South Africa : Biggest Hydrogen Fuel Truck Launched

South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday unveiled the world’s largest hydrogen-powered truck, a monster weighing 220 tonnes, at a platinum mine in northern South Africa. The launch was hosted at the Anglo American Platinum Mine in Mogalakwena (about 250km from Johannesburg) where the truck and a new hydrogen plant was introduced. The plant will produce hydrogen by combining water from a borehole and sunlight, which will allow the mine to produce their own fuel for the hybrid truck. The mine aims to replace all diesel machinery with hybrid machinery in the next few years as to reduce emissions.
Billed as the first of a fleet that will replace the firm’s diesel-powered trucks, the vehicle uses 2 megawatts hydrogen fuel cells to haul up to 290 tonnes of ore. While launching the project on Friday President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “What we are launching is not merely an impressive piece of machinery, it is the genesis of an entire ecosystem powered by hydrogen.”  Comparable in size to a small house, the behemoth according to President Ramaphosa is a gigantic leap for South Africa’s hydrogen future economy.
The Anglo American firm that is piloting the project aims to be carbon neutral by 2040. It will also use solar power to provide the fuel, using the energy to split water into its component atoms of hydro...