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vasya349 t1_j5bie9p wrote

Reply to comment by ashebwead in Aviation startup ZeroAvia flies largest ever hydrogen-electric aircraft by allstevenz

Lol the electrification circlejerk is coming for me even outside of rail subs.

Electrification is not the only solution! It is really fucking expensive and only justified by medium to high volume lines. It requires installation of new electrical facilities in potentially remote or environmentally sensitive areas. It’s also an longterm process that can’t be done globally by the time we need to deal with emissions, because you can’t use electric rolling stock for a 99% complete route. That basically writes off any freight because nobody is ever going to pay for electrifying industrial spurs. They’d just pave over them and use trucks.

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ashebwead t1_j5bkq4u wrote

the countries with serious rail infrastructure mostly use electrification, hydrogen makes sense in places where it's really hard to electrify the route because of hard geography, or for shunting locomotives

electric trains are faster, ligther, safer and just much more efficient in general than hydrogen. and they're really not that much more expensive, india is electrifying the majority of its network, just like china did

also there's electrification on every and i mean every rail line in switzerland, so the remote or sensitive area argument is kinda weak

obviously not every route can be electrified, but most of them actually can, and i've already cited three major examples

edit: basically electrification is the only option for high speed rail, the best option for commuter, long-distance freight and intercity, while hydrogen is a good option for local/rural lines, shunting, branch line/shortline freight and some exceptions. most new lines are built already electrified, by the way

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vasya349 t1_j5bpkgi wrote

Your examples are regions covered pretty completely with substantial population (and therefore have electrical infrastructure throughout) implementing electrification in the small minority of areas that are remote for interoperability reasons. This is different than places like the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa where some main lines cross up to thousands of miles of mostly inadequate electrical-services areas. You basically have to build and service infrastructure exclusively for the trains in those cases.

Electrification can still be a goal in these places, but it’s not unreasonable for them to pursue hydrogen or even retain diesel while working on high-volume freight shuttle/passenger electrification. Please don’t do the thing everyone else does and assume I’m arguing against electrification - I’m just saying it’s not going to happen anytime soon in a lot of places for real reasons.

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