The search for an alternative fuel to power the world’s fleet of vehicles and machinery has taken many turns over the past few years, with much hope being placed on the lithium-ion battery as the primary energy storage method going forward.
Yet there was perhaps too much hope placed in them for despite the great advances in reducing charging time and enlarging their capacity, the established manufacturers of off road vehicles have done their sums and decided that they are no replacement for the current diesel engine.
Yet that doesn’t mean that all attempts to find an alternative method of powering construction and agricultural machinery have ended, for there is still synthetic diesel fuel and hydrogen (H) combustion as front runners to replace the present near universal diesel engine arrangement.
Machinery and vehicle engines for all fuels
The general trend among engine manufacturers is to design engines with the built-in ability to run on a variety of fuels into, the AGCO Core project being a notable example of corporations hedging their bets.
However, there is one company that has put its weight fully behind H power and has been pushing for its adoption for at least six years now.
That company is JCB and its chair, Anthony Bamford, is determined to see his vision of a carbon free off road fleet come to fruition through the use of this elemental gas.
Technical issues aside, and there are a multitude of them, one of the unspoken of problems, in JCB’s home country, is legislation.
Presently, H-powered construction and agricultural machines are not allowed to operate on UK roads, an issue that the then Lord Bamford (he has since resigned from the Lords) brought to the upper house in 2021.
The Sunak government eventually launched a consultation paper on the issue, with the closing date for submissions being April of this year (2024). So far, no results or conclusions have emerged from the exercise.
JCB given permission to test in machinery
In the meantime JCB, was been granted a vehicle special order last year, giving the company permission to test its H-powered diggers on UK roads.
It is this form of licence that the government wishes to extend to all companies allowing them to speed up the development of hydrogen power, although there is no indication that the general use of hydrogen in off road vehicles is any closer due to the on road restriction.
This has not prevented JCB from promoting the hydrogen powered combustion engine as an alternative to diesel.
Bamford himself has been to the fore in demonstrating the machines at press events, and various political leaders have been willing to show up and lend their weight to the campaign.
Despite all the enthusiasm on display for the switch to H, there will still need to be a distribution infrastructure put in place to supply the gas and while that is now taking shape it would be expediated if cars were also to run on hydrogen combustion.
This was recognised by Bamford back in 2020 when he expressed his opinion in the Lords that it was fossil fuels, not the internal combustion engine, that is the enemy.
This plea to stay the execution of this engine type was dismissed by the government on the grounds that it still produces nitrous oxides and therefore cannot be classified as zero emission.
Hydrogen production hold ups
In the same debate, the UK government also pointed to the £240 million it had committed to establishing electrolytic H production plants close to renewable energy sources such as offshore windfarms.
Presently, the majority of commercially available H is derived from fossil fuels where it is a by product of industrial processes.
Four years later, there are no electrically powered plants in operation and only one in the concept stage, suggesting that the problems with this method of hydrogen production have yet to be fully overcome, whether they be technical or financial.
JCB’s crusade to increase the awareness and acceptability of H gas as a replacement for diesel fuel in agricultural and construction machinery is a worthy attempt to find another method of energy management for vehicles.
Yet, despite the zeal of Bamford in his own efforts to push the gas forward the stumbling blocks, are such that it is unlikely we shall see the full roll out of either H-powered machines, or the infrastructure to keep them supplied, for a few years yet.
