The hydrogen-powered tractor may soon be a reality

Sunday, December 4, 2011

The second-generation of the New Holland NH2 tractor will begin on-farm trials in Italy by year's end. The aim: to prove that hydrogen power on the farm is not just science fiction

by MIKE MULHERN

When Pierre LaHutte talks about the future of the hydrogen tractor, he says production for farm use could be nine or 10 years in the future.

In his 2002 book, "The Hydrogen Economy," author Jeremy Rifkin predicted hydrogen fuel cell cars would be in North American showrooms by 2010. Rifkin could point to a General Motors concept car, the Hy-wire at the Paris Auto Show, running on hydrogen power. LaHutte can cite a prototype New Holland hydrogen powered, 106-h.p. tractor and a second-generation hydrogen powered tractor that will begin on-farm trials later this year.

We all know Rifkin's prediction did not come true but there may be more credibility for the future of hydrogen tractors because, in New Holland's model, the farm itself is the fuel source.

LaHutte is the head of global product management for tractors and precision farming for New Holland. He is based in Turin, Italy, which is close to a 1,000-acre, privately-owned farm which gets its power from solar panels on the roof of a chicken barn and from a large biodigester powered by manure from a dairy farm and from biomass produced on the farm. 

"It's really a model farm developed in the last 20 years to be a model in terms of technology and sustainability," LaHutte says. It's just the kind of farm New Holland sees as the model prototype of a future where farms produce their own energy, not just to run electric motors and appliances but also to produce propulsion for tillage equipment.

"Our goal on this farm," he says, "is to demonstrate full-scale the viability of concepts which are sometimes perceived as science fiction, but which are not." He adds that the farm is one place where the hydrogen economy can be implemented right now, because farms can harness water, wind, solar and biomass to create electricity for creating hydrogen by electrolysis, a process that uses electricity to break water down into oxygen and hydrogen.

With hydrogen stored on the farm in compressed hydrogen tanks, fuel cells can be used to power equipment. The prototype NH2 tractor, New Holland says, operates almost silently and emits only heat and water. "The fuel cell generates less heat than an internal combustion engine, offers a consistent output of power and does not produce polluting nitrogen oxides, soot particles or carbon dioxide."

On-farm trials of the second-generation NH2 tractor will begin by the end of this year at LaBellotta Farm in Venaria, near Turin. It will be used in conjunction with trials of electrically powered implements, such as seed drills, planters, transplanters and spreaders.

The hydrogen will be produced by renewable sources on the farm.

They are also working to improve recovery of both methane and hydrogen. La Bellota Farm, owned by Luca Remmert, is working with New Holland to draw hydrogen gas from an early stage of the biodigester process. "Before getting to the biogas digester," LaHutte says, "we are going to have the biogas go through a nitrogen reactor to extract hydrogen." He says the process, if proved viable, will also increase the methane yield at the end of the process.

A New Holland website (http://www.thecleanenergyleader.com/en/faq.html#hydrogen) answers a lot of questions about hydrogen and this tractor. One of the more interesting observations is that hydrogen, when derived using electricity to separate the oxygen and hydrogen molecules in water, uses less water than required in the production of gasoline.

Converting the entire U.S. fleet of cars to fuel cell vehicles, the website says, would require about 300 billion litres of water per year to supply the needed hydrogen. The production of a comparable amount of gasoline, however, requires 900 billion litres of water.

The tractor itself makes no discernible noise when it runs, there are no gears and no power loss, thanks to continuous electrical drive. There is no power shuttle – you just reverse the electric motor – and power takeoff speed is variable from zero to 1,000. BF