JCB is moving to hydrogen power for all their big machinery. Here’s why.

so we We are very excited about the opportunity to further increase the pressures, they are at 700, yes, so I dare say, well, why did you stop at 350 and not 500? I think the truck world will go a long way to 350. bar is a very usable pressure, hydraulic machines are now 350 bar, so we feel very comfortable, that's right, it's good to have 700 bar, but I think 700 bar will require a lot of compression, so the automotive world had used 700 bar probably to allow the installation of a tank in a very small area, but in reality the amount of work you have to do to get to 700 bar uses energy, so it is very , very high and you actually have space on a machine and if you get more than the Days without that, yeah, I guess that's what you're looking for, right?

And then of course if you're at 700 bar the carbon wrap on the tanks is more than twice as thick so the tanks become much more expensive. because it's proportionately harder the higher the load, so that's the goal for 350. Okay, okay, it'll all make sense, yeah, yeah, great start and we feel very comfortable refueling now, yeah, what we would do. What I love to do is carry you, t

here

's a telescopic handle, a gseb load, we all go back to farming. Understands this. Like, I recognize this one, so this is the famous JCB Lord Hall, yeah, um, so this is used in both construction and zeroware farming, yeah, we like this, it's impossible to go gardening without one of these.

I don't know how people do it. You know, now that you put the tanks

here

, it seems pretty low to me. Yeah, what's our first um. At the time, we were only able to get tanks that were a bit larger, so this is very much prototype number one, but as you'll see very soon, the machines heading into production have gone back to exactly the same distance to the floor, absolutely perfect. both ground clearance and performance in the ability to dig exactly the same features as the existing machines so when you look at the engine on this one yeah let's take a look and within this we have the engine installation.

You'll know the engine installation quite well, yes, I think this was the third prototype engine we built in the early days, so we've been running it and testing it for quite a few hours and it's really exciting that it fits. exactly the same place, the same killer package, the same hood, the exact same color, exactly, so the intercooler works the same, yes, exactly, it's time to improve the exact same features, my goodness, yes, because you really have You have to look to recognize it, wouldn't you see it? the plugs, yes, the actual coil pack is on top, yes, but again, the

hydrogen

, where does the

hydrogen

come in to get it into your rail system?

So yes, in The Far Side we bring the supply at the opposite end through this, through this rail. and then the big rail here, yeah, the spark plugs are here with

their

coil packs on top, like it's more engine, so yeah, yeah, they're saying the service is the same too, right? Yes, I mean one of one of one. from the things written it's a machine that has worked several hundred hours, well, no carbon generated, no carbon, no carbon, perfectly clean oil, quite surprising, obviously the oil still degrades, but again it stays clean if you look at the engine, so if we took this engine apart, we took it completely apart and the inside was completely clean.

Carbon free motor is great for making motors last longer. I guess I don't really know that well, so as you say, the oil would break down due to the pressure, wouldn't it? but as long as we have oil, we would change it at the same service intervals, but again, the interesting thing is the cleanliness of the oil, it's also pretty fantastic, and then can you imagine seeing an engine stripped down and what it looks like? As good as it was when you put it together. I don't know engines like that, no, that's good, right? I can try?

Yeah, certainly, I just want to hear it because you say it's a different sound. If then. We'll leave that Bonnet and go get the keys right now. We've changed the microphone on the cameras because I just want to hear this running because Jimmy, you're saying it sounds a little different, yeah, so you're doing it with it no longer a diesel compression engine and going to spark ignition and it's a lot. smoother, so you don't necessarily get that popping sound, but what you'll find in the hydrogen engine is because it's using a lot of air. and a small amount of hydrogen, you hear a little bit of turbo noise that we're refining and again you'll see here that our exhaust system is actually an air vent similar to the one you have in your kitchen. that um that literally blows out steam.

I couldn't believe it because I was looking for the escape, so it actually works. It's a naturally quieter engine, yes, than a diesel engine, naturally, and much smoother, okay? Or should we listen to that? Yes, okay, we'll have to run, it doesn't have that noise at all, yes, very, very sweet, very, um, very soft, that's the same, yes, I recognize that the dominant noise is really that of the turbo, yes , it's working, really good, that will start working. reduce that of course that's it in terms of uh with a Sheen to work with and operate is a good deal we're not putting out much steam it's just going to come out like uh it's clear air today that's a cold. start without any more steam then yeah yeah it's a lot cooler especially if there's a lot of humidity around it will create more slope yeah well we're good buddy that's all but I noticed right when it started that there was a slight delay, what's more.

Crank is also needed, yeah, I think rotation, I mean, I wouldn't worry too much about that, let's see. I want it to be our first prototype in a load. Also yes, some of the software is very early, we are pretty good at perfecting it. as we start running our test machines, um, that's what we really feel, so we love to refine the noise, tune it, tune the machines and things like the startup procedure, all of that will really be refined to run at The perfection. as always, very good, thank you very much Tim, that's great, thank you, well, I found it fascinating.

I hope you did too. What I learned from that day was that they are betting on hydrogen, there is no turning back, they absolutely see that it has all the advantages they expect. for a new

power

train and to have zero emissions Beyond diesel, they have looked into the battery, the JCB thing, they really tried it, but they build battery excavators, small ones, that use closed spaces and that kind of thing, and they also tried cells of fuel but the key with

their

earth

moving

machines, diggers and diggers is that they work with heavy loads for two hours longer so the batteries can cope, how are you going to charge a large 20 ton excavator doing hs2?

Rail line in the middle of nowhere for eight or ten hours the operators simply can't do it with hydrogen, which means that although all those worries have gone away, it's still zero emissions and it's also interesting that this campaign for a dollar for a kilo of hydrogen could

power

our agricultural equipment is even cheaper than it is today with red diesel. It's extraordinary how this idea that hydrogen solves a lot of the problems we're trying to power heavy equipment with batteries is changing. Another conclusion is: I wonder when the UK government will leave. to wake up that battery and electric are not the answer to everything, you can't just tick a box so it's going to be electric, we're done there, let's figure something else out, it's going to be a multi-pronged approach to get there.

Net Zero, all of these machines have different requirements and not all of them are powered by batteries. The final conclusion was that emerging markets like India have been at the forefront of converting to hydrogen because there are several countries that could really invest in solar energy and suddenly it is like having an oil well. Oil reserves in your country. Everyone gets sun. They have access to water. Therefore, they can do electrolysis and produce hydrogen. And they can convert their fleet of machines to build the country's structure to hydrogen. They are suddenly producing themselves, they are not dependent on having to buy oil and gas reserves from someone or some neighbor, it makes a huge difference to their balance of payments, it is so intriguing, incredible, hats off to JCB, even where they have arrived.

I just checked the engineering box, it's just the structure and how we get hydrogen and how we can produce green hydrogen across Europe and other countries to serve these new machines, but to me it seems like the absolute answer to where we are. We are going to promote this type of machines, combine heavy vehicles, etc. in the future, so there you have it, I hope you enjoyed the video, if you did well, keep watching and subscribing, more videos will be coming very soon.