Now 15 years!

How times have changed.

With a Giant 14.5 MWh Mobile Battery, Australia Sets a World Record and Changes the Game of Energy Storage - 3DVF Batteries are for cars, right? Tell that to a desert freight train turning downhill miles into stored power and making diesel sweat.

Another application that was meant to be the domain of hydrogen: Heavy-haul long distance freight railways.

3dvf.com/en/with-a-gi...

Disruption warning as company withdraws many buses from service following fire A company has announced that buses will be withdrawn from service, after one of their fleet was gutted by a fire in Crawley last week

Clickbait headline - it's actually a hydrogen bus that's gone up in flames...

www.theargus.co.uk/news/2567966...

BP pulls out of building Teesside hydrogen plant at Teesworks It follows the energy firm being locked in a dispute with landowners over what to build on the site.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Germany's green hydrogen industry is running out of time Firms are ready to make the equipment needed for green hydrogen, but demand has not picked up yet.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Europe's hydrogen dream has swallowed €20bn with little to show for it | Euractiv Despite generous subsidies, electrolyser numbers fall short of targets by a factor of 20

Meanwhile

www.euractiv.com/news/europes...

Alstom’s Hydrogen Retreat Marks A Turning Point For European Rail - CleanTechnica The future of hydrogen rail dims as Alstom suspends development, reinforcing a broader shift toward electric rail technologies across Europe.

Another big told you so...

Alstom’s Hydrogen Retreat Marks A Turning Point For European Rail - CleanTechnica share.google/jkOK2PbactWt...

BuT EvS aRe ToO eXpEnSiVe

This is a truly awesome demonstration of where EV technology is at now. Kudos to Mercedes.

Yep just shows the lengths people go to and power of lobbying and FUD.

I'm not sure how this is even still a debate. This is a presentation Martin Eberhard (CEO of Tesla) gave to CARB in 2006 that more than makes the point. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/o3sbz...

Here are some direct links to what has been going on in the UK:

bsky.app/profile/gwr....

bsky.app/profile/gwr....

bsky.app/profile/gwr....

Pulling away from a station off the wires.

Midland Main Line electrification pause down to lack of funds and bi-mode trains, Hendy says | New Civil Engineer The MML runs from St. Pancras to Sheffield, servicing many cities in the Midlands. Its electrification has been ongoing for some years, having started at

As usual the UK starts a job and then gives up half way.

Midland Main Line electrification pause down to lack of funds and bi-mode trains, Hendy says | New Civil Engineer share.google/RLLF0hbdALlz...

Well the reality is the UK can't even electrify its mainlines, yet alone the whole network. Solutions like this are more cost effective for a branch line that might see one train an hour.

Even train loving Japan, which has electrified nearly everything, sees a need for these in niche applications.

...and here from the overhead wires as it pulls into the mainline terminal station and recharges.

There was even a Toyota Prius style screen in each carriage informing passengers which energy source the train was running on and what systems it was powering. Here we are running on battery power...

These Hitachi made trains were running on various routes of a more modest 16 miles round trip, but in all other respects were like any other modern 2-car unit.

The typical Japanese attention to detail even extended to "Dual Energy Charge Train" branding on the flooring and other interior panels.

Great to see @gwr.com achieve 200 miles range in a converted battery powered ex-London Underground train this week. I hope it leads to modern units deployed across the UK.

On my trip to Japan last month I rode these 2 car BEMUs around Fukuoka. Here you see one charging at the turn around station.

Jesus wept 🤦

BBC now scared of energy efficiency.

Wrightbus at heart of £6.5bn hydrogen mega-project set to transform UK economy Ballymena’s Wrightbus is at the forefront of a transformative £6.5 billion clean hydrogen initiative that promises to create 24,300 jobs across the UK and position the nation as a global leader in ren...

Hydrogen pipedream:

www.loveballymena.online/post/wrightb...

Exclusive: Inside Aberdeen's hydrogen drought leaving dozens of £500k buses stuck in depot for a YEAR as gas firm cuts ties Aberdeen's looking to claim a share in the global hydrogen production race - but the council has been unable to fuel its fleet of hydrogen-powered buses since July.

Hydrogen reality:

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aber...

archive.is/4lPfc

Most unlike Clarkson to fabricate a straw man....not.

If only he'd concentrated on calling out Musk's personality and not the cars or their underlying technology :/

I was waiting for this article. Surprised it took him so long.

Direct air capture: An expensive, dangerous distraction from real climate solutions Separating carbon dioxide from air, while technically straightforward, is outrageously expensive.

If direct air capture (DAC), a CO₂ removal (CDR) technique, costs $500 per tonne, removing just US emissions would cost ~$3 trillion annually (that's ~4x US military spending).

It would also require twice the total power generation capacity of the US today (and it has to be 100% carbon-free).

Billion-euro hydrogen plant in Rotterdam may never open as industry stalls A massive hydrogen plant on the Tweede Maasvlakte, heralded as a key part of Rotterdam’s green energy transition, is now at risk of never becoming operational. The 1 billion euros Holland Hydrogen I p...

Oh dear

nltimes.nl/2025/03/23/b...

Live German election results The latest vote count, updated charts and maps from Germany’s 2025 federal election

Ironic that the constituency around the Tesla factory is one of only two places in the whole of east Germany that didn't vote AfD and instead went left (although sadly by only 0.1% - less than 200 votes)
www.reuters.com/graphics/GER...

Indeed, showing the main culprit is brakes. EVs hardly touch brakes, so will win in stop-start traffic. On an open road the heavier car will cause more wear, everything else being equal. But I question their assumption weight difference is 40% and do they consider "eco" tyres are more hard wearing?

EVs produce fewer non-exhaust emissions than fossil fuel vehicles, study finds New research finds that electric vehicles generally produce less non-exhaust particulate matter emissions through tyre wear and braking compared to combustion engine vehicles.

The Telegraph is going to have a meltdown when they see this: eandt.theiet.org/2025/02/12/e...

cc @bobbyllew.bsky.social