What Ottawa Can Study From Hydrogen Transit Failures Throughout Canada and Past

Help CleanTechnica’s work by means of a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

Ottawa’s transit system is working by means of troublesome decisions at a second when reliability, price management, and public confidence matter greater than ever. The fleet is growing old, budgets are tight, and ridership continues to be recovering from the pandemic. Choices made within the subsequent two or three years will form the standard of service for greater than a decade. When Council debates propulsion applied sciences, it isn’t debating an summary query. It’s debating service frequency, fleet availability, upkeep workload, long run price publicity, and the essential potential of transit to help a rising metropolis.

OC Transpo has roughly 30 battery electrical buses in service as we speak, with the remainder of its a number of hundred automobiles nonetheless working on diesel or diesel hybrid propulsion. A big share of these diesel buses are growing old out of their service life, which makes substitute unavoidable over the subsequent few years. Town is inserting a robust deal with excessive capability buses as a result of they’re important for restoring dependable and frequent service as Ottawa strikes towards a bigger electrical fleet. And at this level, there may be restricted expertise with excessive capability electrical buses in Canada, making OC Transpo’s choices difficult.

My latest delegation to the Transit Fee took place as a result of some councillors had signaled that hydrogen buses may nonetheless be into account for Ottawa. Councillor Lo’s early draft modification included language that may have reopened the door to hydrogen. Throughout the assembly itself, feedback prompt that some had been nonetheless enthusiastic about assessing hydrogen for transit use. Councillor Tierney, particularly, requested earlier delegations about hydrogen and mentioned the town was contemplating it for different municipal automobiles. Though the modification was finally tightened to solely allow diesel and hybrid buses within the close to time period, these alerts made it clear that hydrogen had not totally left the dialog. That’s the solely motive I proceeded with my delegation as a substitute of merely giving time again to council, the OC Transpo employees and different delegations who had been on the finish of an extended day.

I didn’t strategy Ottawa alone. I used to be invited to talk particularly about hydrogen by Raymond Leury, president of the Electrical Car Council of Ottawa, after hydrogen buses resurfaced in council discussions. Raymond and his colleagues had labored for years to maneuver OC Transpo towards battery electrical buses and had been apprehensive that the brand new movement from Councillor Lo, mixed with discuss of hydrogen for heavy responsibility municipal automobiles, was reopening the door to a expertise that they had already assessed as uneconomic and excessive danger. They requested me to offer a 5 minute delegation to the Transit Committee targeted on the monetary, operational, and local weather issues of hydrogen fleets, partially as a result of they wished councillors to listen to that message from somebody who spends most of his time evaluating actual world transit applied sciences.

My objective was to offer councillors entry to top quality details about hydrogen in actual world transit functions. I offered solely factual materials from main sources, together with US Division of Vitality fleet reviews, European JIVE and Clear Hydrogen standing paperwork, Canadian municipal case research, and peer reviewed analysis in Nature on hydrogen leakage and oblique warming results. These are all excessive reliability sources that doc how hydrogen performs outdoors of promoting materials. They present constant patterns throughout areas and climates. Hydrogen gas is pricey as a result of each a part of the availability chain will increase price. Hydrogen buses have excessive upkeep necessities and low availability. Refueling stations are fragile and infrequently down for repairs. Gasoline cell stacks degrade shortly beneath heavy use. Hydrogen leakage creates oblique warming impacts. Fossil hydrogen carries very excessive upstream emissions. Electrolysis multiplies no matter carbon depth is within the grid by roughly an element of three as a result of a lot electrical energy is misplaced within the conversion and compression steps. Trucking hydrogen lengthy distances provides emissions and operational danger. Once I assessed a number of hydrogen bus pilots in Canada and overseas, a number of would have produced increased nicely to wheel emissions than diesel if that they had continued.

This materials was contrasted with the reliability and maturity of battery electrical buses. The comparability was primarily based on subject knowledge slightly than assumptions. The place battery electrical fleets wrestle, the problems are often predictable: chilly climate vary loss, depot capability upgrades, and charging throughput. These challenges are manageable and declining in severity as power density improves and as companies acquire operational expertise. The path of price and functionality for battery electrical buses is strongly constructive. The path of price and complexity for hydrogen buses shouldn’t be.

Ottawa and OC Transpo are managing actual constraints. Upkeep staffing is skinny. Bus availability is decrease than the town wants. Storage services require funding. Working budgets are tight. Town wants propulsion applied sciences that scale back complexity slightly than enhance it. Hydrogen buses introduce a wholly new expertise class into the upkeep store, with excessive strain techniques, complicated cooling loops, and steadiness of plant gear that calls for specialised coaching and instruments. Electrical buses, against this, share many elements with present diesel hybrids and combine extra easily into depot operations. The difficulty shouldn’t be ideology. It’s the relationship between expertise alternative and repair high quality.

