Transport Revolution Accelerates

Nikola hydrogen fuel cell powered truck

Nikola hydrogen fuel cell powered truck

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about railways and renewables. The German start-up Locomore was running its single train on renewables. Today I’ve learned that since 1st January 2017 the entire Dutch rail system is now running on wind power. During 2016 Holland tripled its offshore wind capacity with the opening of the Gemini and Westermeer wind farms. This meant that the railways could switch to 100% renewables a year earlier than planned. Hats off to the Dutch!

Also in the news has been the starting of a regular freight train service linking Yiwu in eastern China to Barking in east London, UK. It takes about 18 days to cover the 7500 miles. I wonder how long it will be before this entire route is electrified and powered 100% by renewables. The route passes through lots of areas where cheap, clean solar and wind power can be generated.

The Nikola Motor Company launched their remarkable hydrogen fuel cell truck just a few weeks ago in Salt Lake City. They intend to build their own solar farms to drive electrolysis to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The technical specifications of the trucks look great. Meanwhile in Sweden they are experimenting with trucks using overhead electricity lines as we are used to seeing with trams. The world’s first road paved with solar panels has just opened in Normandy using similar technology to the Solar Roadways system I blogged about a couple of years back.

The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Athens and Mexico City have said they plan to ban diesel cars by 2025. We should go further and faster and ban both diesel and petrol cars, trucks and buses from all major cities globally, and some cities may be able to achieve this before 2025. My guess is that Oslo will be the first to achieve this goal, but it is quite small and not as polluted as many places. Which of the really big and horribly polluted cities will be first, Delhi, Beijing, Dubai, Lagos, London or Los Angeles?

It is quite extraordinary to see how quickly the transport sector is innovating to bring us a zero emissions global system. I’ve written before about experimental solar ships and planes, but how long before we see regular commercial renewably powered ships and planes carrying cargo and passengers? Air travel will of course be the hardest nut to crack, but the pace of innovation in many sectors of transport is breathtaking!

2 thoughts on “Transport Revolution Accelerates

    1. Richard Post author

      Thanks Louie, getting reader feedback is really important for me. It’s what keeps me blogging. Cheers
      Richard

      Reply

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