World’s First Fuel Cell Tractor Debuts in Italy
Attention, farmers: New Holland introduced the world’s first fuel cell tractor today in Turin, Italy, and it looks like a fun ride. The tractor’s fuel cell generates 106hp, and its hydrogen tank can hold enough to power the tractor for 1.5 to 2 hours.
New Holland’s tractor lacks a gearbox or clutch. Instead, drivers increase or decrease the motor’s power to speed up or slow down.
While hydrogen obviously requires electricity (often derived from fossil fuels), New Holland believes that farms are an ideal place for a hydrogen-powered vehicle since many of them make their own fuel or produce electricity from wind and solar sources.
The company says that the tractor will be out for testing in 2011, with a full roll-out expected in 2013. New Holland is staying silent about the pricetag, but the fuel cell alone costs €300,000.
Photo Credit: Farmer’s Weekly
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February 12th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Two hours of tilling per fill up? That wouldn’t allow for many trips around the farm. You would spend half your day filling the tracker.
However it is a start.
Now all you need is a big wind mill to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen to power the tracker. Sounds like a big investment.
February 12th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
This is certainly not the first fuel cell tractor! You have to go back at least to the 1950’s for the first fuel cell tractor.
See http://americanhistory.si.edu/fuelcells/alk/alkmain.htm
“One of the first of these demonstrations consisted of a 1959 Allis-Chalmers farm tractor powered by a stack of 1,008 cells. With 15,000 watts of power, the tractor generated enough power to pull a weight of about 3,000 pounds. (The tractor was later donated to the Smithsonian.) Allis-Chalmers maintained a research program for some years, building a fuel cell powered golf cart, submersible, and fork lift. The U.S. Air Force also participated in this program. “
February 13th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
106 HP, 2 hour max run time and 300K euros for the cell alone.
If you were growing Opium, coca, and Marijuana you might be able to make a farm profitable with a tractor like that, otherwise you will need massive government subsidies. Wouldn’t a biogas or boi fuel tractor make much better sense, then you can use your own farms waste products to fuel the machinery that produces the crop.
Green products will succeed in the market place when they are more efficient at doing the job of the equipment they hope to replace. Until then they are a way to get government grants and waste tax payers dollars.
February 14th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Two hours? No. 1 1/2 hours max. You’d need that extra (?) 1/2 hour to get back for the refill.
February 14th, 2009 at 5:32 am
As Rob pointed out, this is not the first fuel cell tractor. Allis-Chalmers was so far ahead of most other ag tractor outfits that people have forgotten just how far advanced they were. Allis started putting turbos onto tractor engines (the D-19, 1961 I think) when other farm equipment companies were still wondering why anyone not flying at high altitude wanted one on an engine.
This fuel cell machine is rather far off the mark of a usable tractor, it has a very long way to go to be viable in the market.
A 105HP* tractor, with moderate bells and whistles, would probably run about $120K, new. Here, they’re talking about 300K UKP just for the fuel cell. For the cost of the whole tractor (probably closer to 400K UKP) you could buy two larger tractors than this and a planter or other piece of essential equipment.
On a diesel machine, you should be able to fill the diesel tank in the morning and run for 8 to 14 hours before needing to fill it again.
Pressurizing H2 to 350 bar (> 5,000 psi) is a feat in and of itself, and will require quite a bit of energy, not to mention time and special fittings to accomplish when re-filling the tractor. During planting and harvest times, it isn’t unusual for a farmer to be pushing nearly 24 hours a day to get the job done, and time spent dawdling while re-filling a tractor is time not spent in the field. Our diesel pumps would pump at about 12GPM (about twice as fast as a retail gas pump) and it would still take 10 minutes to fill the fuel tank on most 150HP tractors. For the bigger machines, they use 30+GPM pumps. Many farmers will have a diesel tank in the back of their farm pickup to bring 90 or so gallons out to the edge of the field along with other supplies to be able to refill the fuel tank without going back up to the farmstead. That’s not going to be easily possible if we’re talking of filling a tank to 350 bar.
It’s a nice idea, but the gap between what a lot of “green” engineers think farmers need and what farmers actually need is huge and growing.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Using what is called (sorry for this direct translation from my native language) “simplified cultivation techniques” (no tillage, for example), wouldn’t a tractor require less horsepower and gain as much autonomy?
Wouldn’t a “photovoltaic solar panels > hydrogen generator by water catalysis > compressor” production chain suffice for the needs of such a low powered tractor, considering average milking breeders consumption in european family farming for example?
Is it utopian expecting massive cost reduction along with mass production for fuel cells? And also better performances (in particular using pure hydrogen produced by means of water catalysis?)