VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Ballard Power Systems, which has provided the fuel cell engines for CPKC’s first hydrogen-powered locomotives, announced it has received an order for another 12 engines totaling 2.4 megawatts of power.
The dozen 200-kilowatt engines, to be delivered this year, will support CPKC development of additional hydrogen fuel-cell locomotives for switching and local freight service in Alberta, Ballard said. Part of the funding for the additional locomotives will come from the Emissions Reduction Alberta program, which has also helped fund an earlier expansion of the railroad’s hydrogen program from one locomotive to three [see “CP to build additional hydrogen locomotives …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 1, 2021].
Ballard has provided CPKC with 38 fuel-cell engines, providing 7.6 megawatts of power, over the last two years. The locomtoives powered by the additional engines are expected to enter service in late 2024.
“Our hydrogen locomotive program demonstrates our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and we are pleased to continue to work with the team at Ballard to implement effective alternative fuel solutions,” Kyle Mulligan, CPKC assistant vice president, operations technology, said in a press release.
“We are excited by CPKC’s vision and action plan to demonstrate and validate the use of hydrogen-powered locomotives to decarbonize their locomotive fleet,” said Seungsoo Jung, Ballard’s vice president of rail & emerging markets. “This latest order demonstrates CPKC’s continued progress against this vision and plan, while also serving as another proof point for the enabling role of Ballard’s fuel cell engines in the electrification of locomotive rail applications in North America.”
CPKC gets free public money for checking the “sustainability” box on their ESG audits. Oddly, the press release doesn’t mention how much free public money goes to the highly profitable CPKC:
“The additional locomotives will be partially funded through the Emissions Reduction Alberta (“ERA”) program that helps the province deliver on its environmental and economic goals and will in turn support the decarbonization of rail transport by funding hydrogen production and refueling infrastructure along with hydrogen-powered locomotives.”
Why doesn’t any North American railroad string catenary? It is obvious… that is a long term investment while a comparative handful of hydrogen trophies is perfromative greenwashing.
“Why doesn’t any North American railroad string catenary?”
For passenger service they do, for freight they don’t. Even the South Shore/Metra uses the catenary to run their interurbans, but the separate freight operations runs diesels on the same track.
NA freight railroads seem to prefer the flexibility of having the fuels stored in one location and then carried/refueled on the motive power itself. Appears to make the purchasing much more simpler, cut a contract with a single refiner/retailer (like BP) whereas with a national catenary, you would be brokering/paying several utilties/grid operators across your footprint.
I am not saying that is the golden arrow, I am trying to put my mind into the ‘too cheap to allow for employee sick time’ railroad mindset to see what comes out. I am sure some PhD student in the transporation school at the University of Illinois has done his/her thesis on railroads and renewables.
Still have to make the hydrogen. While there are projects to change that, almost all commercial hydrogen is cracked from natural gas. Like alcohol, it takes more BTU to crack for it, then what it gives in specific energy. Pushing the pollution back to the source instead of the consumer.
There are some new hydrogen cracking technologies under development. If the demand keeps up, it could foster a new supply market.
I hope that CPkc will paint these with the new CPKC to prove they really intend to become that railroad. The only thing I have seen painted so far are a bunch of cans seen on and off on train seen on Virtual Railfan’s Revelstoke, B.C. live camera, and of course the proposed soccer stadium project they are involved in. But the rest of CPkc’s fleet is still in dirty/smudgy red with CP or Canadian Pacific shown. This isn’t a case of Southern Pacific/Santa Fe where SP/SF meant “Shouldn’t Paint So Fast.” This seems to be a case of “Can’t Paint KC” as long as possible which is why I, for one, refuse to recognize it as CPKC. As long as Keith Creel maintains the illusion of a merger visually, it will be CPkc to me..
“This isn’t a case of Southern Pacific/Santa Fe where SP/SF meant “Shouldn’t Paint So Fast.” ”
I recall that very well, as we (SPRR) lost our SP Pipeline Co. subsidiary contractually in the process, as my/our telecom dept had an agreement to maintain and install SPPL’s, (as well as Sprint’s) mobile and base radios, as well as their/our PBX system-wide network via our MW mux channel landline PBX telephones, at that time.
Ballard Power Systems is based in Canada, I believe. They are supplying hydrogen fuel cell systems to railroads in Canada, Europe, and China, probably among others. I think they do transit bus systems as well. CPKC talks about working toward developing retrofit kits for ALL of their locomotives. If hydrogen happens, we won’t talk about US-developed EMD or GE prime movers any more.
That’s right! Ballard Power Systems Inc. is headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
I have read elsewhere that they have put six or seven fuel cells into each locomotive. Seven would produce 1.4 megaWatts, equivalent to about 1,877 HP, a good number for a switcher.
– Ed Kyle
I agree.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
There is something not right with the math here. 200 KW is only about 270 horsepower.
I asked the same question a few months back Robert, the answer was they are small (200kw) engines and they put several in a single car body to get required HP for a road locomotive. Probably why the cowl body unit is used.
Similar to the idea tried years ago when they used two or three diesel MG sets in a unit and they would turn on as load was required.
p.s. Thanks John Rice for answering my question on this topic a few months ago.
Battary Pack provides peak power demands in these type of locomotives.