel+cell+bus&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

And
Vision Motors to deliver 3 fuel cell trucks to Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach (Dec 2010)
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/12/28/vision-motors-fuel-cell-truck-port-los-angeles-long-beach/

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Not to mention locomotives

http://www.bnsf.com/employees/communications/bnsf-news/2009/june/2009-06-29-a.html

BNSF Railway and Vehicle Projects Demonstrate Experimental Hydrogen-Fuel-Cell Switch Locomotive

2009-06-29

BNSF and Vehicle Projects Inc. of Denver/Golden, Colo. today (June 29) unveiled an operational hydrogen-fuel-cell switch locomotive at BNSF's Topeka System Maintenance Terminal.

The experimental switch locomotive was introduced at a news conference. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and various representatives from BNSF, Vehicle Projects and the Department of the Army attended the introductory meeting.

Chris Roberts, vice president, Mechanical and Value Engineering, said BNSF and its predecessors have a proud tradition of developing new motive-power technologies, from the diesel-electric locomotive to AC traction. The hydrogen-fuel-cell demonstration is an important milestone in BNSF's testing of fuel-cell technology in a railroad application.

"We're proud to have reached this point in development of the hydrogen hybrid locomotive," Roberts said. "Exploring alternative energy sources is critical to achieving our nation's environmental and energy goals, and BNSF is pleased to be part of that process."

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http://www.fuelcellpropulsion.org/projects.html

Projects >> Fuelcell-Hybrid Shunt Locomotive

Introduction

For railway traction power, a hydrogen fuelcell powerplant provides the advantages of its competitors, namely electric and diesel-electric power, while avoiding their disadvantages. It possesses the environmental benefits at the vehicle of an electric locomotive but the lower infrastructure cost of a diesel. Electric (catenary) locomotives – when viewed as only one component of a distributed machine that includes an electricity-generation plant, transformers, and transmission lines – are the least energy-efficient and most costly of conventional locomotive types. Elimination of high catenary-wire infrastructure costs by fuelcell locomotives is the key to economic viability of zero-emission, low-noise electric trains in low population density regions. Diesel-electric locomotives, while collectively worse as sources of air pollution than an equal number of electric locomotives driven by a coal-fired powerplant, are more energy efficient and have a less expensive energy infrastructure. The natural fuel for a fuelcell is hydrogen, which is manufactured like the electricity of the electric locomotive, and therefore hydrogen may be cyclically and indefinitely produced from water. If its hydrogen fuel is produced from renewable or nuclear primary energy, operation of the locomotive will not depend on imported oil and will not emit carbon in the energy cycle. For the purpose of commercialization, an advantage of the railway application is that the fueling infrastructure constitutes a one-dimensional space, vis-à-vis the two-dimensional space of road vehicles.

Fuelcell locomotives can help resolve the joined international issues of urban air quality and energy security affecting the rail industry and transportation sector as a whole. The issues are related by the fact that about 97% of the energy for the transport sector (in the US) is based on oil, and more than 60% is imported. Because its primary energy is based largely on combustion of fossil fuels, the transportation sector is one of the largest sources of air pollution. Beyond local air quality, a consensus has been reached that the burning of fossil fuels is a significant factor in global climate change. Energy security is low because world oil reserves are diminishing, demand is increasing, and political instability threatens supply disruptions.

Furthermore, a need exists for large vehicles that serve, in addition to conveyance, as mobile backup power sources (“vehicle-to-grid”) for critical infrastructure. Vehicle-to-grid applications include military bases and civilian disaster-relief operations.

A North American public-private project partnership comprised of Vehicle Projects Inc, BNSF Railway Company, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (through the Engineer Research and Development Center Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, ERDC-CERL) has developed a prototype fuelcell-powered shunt (switch) locomotive (see Fig. 1) for urban rail applications. This prototype is intended to lead to commercial locomotives that will (1) reduce air and noise pollution in urban railyards, including seaports, (2) increase energy security of the rail transport system by using a fuel independent of imported oil, (3) reduce atmospheric greenhouse-gas emissions, and (4) serve as a mobile backup power source (“vehicle-to-grid” or “power-to-grid”) for critical infrastructure on military bases and for civilian disaster relief efforts. The railyard demonstrations will be executed at the BNSF Commerce and Hobart yards in the Los Angeles, California, metro area.

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[kristopher]

3. Exactly.

However the second article is probably overstating the benefits when it suggests V2G is an added benefit from these applications. V2G works with personal transportation because most cars are sitting unused about 23 hours per day. With most heavy equipment idle time is considered down time and money lost.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. I believe you’ve misunderstood the intent

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Furthermore, a need exists for large vehicles that serve, in addition to conveyance, as mobile backup power sources (“vehicle-to-grid”) for critical infrastructure. Vehicle-to-grid applications include military bases and civilian disaster-relief operations.

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(It’s a mobile power station.)

[kristopher]

5. You're right.

It should be noted however, that V2G is a very specific concept that embodies a great deal more value than just "back up emergency generation". They are misusing the term in what would appear to be an attempt to sort of enhance the resume of their product.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. “Words mean just what I want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.”—Humpty Dumpty

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/automobiles/02POWER.html

Greentech

Power to the People: Run Your House on a Prius

By JIM MOTAVALLI
Published: September 2, 2007

WHEN Hurricane Frances ripped through Gainesville, Fla., in 2004, Christopher Swinney, an anesthesiologist, was without electricity for a week. A few weeks ago, Dr. Swinney lost power again, but this time he was ready.

He plugged his Toyota Prius into the backup uninterruptible power supply unit in his house and soon the refrigerator was humming and the lights were back on. “It was running everything in the house except the central air-conditioning,” Dr. Swinney said.

Without the Prius, the batteries in the U.P.S. unit would have run out of power in about an hour. The battery pack in the car kept the U.P.S. online and was itself recharged by the gasoline engine, which cycled on and off as needed. The U.P.S. has an inverter, which converts the direct current electricity from the batteries to household alternating current and regulates the voltage. As long as it has fuel, the Prius can produce at least three kilowatts of continuous power, which is adequate to maintain a home’s basic functions.

This form of vehicle-to-grid technology, often called V2G, has attracted hobbyists, university researchers and companies like Pacific Gas & Electric and Google. Although there is some skepticism among experts about the feasibility of V2G, the big players see a future in which fleets of hybrid cars, recharged at night when demand is lower, can relieve the grid and help avert serious blackouts.

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