Trials on a Somerset farming operation suggest that, with a little more development, methane could be a viable proposition for powering tractors. It seems, then, that New Holland is on the right track.
View it as a genuine effort to be greener or just as a load of corporate guff, New Holland is clearly investing serious amounts of cash in its ‘Clean Energy Leader’ strategy. Having initially pursued the concept of an electrically driven tractor powered by hydrogen fuel cells — the NH2 — the company has now decided that the more realistic short-term option is to focus on the simpler, lower cost route of conventional internal combustion engines running on renewable fuels such as biogas.
It’s an idea initially spawned deep in the Austrian Alps by Steyr, along with a small independent engineering firm Lu Power, some eight years ago. Back then the concept used a mix of diesel and methane fuel, but, as the project has developed (it was shifted sideways to sit under CNH’s blue banner in 2013), it has moved towards a 100% gas content.
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