Throughout his responding remarks, Councillor Tierney referenced Reddit threads as a part of his personal data base and famous that I had been named in these discussions as somebody towards hydrogen, an advert hominem response to an expert offering a delegation and unrelated to the content material of my presentation. Reddit is a big on-line discussion board the place many individuals focus on hydrogen, transit, power techniques, and a variety of different matters. I’ve written lots about hydrogen, as I’ve about a number of decarbonization challenges and aggressive options, so it isn’t stunning that my work will get talked about there. For the document, as all the time, I’m not towards hydrogen, I’m towards it getting used the place there are extra price and local weather efficient alternate options, as is the case with all of floor transportation. The distinction is price acknowledging with out judgment. My delegation referenced work from the US Division of Vitality, European hydrogen applications, Nature, and Canadian municipal data. Reddit displays curiosity and debate however doesn’t substitute direct proof from the sphere. None of this must be adversarial. It solely highlights the significance of grounding main procurement choices in main knowledge.

Councillor Tierney performs an necessary position on Ottawa’s Transportation Committee and the Transit Fee, and he’s clearly engaged in questions on how the town ought to renew its fleet. His curiosity in hydrogen, and his feedback referring to on-line discussions, present that he’s attempting to know a posh subject throughout a interval of speedy technological change. That deserves respect. On the similar time, the empirical document on hydrogen in municipal fleets shouldn’t be on his aspect. Each main North American and European hydrogen bus challenge that has produced usable knowledge has encountered excessive prices, low availability, fragile refueling infrastructure, and early gas cell degradation. A number of Canadian pilots have already been shut down. Even Beijing, a metropolis with a local weather similar to Ottawa’s and which launched hydrogen refueling stations and buses for the Winter Olympics in 2022 sees shuttered stations and most of the hydrogen buses completely parked as we speak, per reporting from China. The transit companies which have deserted hydrogen have accomplished so as a result of the expertise made their service much less dependable, not due to ideology.

There isn’t any scarcity of friends he may communicate with. Winnipeg, Edmonton, Whistler, Cologne, Aberdeen, and several other California companies have all labored instantly with hydrogen fleets and may describe their operational and monetary challenges intimately. Their expertise is extra related to Ottawa than promotional materials or on-line commentary. If Councillor Tierney seeks out these municipalities and listens to what their engineers and operations groups have realized, he’ll discover that they level in the identical path. Hydrogen is troublesome to handle, costly to function, and laborious on a upkeep workforce. Battery electrical fleets, though not good, are bettering shortly on price, vary, and reliability. Ottawa could be nicely served by grounding future propulsion choices within the lived expertise of cities which have already traveled this path.

Councillor Tierney shouldn’t be somebody who spends his time within the type of technoeconomic assessments that transportation and local weather applied sciences require, and his instructional {and professional} background doesn’t deal with that area. Like most municipal leaders, he depends upon skilled steerage when choices contain complicated engineering and financial tradeoffs. On hydrogen particularly, he could be nicely served by in search of out consultants who do spend their careers in these technoeconomic assessments, in addition to practitioners and companies which have operated these fleets and may present grounded recommendation.

The modification that handed provides OC Transpo quick time period flexibility to buy diesel and hybrid buses to handle the speedy fleet scarcity. That may be a sensible determination given the necessity to maintain buses on the highway. On the similar time, the electrical transition is accelerating quicker than many understand. Canada already has lengthy vary, 60 foot battery electrical buses working in actual winter circumstances in Winnipeg, a metropolis which tried to sq. the fiscal circle of hydrogen for transit and correctly walked away. Their operational knowledge will arrive inside months, not years. Battery power density continues to enhance. Charging {hardware} is changing into less complicated and cheaper. Canada’s new transit fund will encourage electrification as a result of the economics more and more favor it. My expectation is that almost all of Ottawa’s future lengthy bus purchases over this time period of Council shall be battery electrical as a result of that’s the place the worldwide proof factors and the place federal incentives align.

Though I didn’t elevate it throughout my delegation as a result of my restricted time was targeted on getting into price, reliability, and local weather proof about hydrogen fleets into the document, it’s price noting that in-motion charging is rising quickly in international transit planning. A number of European and Asian cities are actually adopting electrical trolleybus techniques with onboard batteries that cost whereas the bus is shifting beneath quick sections of overhead wire. This strategy avoids the associated fee and operational fragility of hydrogen whereas lowering the necessity for enormous depot charging buildouts and the dimensions and therefore expense of on-bus batteries. It additionally offers important flexibility as a result of buses can depart the wired sections and function freely on battery energy for the rest of the route. If OC Transpo shouldn’t be already analyzing in-motion charging as a part of its long run electrification technique, it ought to take into account doing so as a result of it aligns nicely with Ottawa’s working patterns and presents a further instrument for growing reliability and managing winter vary wants with out introducing a wholly new propulsion system.

Ottawa has already made necessary progress on electrification. The dedication to early pilot tasks and to modernizing storage infrastructure set the town on the fitting path. The controversy over propulsion applied sciences is wholesome so long as the proof is taken severely. I admire that Council has saved its deal with restoring reliability, growing frequency, and making transit a reliable alternative for extra residents. These priorities matter greater than any particular expertise. As one councilor rightly identified, it’s higher to get 35 automobiles off of the highway by placing one diesel bus on the highway than to depart the automobiles in operation. And, in fact, new diesel buses will final 15 years, committing the town to extra emissions and air pollution, and so are decidedly imperfect.  I’ll gladly proceed to offer proof, evaluation, or direct help to councillors and employees who need to perceive what international transit companies have realized about decarbonizing fleets whereas bettering service.