Which freight modes can run on batteries or hydrogen, and what does it cost in payload?

research/infra-propulsion

Freight energy per tonne-km from first principles for truck, unit train, bulk carrier and 747 freighter, then diesel swapped for batteries or hydrogen at the same gross mass and range: at 250 Wh/kg a truck keeps 79% of its payload, a train 93%, a ship 55% and the freighter cannot fly the route; 90% needs ~510, 180, 990 and 5,600 Wh/kg (most inputs assumed and swept).

9 tests

What it found

A force-balance model of four freight modes (truck rolling plus air drag, Davis train resistance, Admiralty-law ship, aircraft at L/D) gives the cruise-only floor of 0.50, 0.10, 0.035 and 4.4 MJ of fuel per net tonne-km. Swapping the store at fixed gross mass and range: a 250 Wh/kg pack leaves a truck (800 km) 79 % of its diesel payload, a unit train (1,500 km) 93 %, a Panamax bulk carrier (20,000 km) 55 %, and a 747-400F cannot reach 8,250 km (669 km at zero payload). Keeping 90 % of the payload needs about 510, 180, 990 and 5,600 Wh/kg; 700-bar hydrogen keeps 95, 98 and 90 % on the first three, liquid hydrogen 90 % on the aircraft. Checks: a Semi-like truck gives 1.76 against a rated 1.7 kWh/mile (+4 %, assumed inputs); the diesel truck floor is 7.6 mpg against 5.5–6.5 for fleets; the train model reaches 0.46–0.61 of the FHWA rail figure because grades, stops and idling are not modelled. Limits: most drag, efficiency and tank-fraction inputs are assumed and only partly swept; vehicle structure mass is held fixed; no reserves, volume limits, cost or charging.

A figure from its own output

Figure produced by research/infra-propulsion: payload — infra-propulsion/experiments/payload.svg, written by the project's own experiment code.

Paper, code and results

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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.