Announced to grand virtue-signalling, new 'emissions-free' commuter trains running on H2 are a fiasco as too little fuel is available after massive delays and enormous spending
This technological fiasco is particularly irritating for me to follow as here in Toronto, Canada the government (specifically the fantastically opaque and self-congratulating provincial transport agency Metrolinx) had replaced a perfectly reasonable plan to electrify the commuter rail system with dithering about studies about hydrogen trains that are supposedly existent any day now in Germany and will shortly cause electrical catenary to become obsolete, because it is old technology and hydrogen is new technology, and therefore better, and therefore electrical catenary is not worth building. Meanwhile in Germany….
You see, I've got no problems whatsoever with the replacement of diesel engines with hydrogen-powered trains--provided there are advantages and they are, over the expected service time, cost-efficient.
I've looked far and wide, and I can't find any such real-life comparisons between these two, to say nothing about the inexistent H2 infrastructure and the life-cycle 'carbon footprint'.
Some things, you can have as privately owned and paid for-profit ventures and as public goods at the same time. Grocery stores f.e. Hairdressers. Plastic surgeons. Taxis.
And some things, you can have one or the other but not both, and not at the same time - trying to do the latter leads to you having neither good of either, and the bad of both.
But: since economy is measured in increase in money per person, any venture that increases this measurement is seen as good.
So: privatise and subsidise various schemes for power production/distribution in such a way more money is created in the form of profits for the owners, measured as increased stock value and "market share".
If any power actually is produced, or what it is used for, or what the cost for the citizen or the nation is, is not relevant: the citizen is a human resource only counted as a unit of production/consumption, and the nation is simply a geographically defined area of resource management and business-options.
It is called capitalism and is functioning exactly as intended.
Except when these ‘companies’ (NGOs) are exempt from consequences—imagine doing what NOW GmbH and Projekt Jülich did w/o gov’t protekcija—the result would likely be bankruptcy and a ton of lawsuits.
But since the judiciary knows that both are gov’t cut-outs, guess where the relevant consequence of capitalism—failure—goes: out the window.
In New Mexico there is a commuter train that is diesel-powered electric. Overhead caternary was the logical way to go but they didn't. We had an opportunity to buy an existing line placed out of service with electric catenary but we have Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham spending tax dollars instead underwriting new solar panel manufacturers that have already modified their plant size downwards. She is like another Kamala Harris with Biden’s Infrastructure spending fiascos.
One of the 'funnier' aspects of railroad connections is the speed that the tracks permit; the most famous example I know personally is the connection between Zurich, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany.
The entire course has electric catenary, but that's not the problem: even though it's about 300km distance, the train takes a bit over 3:30 hours to go there--because the embankments from Lake Constance onwards were built a hundred years ago and one simply can't drive faster than some 80-100 km/h lest one damages the embankments.
Talk about 'ze Germans' being able to 'do stuff' is way over-rated…
Siemens has been taking many nations to the cleaners in the pursuit of net zero.
Refrigeration is one place that can make a global impact. Insulation is another. Instead of reducing demand the nuts in center left and greens are attacking supply. It's as if they never heard of energy savings concepts.
I'm unsure about refrigeration, but I'm positively sure that 'even' insulation is both over-rated and, possibly, a net-loss (if cradle-to-grave emissions are accounted for; I'm working on a piece about this, so watch out for that…)
This technological fiasco is particularly irritating for me to follow as here in Toronto, Canada the government (specifically the fantastically opaque and self-congratulating provincial transport agency Metrolinx) had replaced a perfectly reasonable plan to electrify the commuter rail system with dithering about studies about hydrogen trains that are supposedly existent any day now in Germany and will shortly cause electrical catenary to become obsolete, because it is old technology and hydrogen is new technology, and therefore better, and therefore electrical catenary is not worth building. Meanwhile in Germany….
Oh, I fully understand this.
You see, I've got no problems whatsoever with the replacement of diesel engines with hydrogen-powered trains--provided there are advantages and they are, over the expected service time, cost-efficient.
I've looked far and wide, and I can't find any such real-life comparisons between these two, to say nothing about the inexistent H2 infrastructure and the life-cycle 'carbon footprint'.
Some things, you can have as privately owned and paid for-profit ventures and as public goods at the same time. Grocery stores f.e. Hairdressers. Plastic surgeons. Taxis.
And some things, you can have one or the other but not both, and not at the same time - trying to do the latter leads to you having neither good of either, and the bad of both.
But: since economy is measured in increase in money per person, any venture that increases this measurement is seen as good.
So: privatise and subsidise various schemes for power production/distribution in such a way more money is created in the form of profits for the owners, measured as increased stock value and "market share".
If any power actually is produced, or what it is used for, or what the cost for the citizen or the nation is, is not relevant: the citizen is a human resource only counted as a unit of production/consumption, and the nation is simply a geographically defined area of resource management and business-options.
It is called capitalism and is functioning exactly as intended.
Except when these ‘companies’ (NGOs) are exempt from consequences—imagine doing what NOW GmbH and Projekt Jülich did w/o gov’t protekcija—the result would likely be bankruptcy and a ton of lawsuits.
But since the judiciary knows that both are gov’t cut-outs, guess where the relevant consequence of capitalism—failure—goes: out the window.
In New Mexico there is a commuter train that is diesel-powered electric. Overhead caternary was the logical way to go but they didn't. We had an opportunity to buy an existing line placed out of service with electric catenary but we have Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham spending tax dollars instead underwriting new solar panel manufacturers that have already modified their plant size downwards. She is like another Kamala Harris with Biden’s Infrastructure spending fiascos.
One of the 'funnier' aspects of railroad connections is the speed that the tracks permit; the most famous example I know personally is the connection between Zurich, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany.
The entire course has electric catenary, but that's not the problem: even though it's about 300km distance, the train takes a bit over 3:30 hours to go there--because the embankments from Lake Constance onwards were built a hundred years ago and one simply can't drive faster than some 80-100 km/h lest one damages the embankments.
Talk about 'ze Germans' being able to 'do stuff' is way over-rated…
Siemens has been taking many nations to the cleaners in the pursuit of net zero.
Refrigeration is one place that can make a global impact. Insulation is another. Instead of reducing demand the nuts in center left and greens are attacking supply. It's as if they never heard of energy savings concepts.
I'm unsure about refrigeration, but I'm positively sure that 'even' insulation is both over-rated and, possibly, a net-loss (if cradle-to-grave emissions are accounted for; I'm working on a piece about this, so watch out for that…)