"How do you ‘decarbonize’ a steam engine?" https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... ace-steam/

vegetable oil

That's still carbon. Just in a non-black, non-coal form.

Read the article. They're going as far as suggesting burning hydrogen.

Never underestimate the impact of that kind of announcement, and remember it's Europe, where our perceptions simply don't matter.

We worked with Xanterra on the initial reaction to picking up GCR, that's probably one of the most environmentally-sensitive NPS operators out there going to a highly sensitive tourism area under the feds, and well, they have figured out literally how to have your cake and eat it too with steam. That is the only operation I've seen so far that actually did an emissions analysis (formal) of steam decades ago commissioned by NPS. Bottom line was 'more stuff, but admittedly less harmful stuff' than diesel. That was before the Tier 3/4 standards though. And yes, 4960 burns vegetable oil, but surprisingly, the water usage is just as much of an issue out there, you forget that part.

On this side, having worked in CA and NY, I can attest that the most hostile city I've ever seen on emissions isn't in CA, it's Kingston, NY. So rather than fight it, this was the approach - and remember, you're talkin' RS1's that have, in the past, put up so much turbo smoke over the town many of the locals thought it was a steam locomotive (seriously). So this makes sense.
https://railfan.com/catskill-mountain-r ... in-grants/

Once again, remember the difference between 'zero net carbon' and 'zero carbon'

The former requires use of a 'renewable' carbon fuel -- B100 biodiesel or torrefied wood, for example. For full cachet (or full moral effect, depending on your degree of EU cynicism) all the steps to grow the renewable feedstock and prepare and distribute the fuel should also involve only zero-net-carbon equipment and methodology.

Note that another aspect of zero-net-carbon is the beloved European idea of carbon credits. It would be relatively easy for business or political entities in Europe to combine efforts to 'set aside' any emissions by the Harz or other steam operations with some other gains, such as increased renewable-energy operations in the region (or elsewhere in the 'global picture').

Zero-carbon means that no carbon is emitted to the environment in a form where it might aid AGW, or in time contribute to it. That need not involve only zero-carbon fuels like carrier hydrogen or ammonia, but effective carbon-oxide sequestration on locomotives is almost certainly a 'nonstarting' option, particularly if any shred of historic-preservation integrity is involved.

Things were looking somewhat positive for carrier hydrogen infrastructure while the iLINT Coradia boom was on... for a while. That would have solved the most difficult issues in carrier hydrogen: the assurance of distributed fuel supply, and the costing-down ir reliable subsidy of that assurance in practice.

The concerns with burning straight hydrogen in a reciprocating locomotive, even a small one already optimized by SLM/DLM, are easily enough established (and we have discussed some of them here over the years). One of my potential concerns is that the mass flow of hydrogen for combustion is multiple times that needed for fuel-cell on-board charging of battery trains -- careful attention to the required scale of the government-assured fuel provision should be explicitly made BEFORE any zero-carbon firing "goes live" other than for testing or PR opportunities.

Do not get me started on any nitrogen analogues to hydrocarbons other than ammonia. If you know, you know. If you don't, you won't want to.

I know Germany has moved toward hydrogen over coal or natural gas in steel mills, mainly for practical reasons: https://www.ft.com/content/8bf86419-e74 ... 72bc306fdc They also are trying to shift hydrogen production toward "green" hydrogen, even though the market isn't expanding as fast as they would like: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 024-11-05/ So I would guess an infrastructure is devloping Harz Mountain could tap into.

I always raise an eyebrow when I hear about an operation using a propane cylinder and burner to heat up a boiler, because it seems like a Rube Goldberg machine, so I wonder what a hydrogen set-up would look like, presumably something like a propane grill with ceramic briquettes?

Germany has a lot more problems than a couple pounds of carbon liberated by burning coal.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ppens-next

@superheater

Your nickname mean you know the work of "Wilhelm Schmidt" ?

Then you know...

...we Germans see, make or find "Problems"...

...then we solve them!

Cheers

Be assured There Will Be No Hydrogen Fired Steam Locomotive In The Harz Mountains. Instead, they are converting the first of their class 99.72 locomotives, 99 7244 (2-10-2T) to oil firing, after another 2-10-2T successfully runs on the Zittau narrow gauge net.

"Green steel" is an ideologically pushed pipe dream which may or may not work but will be too expensive to be competitive anyway. May be now after the recent implosion of the German Government, economy might find a way back to normal, with people in power being able to calculate.

"Hope springs eternal"...

Cheers,
Mike