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[-] Noobnarski@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

So useless, just use overhead lines or batteries.

Hydrogen is just so much less efficient that it doesn't make sense except for industrial processes where there is no alternative.

The train line close to us already switched to battery trains and most other lines are overhead powered. And then the battery train just charges when it gets to parts of the tracks where there is overhead lines, no extra infrastructure needed.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah... It makes a modicum of sense for cars where overhead lines are impractical and batteries heavy...

But TRAINS? Didn't we figure out electrification of trains via overhead power lines idk... nearly 150 years ago apparently? Quite literally the easiest mode of transport to electrify...

[-] bitteroldcoot@piefed.social 31 points 1 day ago

And where do they get the hydrogen???

Fossil fuel... But you really have to dig to find where they admit it.
Last time this came up it was buried in the documentation about how wind and solar don't provide enough.

[-] Tattorack@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

This is exactly what I was thinking.

[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

In all fairness hydrogen is good battery store for green energy too.

[-] davidagain@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

No. No it isn't. That's not how it's made and not how it's used. Its overwhelmingly made by the fossil fuel industry and calling it green in any sense is just greenwashing mostly the worst environmental problem generators the world knows.

[-] SW42@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

I sense a big kaboom in this train’s future.

[-] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 12 points 1 day ago

No specialist or anything, but I imagine most of the kaboom potential is puncture-based. I don't expect much to make it to the heart of a train as trains generally win in collisions.

Pressure vessel fatigue is possible too, but generally rated and tested well above pressure relief valves.

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Depends on how you define "win". It only takes one small hydrogen leak for a catastrophe. A train will wreck any car or truck for sure, hit or miss with another train, but even a simple derailment of tanker cars often results in a significant mess.

There are nuclear rail transport containers that have been tested in collisions, and they've never leaked, but they're very big and heavy for not a whole lot of volume. And they're sealed, while a fuel tank needs holes to let fuel in and out.

[-] dgriffith@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Luckily hydrogen floats upwards pretty quickly. So paradoxically, storage tanks are safer the less protection they have around them. Or at least, above them.

[-] davidagain@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Just as well trains and other vehicles don't have roofs then.

Fun fact: Unlike natural gas, which needs enough oxygen and enough gas to explode, hydrogen is explosive at almost any concentration of hydrogen and oxygen!

Boom! Woohoo!

[-] newton@feddit.online 3 points 1 day ago

Yes Rico,kaboum

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
105 points (94.9% liked)

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