Technology

Biodiesels are still better than diesel and the stuff can be manufactured from seaweed, algae, any biomass really. It doesn't have to be a monoculture. It doesn't even have to be 100% biodiesel either - start blending it in. I agree electric motors and electrification are the ultimate outcome but the rail industry has a lot of lines and a lot of locomotives and and you want progression over time with options for battery, power lines or diesel, potentially all 3 on the same line in different parts. It might take decades to transition. It's certainly not hydrogen, that's for sure.

A whole lot of misinformation about biofuel here. Manufacturing biofuels does not require significant changes to current agriculture practices. Most biofuel is made from byproducts that would be burned as waste otherwise.

1. Not really. There are plans for hydrogen plants. The vast majority is "blue". Secondly what are the chances that an oil company is going to make green hydrogen?
2. The renewables aren't the problem. The cost of capturing energy is the problem. If hydrogen takes 3-4x the energy then that's 3-4x the land with 3-4x the solar and/or windfarms at 3-4x the expense. Do you not see the problem?
3. No it isn't. Scientific studies suggest the impact on the atmosphere might 12x worse than releasing CO2.
4. Lithium isn't the only battery material. Nor I daresay even if it were, that the safety risk is anywhere near as bad as driving a train with a hundreds of kgs of hydrogen on board
5. Lithium isn't the only battery material. There are numerous battery chemistries in existence. It might even be that some less dense chemistries like sodium ion would be viable.
6. Which is why I clearly I suggested a progressive approach. Switch from diesel to biodiesel, start building hybrid trains where the motor and tender are almost separate things and where the source of power can be 2 or 3 potential inputs - diesel, electrification, battery. And where rolling stock can use solar to reduce consumption further.

You think the toxic (deadly) lithium thermal runaways that can’t be stopped are somehow better? No. They are worse and a deadly underground carpark disaster waiting to happen.

Yup, all those trains waiting to explode in carparks. Nor are we developing better batteries that don't have these problems. Nope, just leaving things exactly as they are.

Not enough lithium in the world to supply the global suv market . . .

Even if lithium was our only battery option, this is just plain wrong. People misunderstand what "reserve" means in mining. It's not the amount of something that's available to be mined. It's the amount that is available profitably under current economic conditions. Both better technology and other shifts in the market mean more reserves "magically" open up.

Oceanic lithium mining may already been commercially viable, and the amount of lithium we can get from that is basically unlimited. On the lab side, there's a promising string-based evaporation method, which would substantially reduce costs and environmental footprint--exactly the sort of tech that makes more reserves open up. It still needs to be demonstrated at scale, but the strings involved don't use any exotic materials or have any difficult production.

It's more complicated than that. Hydrogen has a higher energy density than gasoline on a mass basis (i.e. 1 kg of hydrogen is about 3x the energy density of 1kg of gasoline). But for volumetric density the situation is reversed - 1Kg of hydrogen takes 4x the space of 1kg of gasoline. So you're not really saving anything by using hydrogen.

On top of that gasoline is a liquid at atmospheric pressures and can flow into any nook and cranny of your aircraft. Most aircraft will store fuel in the wings and under the fuselage. If you use hydrogen you have to store it in heavily reinforced pressurized tanks, preferably spheroidal, cylindrical, toiroidal in shape. That means you're looking at putting some honking great cylinders on your aircraft and there is no convenient place to do it. They'll either have to be mounted on struts or in the body somewhere.

I don't think batteries will find much application in aircraft until solid state batteries come along. But there are some high density batteries appearing for aviation applications (drones, taxis etc.) and just like with gasoline they can be incorporated pretty much anywhere in the structure of the aircraft.

There are zero sources of green hydrogen in the foreseeable future and railways can be electrified. Small runs that aren't electrified can use batteries. There is a zero use case for a leaky fuel that we source from creating CO2 like hydrogen. The idea of using wastefully using electrolysis to something we can deliver power directly to is ludicrous.

Edit: I can think of ONE use case, and that's maybe logging locomotives that will never be electrified.

you’re going to have a lot of difficulty and it’s going to be pretty expensive running high voltage lines across these railroads.

It's worked just fine for the past century

You got any idea of the energy density of Hydrogen? On a per m3 basis, batteries hold a lot more energy.

BTW, hydrogen doesn't get burned.

It's a very dumb solution to things that run on tracks and can be directly electrified. It's mindbogglingly silly.

Weight is usually a feature for locomotives, which are sometimes ballasted for extra traction.

Occasionally you see extra-lightweight engines designed for light infrastructure-- often putting the same guts on more axles to lower the load, but it's rare.

Modern locomotives also use AC traction motors, with sophisticated computer controls to generate an AC product suitable for the desired speed and torque. Even modern diesel-electric designs have alternators and AC internals. Yes, some old electric engines were huge rectifiers on wheels, but that's no longer necessary.

Electrification is a very "capitalism won't let us have nice things" problem; it's a 25 year commitment to infrastructure and new engines before it pays full benefits (higher reliability, simpler equipment, higher horsepower per unit, using dynamic braking to return power to the grid)

Nuclear cargos exist. Or at least existed. URSS then Russia had one for reach a port in the north. It was an ice-breaker.

Or back to wind.

Idk how expensive these reactors are tho. The US Navy operates dozens in their fleet between CVNs and SSBNs, but that dwarfs the rest of the world.