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 an area effort to make hydrogen the gasoline of alternative for rail transit into a world phenomenon.
In 2004, the “Centralina” area (the Better Charlotte metro space, which straddles the North Carolina–South Carolina border) was designated as a non-attainment space for ozone underneath 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 concept he thought would assist. Native officers had been mulling over an concept 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 subsequently not be funded by large metropolis taxes. Moreover, he advised, the trains could possibly be powered electrically by hydrogen. Doing so, he reasoned, would be 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, underneath 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 had been the convener of the International Hydrail Conferences (IHCs). What function did the conferences play in serving to to advance hydrogen-powered rail transit from an concept to a real-world occurring?
H. Stan Thompson: Properly, first, let me ensure that 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 this stuff collectively. I had the concept for doing it, however Jason was the one who did all of the work to make it occur. The function the IHCs initially performed was to make the primary folks on the market who had been theorizing concerning the function hydrogen might play in rail transport conscious that one another existed, how far they’d proceeded, what applied sciences they had been pursuing, and the way the very best practices may evolve.
What was the preliminary inspiration to have a practice that runs on hydrogen as an alternative of diesel?
Thompson: I knew that trains had 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 power once I was nonetheless with Bellsouth. Once 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 concerning the grid, however with respect to issues that carry power onboard.
What’s the present-day standing of hydrail, when it comes to new tasks and installations?
Thompson: Crucial factor that’s occurring is that CSX Railway, one of many largest on the planet, 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, positioned in Huntington, W.Va., is up and operating. Although that’s just about unknown exterior the rail business, I contemplate it to be large 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, significantly within the U.S., just isn’t knowledgeable about main transport infrastructure points. Different examples embrace the truth that Airbus and practically all different main aviation corporations have begun engaged on hydrogen-fueled aviation, and the largest corporations in transport, together with Maersk, are closely concerned—and fairly far alongside—in advancing hydrogen’s use in cargo ships. Moreover, the trucking business can be far alongside the highway towards making hydrogen available at truck stops. And when hydrogen fueling turns into frequent 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 just a few Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles first relied on truck stops. And when there have been sufficient of those vehicles 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 are going to provide a lot higher vary and will likely be refueled as rapidly as autos that run on petroleum merchandise.
Utilizing hydrogen, whose byproduct is water vapor, for propulsive energy as an alternative of diesel, which yields carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, is clearly higher for the setting. 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 any want for wayside energy or any of the infrastructure it takes to transmit electrical energy to the wayside. Let’s take 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 observe.
What had been the foremost 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 gasoline 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 had been working alone found that plenty of folks had been engaged on getting trains to run on hydrogen for comparable causes. By far the largest inflection level was when Robert Stasko organized the 8th Worldwide Hydrail Convention (8IHC) in Toronto. That was the place representatives of the Hydrogenics gasoline cell firm [known as Accelera since its its acquisition by commercial engine manufacturer Cummins] and the Alstom practice manufacturing firm realized that they’d a standard useful curiosity and started assembly behind the scenes. The end result was the announcement, in 2014, that they had been teaming as much as construct hydrail trains in Salzgitter, Germany. They adopted by 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 lately talked about that Spain has constructed a high-speed hydrail train. How large a deal is that?
Thompson: It’s essential as a result of there’s nothing extra technically difficult for hydrogen propulsion that continues to be 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 12 months.
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 among the hardest issues to simply accept. Principally, it boils right 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 at the back of a jewellery retailer in a small southern city would have the facility to alter the railroad traction business 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 know-how 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. Right this moment, St. Petersburg is implementing the twenty-first century hydrail know-how that was developed within the higher Charlotte space.
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