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Name: bosshog Comments: BNSF explores locomotive fuel cell (T he following story by David Lustig appea red at RailwayGazette.com on March 6, 20 09.) Taking shape in the BNSF Railway workshop at Topeka, Kansas, is an exper imental shunting locomotive powered by h ydrogen fuel cells. BNSF believes that f uel cell technology offers the potential to reduce air pollution as well as prep aring the way for a future locomotive fl eet that is not dependent on oil. ‘ While it’s not a proven technology and the project is still in its infancy, we believe investments like the fuel cell switching locomotive are important for t he advancement of new technology’, exp lains Craig Hill, BNSF’s Vice-Presiden t of Mechanical & Value Engineering. BNSF estimates its diesel locomotive fle et burns more than 15 million litres a d ay, about 2% of all US diesel fuel usage . In its third-quarter results for 2008, the railroad said diesel fuel represent ed 26% of its operating costs. This was more than $500m higher than the equivale nt quarter in 2007 for a comparable leve l of consumption. The use of fuel cel ls in road vehicles such as buses and ca rs is not new, but to date there have on ly been a few attempts to introduce the introduce the technology to the rail sec tor. An experimental fuel-cell railcar i s being tested in Japan, and another is expected to start test running in Denmar k in 2010 (RG 1.08 p30). BNSF’s projec t was officially launched in January 200 8, and is the first to be undertaken by a Class I railroad in North America. The railway is working with Vehicle Proj ects LLC, a private engineering company based in Denver which has been developin g and demonstrating prototype fuel cell vehicles for various modes. Since 2003 t he company has also been working on a pr oject sponsored by the US Department of Defense to develop a 1·2 MW fuel cell l ocomotive. The two companies insist that the latest prototype, which is being as sembled by BNSF’s mechanical departmen t using a former Railpower Green Goat hy brid as the platform, is strictly a test bed. In simple terms, a fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen to generate electric ity, producing water and heat as a by-pr oduct. As long as fuel is available, the fuel cell continues to generate power. Oxygen is available from the air, but th e hydrogen must be supplied. BNSF envisa ges that the hydrogen will be generated off the vehicle using electricity, which can be drawn from a number of available sources including nuclear, wind or sola r. The experimental locomotive will c arry compressed hydrogen on board in tan ks similar to those used on fuel-cell ro ad vehicles. Since the fuel cells use an electro-chemical process rather than co nventional combustion, it is clean (mean ing no environmentally-harmful emissions ), quiet and is expected to be two to th ree times more fuel-efficient than a sta ndard US diesel locomotive. According to BNSF, the electricity generated by t he onboard fuel cell power module will b e stored in batteries or fed directly to the locomotive’s high-voltage propuls ion system. DC choppers will be used to control the power to each traction motor independently, providing substantially improved adhesion compared to a conventi onal locomotive wheel-slip system. BNSF says the locomtoive will be rated at 2 0 00 hp for traction. The Railpower loc omotive, which had been reduced to a she ll, was delivered from Montréal to Tope ka in 2007, and the various components, including the fuel cell power modules an d the hydrogen storage tanks are now bei ng installed, along with the electrical transmission and control systems. BNSF a nd Vehicle Products had hoped to begin t esting the completed unit in 2008, but a re now expecting to start operations dur ing 2009. The loco is also expected to v isit the Transportation Technology Cente r at Pueblo for testing by the Federal R ailroad Administration. According to the President of Vehicle Projects, Arnol d Miller, ‘the world burns millions of barrels of oil for energy, and the wast e carbon is then emitted to the atmosphe re. Because they don’t rely on oil as a fuel source, fuel cells solve these tw o issues’. He believes that developing proof-of-concept locomotives is an impo rtant first step toward the use of fuel cells in future rail applications. Frid ay, March 06, 2009

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