INLD’s Sampat Singh calls Jind-Sonepat hydrogen train project ‘thermodynamic ignorance’

The high-profile inauguration of the Jind-Sonepat hydrogen-powered train by Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents “a monument to thermodynamic ignorance” and “a calculated exercise in political theatre”, former Haryana finance minister and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Prof Sampat Singh alleged here on Saturday.

Opposing the project, the INLD leader demanded an independent audit of its lifetime energy costs and described it as a “high-tech heist across every political and popular forum in the state”.

In a written statement, Prof Singh alleged that the project marked “an institutional abdication of scientific governance”, forcing Haryana into “a permanent energy penalty to generate empty political headlines”.

“When analysed on a rigorous well-to-wheel basis—measuring total efficiency from the primary energy source to the actual motion of the vehicle—direct rail electrification utterly decimates the hydrogen route. The government is willfully deploying an unscientific, highly inefficient and fiscally ruinous technology on a mainline transit corridor that could far more easily and economically be fully electrified,” the statement reads.

Terming the project a “misadventure”, Prof Singh said:

“In a standard electrified railway operating on an overhead catenary system, approximately 75% to 85% of the original electrical energy generated seamlessly reaches the wheels. Conversely, the green hydrogen pathway undergoes a tragic cascade of thermodynamic decay. The initial transformation of renewable power into green hydrogen through electrolysis immediately bleeds away 25% to 35% of the input energy. The subsequent requirements of compression, liquefaction and transport extract another 10% to 15% system drain. Finally, the onboard fuel cell, tasked with reconverting this gas back into electricity, operates at a disastrously low efficiency of 50% to 60%.”

Explaining his argument, Prof Singh said that starting with 100 kWh of renewable electricity would leave about 80 kWh at the wheels of an electrified train, compared with only 30 to 32 kWh through the hydrogen route.

“To perform the exact same transportation work on the Jind-Sonepat line, a hydrogen train requires roughly 2.5 to 3 times more renewable electricity than direct electrification,” he stated, adding that this was “not progress rather an institutionalised energy deficit”.

The INLD leader said the criticism echoed that of global industrialist Elon Musk, who has described hydrogen fuel cells for direct transport as “mind-bogglingly stupid” and referred to the commercial proposition as “fuel cells equal fool sells”.

Prof Singh said hydrogen trains should be used only as a last-resort solution.

“They are considered economically viable exclusively on remote, low-traffic branch lines where the low volume of transit fails to justify the capital expenditure of installing overhead wires and thus are never chosen for their energy efficiency; they are tolerated only to circumvent infrastructure costs on dead routes,” he said.

He alleged that selecting the busy Jind-Sonepat corridor for the project was unjustified, adding that full electrification would reduce operating energy consumption to one-third.

Calling the project a “façade”, Prof Singh said the INLD condemned the alleged multi-crore wastage, claiming the use of hydrogen technology was “not about consumer welfare or environmental stewardship” but an artificial market created to benefit select corporate suppliers of specialised infrastructure.

The former finance minister further alleged that Haryana’s fiscal health could not withstand such policy experiments.

“Haryana’s green energy reserves must belong to its farmers, its youth and its working class — not cannibalised by a corporate house of cards,” he said.