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[Richard230]

The city of San Francisco's garbage/recycling company is currently testing out a hydrogen/electric powered garbage truck that can be used to collect both household garbage and recycling materials. One fill up of H2 will allow the truck to operate for three days, compared with just one day for their diesel-powered trucks, which need to be refueled every day. Plus, it is a lot quieter, as the H2 is used to recharge a battery, which then supplies electricity to the motor which drives the truck. However, it does cost $1 million a copy, compared with half that amount for a typical diesel truck.

[Stonewolf]

The thing about all of those kinds of vehicles is they can put their own fuelling station in at the depot and contract for delivery on site.

[flynnstig82r]

I’m not sold on H2 for garbage trucks (or most applications, really). Their routes are relatively short and predictable, and they don’t operate 24/7, so they’re a better fit for BEV than H2.

As an aside, I was recently surprised to find out during a trip to Ghent, Belgium, that ICE garbage trucks are not inherently loud. One pulled up right next to our outdoor cafe, not 30 feet from where we were sitting, and we didn’t even have to raise our voices. It was no louder than a modern passenger car, both when it drove up and when it operated the arm. I’m sure it’s more expensive to make them so quiet, but I’m guessing still cheaper than full electrification. Given the low daily mileage, ICE might even be the most sustainable option, given the emissions cost of a large battery.

[Specter]

What about CNG, LNG?  Hydrogen is relatively expensive and as I stated before, has many.. issues.
How will they get the H2?   use electricity to electrolysis water?

so ok,  use electricity to make hydrogen, to run a motor, to make electricity to charge a battery to run a vehicle?

seems a bit inefficient to me.   why not just battery up and charge using the cheapest juice at the time?

Here's an idea,  make them run on methane.

Seal them up, fill with garbage, and throw a politician into each load.
Let sit for a week, siphon off the methane to refill the truck,  dump the load, go get this weeks garbage, repeat process.
It's self sustaining and ridding politicians.

a global win for the planet !!

Aaron

[T.S. Zarathustra]

They probably use "the cheapest juice at the time" to create the hydrogen. Hydrogen can be stored at least few months without issues. 

Methane is a great idea, specially for garbage trucks. All those garbage piles create methane naturally. And it's a greenhouse gas. Collect the methane from the garbage piles, clean it, fill the truck when it drops the garbage.

[Fran K]

I searched up an article.  It is fuel cell.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/climate/recology-tests-first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-garbage-truck-in-sf/article_de9c3074-6575-11ef-92a0-9fbb3a1e6f31.html

It goes to the transfer station not some landfull that has burried garbage, a membrane and collection piping.

"The truck’s fuel-cell system is expected to provide power over 125 miles, including trips to transfer stations, as well as roughly 1,200 cart lifts — the amount of times the garabage truck’s mechanical arm can lift garbage bins and empty them into its trash compactor."

Somehow this means the diesel comparable needs to refuel every 125 miles divided by 3?

[Richard230]

I searched up an article.  It is fuel cell.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/climate/recology-tests-first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-garbage-truck-in-sf/article_de9c3074-6575-11ef-92a0-9fbb3a1e6f31.html

It goes to the transfer station not some landfull that has burried garbage, a membrane and collection piping.

"The truck’s fuel-cell system is expected to provide power over 125 miles, including trips to transfer stations, as well as roughly 1,200 cart lifts — the amount of times the garabage truck’s mechanical arm can lift garbage bins and empty them into its trash compactor."

Somehow this means the diesel comparable needs to refuel every 125 miles divided by 3?

Thanks for finding that article. It explains things much better than I did. I got my information from a TV news report and couldn't recall all of the details. Earlier today I heard a report on the radio that the H2 truck has twice the range of the company's typical garbage collection truck.

BTW, a couple of days ago, another TV news report said that the Oakland Unified School District has a fleet of 73 battery-powered school busses to transport special needs children to their schools and back every day. They showed the fleet of new small busses and a long row of charging stations at their vehicle storage yard.

[Fran K]

Here is the picture and showing the metal bar in those kind of 96 gallon garbage containers I see around here.  I think it costs like $100 a quarter year in this general area for that service.  The recycle truck is separate, mostly.  Note it is not using the metal rod cast into the container that is how the trucks latch on that I see.  It is a tri axle and cab way forward.  Tri axle like a log truck not a dump truck. Similar garbage trucks must all be 10 wheelers around here.

Those battery school busses the small one for the special needs children.  Once they make it to auction, they could be super for a support vehicle for motorcycle rides.

[Richard230]

Here is the picture and showing the metal bar in those kind of 96 gallon garbage containers I see around here.  I think it costs like $100 a quarter year in this general area for that service.  The recycle truck is separate, mostly.  Note it is not using the metal rod cast into the container that is how the trucks latch on that I see.  It is a tri axle and cab way forward.  Tri axle like a log truck not a dump truck. Similar garbage trucks must all be 10 wheelers around here.

Those battery school busses the small one for the special needs children.  Once they make it to auction, they could be super for a support vehicle for motorcycle rides.

I have my garbage, recycling and compost waste picked up by the same company, Recology. But here they load the same type of containers manually. The driver gets out of his truck and pushes the containers over to the truck parked in the middle of the street. He then connects the bar on the container to a device on the side of the truck, which hauls it up and dumps it into the truck's interior.

I agree, when the Oakland school district tires of using the battery-powered school busses and decides to sell them for the next new thing, they would make a great buy for commercial or personal use. But you might need to add more batteries as I bet the range on those school busses is less than 100 miles at low speeds.

[Stonewolf]

Here they hook the front rim of the bin onto the truck and it upends it into the back with a simple rotating mechanism. The trucks aren't all that big and don't need a lot of wheels, they're generally not going far. You only see bigger ones with a lot of wheels when the dropoff site is far or there's an expectation of high loads per serviced property and the crews tend not to like those because they're harder to manoeuvre and mean longer tip runs. Ultimately a bin truck spends most of its active time stopped or slow-rolling and doesn't ultimately rack up a lot of mileage on any given day. Incidentally the very low, forward cab is to make it easy for the crew to just hop in and out.

[Specter]

Here they have two arms that grab the can by the sides and squeeze it to pick it up, flip it and dump it in the top of the truck, banging it a few times to shake loose anything that might be stuck in there.  It's a lot easier than trying to align a hook to the small bar area on the can, just pull up generally, drop the arm around the can, squeeze and go.

aaron

[Richard230]

An article in my newspaper today reports that California will invest $500 million in zero-emission school buses across the state. This will allow the state's school districts to purchase 1,000 "clean" vehicles, which will be added to the 1,100 zero-emission school buses that are currently in use in the state, according to the article written by Kristin J. Bender and published by the bayareanewsgroup.com.

I imagine that at some point in the future when they are worn out, a lot of these vehicles will be sold to private citizens, or more likely sold in lots and put on the auction block.