IEEE Life Senior Member H. Stan Thompson has lived a few skilled lives. For many years, he was a planning engineer and futurist at Bellsouth Telecommunications, which was shaped from the merger of two Regional Bell Operating Companies across the time AT&T (“Ma Bell”) was compelled to interrupt up in 1984.
When he retired in 1996, Thompson assumed he’d dwell out his golden years puttering round Mooresvile, N.C., the Charlotte suburb he calls dwelling. However destiny had a unique plan: Over the previous twenty years, he has been the prime mover behind reworking a neighborhood effort to make hydrogen the gas of alternative for rail transit into a worldwide phenomenon.
In 2004, the “Centralina” area (the Higher Charlotte metro space, which straddles the North Carolina–South Carolina border) was designated as a non-attainment space for ozone beneath the Clean Air Act. The realm stood to lose billions of {dollars} of federal funding for all kinds of tasks if the realm’s air high quality didn’t enhance.
Thompson stepped ahead with an thought he thought would assist. Native officers have been mulling over an thought to place a then-idle Norfolk Southern Railroad industrial entry line connecting the cities again into service as a commuter railway. Thompson’s proposal: search federal innovation funding to improve and keep a 9.6-km (6 mile) part of the proposed rail line that lay exterior Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County and would due to this fact not be funded by huge metropolis taxes. Moreover, he advised, the trains could possibly be powered electrically by hydrogen. Doing so, he reasoned, would make sure that the rail hall didn’t exacerbate the realm’s air high quality points with emissions from diesel engines whereas additionally avoiding the excessive price of electrifying the road with an overhead catenary system.
Thompson’s work on that challenge, beneath the aegis of the Mooresville Hydrail Initiative comprising himself and former Mooresvile mayor Bill Thunberg, led him to coin the time period “hydrail” and ignited what has grow to be a second profession. IEEE Spectrum not too long ago spoke with Thompson about hydrail’s origins and the place it stands now.
For a few years, you have been the convener of the International Hydrail Conferences (IHCs). What position did the conferences play in serving to to advance hydrogen-powered rail transit from an thought to a real-world taking place?
H. Stan Thompson: Properly, first, let me make it possible for Jason Hoyle [now the principal energy policy analyst at EQ Research, a Cary, N.C.–based firm that mostly focuses on state-level energy regulation and legislation] will get credit score for having put these items collectively. I had the concept for doing it, however Jason was the one who did all of the work to make it occur. The position the IHCs initially performed was to make the primary folks on the market who have been theorizing in regards to the position hydrogen might play in rail transport conscious that one another existed, how far that they had proceeded, what applied sciences they have been pursuing, and the way one of the best practices would possibly evolve.
What was the preliminary inspiration to have a practice that runs on hydrogen as a substitute of diesel?
Thompson: I knew that trains have been going to run on hydrogen way back to 1994. I had a paper that I needed to edit about the way forward for energy and vitality once I was nonetheless with Bellsouth. After I got here to the way in which that electrical energy was going to be transmitted, I spotted that main adjustments would happen not solely relating to the grid, however with respect to issues that carry vitality onboard.
What’s the present-day standing of hydrail, when it comes to new tasks and installations?
Thompson: An important factor that’s happening is that CSX Railway, one of many largest on the earth, is working with the Canadian Pacific–Kansas City Railway to make not solely hydrogen-powered locomotives for the 2 corporations’ personal use, however to additionally make diesel-to-hydrogen conversion kits to promote to different main railways. The primary manufacturing facility for that, situated in Huntington, W.Va., is up and operating. Although that’s just about unknown exterior the rail trade, I contemplate it to be huge information.
Rail large CSX unveiled this hydrogen-powered locomotive, made in partnership with Canadian Pacific–Kansas Metropolis, in early 2024.CSX
I’m involved that the general public, notably within the U.S., shouldn’t be knowledgeable about main transport infrastructure points. Different examples embody the truth that Airbus and almost all different main aviation corporations have begun engaged on hydrogen-fueled aviation, and the most important corporations in transport, together with Maersk, are closely concerned—and fairly far alongside—in advancing hydrogen’s use in cargo ships. Moreover, the trucking trade can also be far alongside the street towards making hydrogen available at truck stops. And when hydrogen fueling turns into widespread at truck stops, that’s when hydrogen cars will start to take market share. That’s the way in which diesel turned extensively out there. The primary Mercedes and Volkswagen Golf diesels, together with a couple of Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles first relied on truck stops. And when there have been sufficient of those automobiles round to justify placing in diesel pumps at comfort shops, diesel quickly turned as extensively out there as gasoline. However I predict that when this occurs with hydrogen, hydrogen-powered autos will supplant the plug-in electrics. They may supply a lot larger vary and can be refueled as shortly as autos that run on petroleum merchandise.
