Hydrogen highway inches closer

2010 Mar 7

A few days before B.C. Transit unveiled 20 gleaming new hydrogen-powered buses in Whistler, the fleet got its first fuel-up at a North Vancouver company called Hydrogen Technology and Energy Corporation, or HTEC.
But the three-year-old company doesn't yet have the plant equipment to ship hydrogen over long distances, so when the Whistler buses went back to the pump in the resort town, they refuelled with hydrogen brought in by tanker truck from Quebec.
Critics of hydrogen technology were quick to point out the contradiction of zero-emission vehicles that are reliant on transcontinental trucking. The question of how green this fleet really is nicely encapsulates the debate over how worthwhile hydrogen energy really is -- a debate HTEC thinks it will win.

By the time it gets used, hydrogen is a miracle fuel. It's odourless, non-toxic and burns with almost no emissions. Feed it into a fuel cell, and you can pry loose even more energy and get no emissions at all, save for some heat and clean water.
Since the phrase was raised in the 1970s, a "hydrogen economy" seemed to offer a productive industrial society without any of the hazards of smog, climate change and foreign interventions connected with oil production. It has always been attractive to politicians, as the cabinet minister-studded unveiling in Whistler demonstrates, as a super-clean, ultra hi-tech solution to a very tough problem. In the effort against climate change, it is certainly easier to announce funding for local research than it is to effect more systemic societal changes.
 
Read more:  http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=d1a8fba5-f9eb-4826-a5b1-516c621a5068

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Posted by Christopher Beau at 3:44 PM

First hydrogen buses in Whistler, Canada

2009 Nov 24

- The first of 20 hydrogen powered buses has come into operation in Whistler, Canada, on November 20 2009, operated by BC Transit.

The project costs $89.5m, with $45m from the Government of Canada and $44.5m from British Columbia government and BC Transit. Each bus costs $2.1m.

The buses were assembled in Winnipeg, Canada, and brought to Vancouver by trailer.

Some of the hydrogen will be supplied from a chemical plant in North Vancouver - it is part of waste gases which would otherwise be vented to the air. It will be supplemented by liquid hydrogen trucked from Air Liquide Canada in Quebec, approx 5,200km away. The Air Liquide hydrogen is mainly made from using electricity from hydroelectric power to electrolyse water.

BC Transit is looking for a source of hydrogen which is not so far away.

Taking the transportation into account, this means that the total greenhouse gas emissions of the buses are 38 per cent of emissions from normal diesel buses.

Climate change campaigners have criticised the project, saying that for environmental purposes, the money could be better spent improving public transit in general, encouraging more people to use it.

Read more: http://www.h2journal.com/displaynews.php?NewsID=307

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