New Holland’s revolutionary ZEV NH2 tractor will be making its North American debut at next week’s Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa… but it’s much more than a static concept: it’s a fully-functional prototype of (what New Holland hopes will be) the farm tractor of tomorrow.
More – including pictures and videos – after the jump.
Tractors may not be the sexiest thing on wheels, but agricultural equipment manufacturer New Holland hopes to change that with its new NH2 tractor, which promises sexy tech in the form of a 106 hp hydrogen fuel-cell powerplant and sexy styling from Turin, Italy.
Based on New Holland’s current T6000 tractor, the NH2 features two electric motors that provide power to drivetrain operations and auxiliaries, respectively. New Holland claims that the nearly emissions free tractor can run for up to 2 hours on a single tank of hydrogen.
The NH2’s innovative design makes use of a gear-less powertrain, which—when coupled to the NH2′s electric motors—leads to nearly silent operation (as seen in the video, below).
New Holland hopes their new tech is adopted by organic “off the grid” farmers, and that equipment like the NH2 will (because they have sufficient real-estate to install alternative energy systems) be able to become more energy independent and improve farmer’s overall financial stability by “liberating” them from dependence on petroleum-based fuels.
SOURCE: New Holland / Gizmag.
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This is fantastic technology, however, it’s not exactly what Corn Belt Farmers want. The average corn farmer will Not make the capital investment that New Holland envisions – solar panels, electrolyzers, and high-pressure pumps and tanks. They won’t want the extra work of operating and maintaining this equipment either – especially when there’s a better way.
The Corn Belt already produces its own hydrogen-rich fuel – ethanol. Up to 50% water can be added to ethanol, and it will still combust in a conventional engine. For fuel cells, we already have compact, efficient fuel reformers that can extract all the hydrogen from the ethanol, plus half the hydrogen from the water – onboard the vehicle. This may not be quite as pristine, but liquid fuel in a moving vehicle is way more practical.
The farmer is actually using a localized fuel that he helps to produce. And using local unfinished ethanol to grow crops lowers the carbon footprint dramatically. The fuel is derived from recycled CO2, not the newly mined carbon that is contained in petroleum based fuels.
Configure this tractor with an onboard ethanol-water fuel reformer, running on dirt cheap, unfinished local ethanol from the biorefinery down the road, and you just totally eliminated the upfront capital cost and the obligation to the farmer. He simply fills his tank with ethanol-water and runs his tractor all day long on liquid fuel, instead of dealing with the logistics of refueling with bulky hydrogen every two hours.
Ethanol-water is a real and practical source of hydrogen – Check this out:
https://sites.google.com/site/e1004freeread/
This tractor was developed in Italy, without regard to the significance of ethanol in Iowa. There are several things that hold hydrogen back as a universal fuel: The huge capital investment in the infrastructure, the high pressure equipment and tanks for bulky hydrogen, and the logistics, etc. Ethanol-water liquid fuel leap-frogs these disadvantages.
I just wrote an e-book that explains this in more detail. See: E-100-4 The Revolutionary Fuel – Just Add Water
This is fantastic technology, however, it’s not exactly what Corn Belt Farmers want. The average corn farmer will Not make the capital investment that New Holland envisions – solar panels, electrolyzers, and high-pressure pumps and tanks. They won’t want the extra work of operating and maintaining this equipment either – especially when there’s a better way.
The Corn Belt already produces its own hydrogen-rich fuel – ethanol. Up to 50% water can be added to ethanol, and it will still combust in a conventional engine. For fuel cells, we already have compact, efficient fuel reformers that can extract all the hydrogen from the ethanol, plus half the hydrogen from the water – onboard the vehicle. This may not be quite as pristine, but liquid fuel in a moving vehicle is way more practical.
The farmer is actually using a localized fuel that he helps to produce. And using local unfinished ethanol to grow crops lowers the carbon footprint dramatically. The fuel is derived from recycled CO2, not the newly mined carbon that is contained in petroleum based fuels.
Configure this tractor with an onboard ethanol-water fuel reformer, running on dirt cheap, unfinished local ethanol from the biorefinery down the road, and you just totally eliminated the upfront capital cost and the obligation to the farmer. He simply fills his tank with ethanol-water and runs his tractor all day long on liquid fuel, instead of dealing with the logistics of refueling with bulky hydrogen every two hours.
Ethanol-water is a real and practical source of hydrogen – Check this out:
https://sites.google.com/site/e1004freeread/
This tractor was developed in Italy, without regard to the significance of ethanol in Iowa. There are several things that hold hydrogen back as a universal fuel: The huge capital investment in the infrastructure, the high pressure equipment and tanks for bulky hydrogen, and the logistics, etc. Ethanol-water liquid fuel leap-frogs these disadvantages.
I just wrote an e-book that explains this in more detail. See: E-100-4 The Revolutionary Fuel – Just Add Water