Utilizing hydrogen, whose byproduct is water vapor, for propulsive energy as a substitute of diesel, which yields carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, is clearly higher for the surroundings. However what benefit does hydrail present in contrast with electrical energy by way of a 3rd rail or overhead catenary system?
Thompson: It’s dramatically cheaper, just because with hydrail there isn’t a want for wayside energy or any of the infrastructure it takes to transmit electrical energy to the wayside. Let’s have a look at some fundamental numbers: One hydrogen refueling station prices about $2 million. That 2 million covers your entire hall. However an overhead catenary prices that a lot for 1 / 4 mile [0.4 kilometer] of the monitor.
What have been the main inflection factors at which progress towards common hydrail service turned evident?
Thompson: The primary one was the event of the primary hydrogen mining locomotive, in Colorado. It used gas cells so the miners might keep away from having to cost batteries. I’d prefer to suppose that our resolution to carry the primary Worldwide Hydrail Convention in 2005 was an inflection level, as a result of the individuals who thought they have been working alone found that various folks have been engaged on getting trains to run on hydrogen for comparable causes. By far the most important inflection level was when Robert Stasko organized the 8th Worldwide Hydrail Convention (8IHC) in Toronto. That was the place representatives of the Hydrogenics gas cell firm [known as Accelera since its its acquisition by commercial engine manufacturer Cummins] and the Alstom practice manufacturing firm realized that that they had a standard useful curiosity and commenced assembly behind the scenes. The end result was the announcement, in 2014, that they have been teaming as much as construct hydrail trains in Salzgitter, Germany. They adopted via and launched the Coradia iLint practice in 2016. And there was 3IHC, held in North Carolina, which spurred the creation of a hydrail Ph.D. program on the University of Pisa in Italy, the traditional college the place Galileo taught. That convention additionally led to hydrail’s improvement in India, which is continuing apace.
The place does hydrail stand at current?
Thompson: I do know Germany is doing hydrail and Britain has a number of hydrail tasks. The UK, I feel, has essentially the most hydrail manufacturing tasks of any nation. They’ve at least five. Italy is experiencing fast adoption of hydrail and hydrogen propulsion in general. The primary narrow-gauge hydrail project is being undertaken in Switzerland. Sweden has freight hydrail trains in improvement, and hydrail freight trains are additionally being put in in Japanese Europe.
Alstom’s Coradia iLint hydrail practice is proven right here ferrying rail passengers to their locations in Germany.Sabrina Adeline Nagel/evb
You latterly talked about that Spain has constructed a high-speed hydrail train. How huge a deal is that?
Thompson: It’s essential as a result of there’s nothing extra technically difficult for hydrogen propulsion that is still to be tried. Canadian Pacific confirmed hydrail had overcome its second-most tough problem when the corporate launched its H2 0EL hydrail freight locomotives in 2022. I‘ve simply realized that CRRC in China additionally launched a high-speed hydrail practice, the Cinova H2, this yr.
What has been essentially the most stunning improvement as hydrail has progressed from concepts on paper to metal wheels on rails?
Thompson: Most stunning has been the antipathy of the mass media. The continued perception that that is all some quixotic fever dream of mine—even after hydrogen-powered trains have gone into service—is likely one of the hardest issues to just accept. Mainly, it boils all the way down to the truth that we’re off message. The accepted narrative is that individuals like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs give you nice concepts. The notion that two outdated guys sitting behind a jewellery retailer in a small southern city would have the ability to vary the railroad traction trade globally presents a stage of cognitive dissonance many information retailers have but to beat.
What would you say has been the weirdest improvement?
Thompson: The overhead catenary expertise that’s being put in in Charlotte now was invented on the behest of Emperor Alexander II of Russia within the early Eighties for a rail line in St. Petersburg, which was then Russia’s capital. At present, St. Petersburg is implementing the twenty-first century hydrail expertise that was developed within the larger Charlotte space.
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