The French Minister for Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, inaugurates Monday, February 21 in Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées) an Alstom factory for the manufacture of Coradia iLint, a model of train powered by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. In Germany, a similar plant is already running at full speed.
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The plant is located in Salzgitter in Lower Saxony, and the order book is strong: 14 trains under construction for the Frankfurt region, 27 for the Lower Saxony region in which, this is a world first, a commercial line will soon be operated 100% by hydrogen trains. Demand is pouring in from all over Europe, confirms project manager Stefan Schrank: “The trials that we are carrying out in other European countries, such as the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Poland, France and all the countries we have been to, have at least enabled local authorities and operators locals to see that this new technology works, and that it offers a good level of reliability and availability.”
A technology that has proven itself and arouses a lot of curiosity, but firm purchases still often come up against cost: this new train is more expensive, around a third compared to a conventional train. An argument swept away by the manufacturer who explains that with the soaring price of fossil fuels, hydrogen trains should be profitable within 10 to 12 years for machines with a lifespan three times longer.
The supposedly clean train is not completely clean: it still very often runs on gray hydrogen, made from industrial by-products. This is a problem for another German state, Baden-Württemberg, which is testing hydrogen trains until the end of the month. “Grey hydrogen means that electrolysis is carried out with electricity produced from coal or even nuclear energy, which we refuse, because it is not ecological and it is not respectful either. climatedetails Baden-Württemberg’s Green Minister of Transport, Winfried Hermann. Fuel cell technology is an option to be technically climate neutral. The condition is that the hydrogen is produced from renewable energy. There are still too few today. And we will have to import it from countries where there is a lot of sun and wind.”
In order to secure its supplies of green hydrogen, Germany has concluded agreements with countries such as Chile, Morocco and Namibia… Another alternative exists for rail transport: electric battery trains, which are more flexible. use, which are recharged on contact with the catenaries.