Publication Date:24-December-2005
07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
Source:Burlington Free Press

In the spring, a hydrogen-powered Toyota Prius will join the city's fleet of
cars.
It will fill up at the only hydrogen pump in New England, located between the
Public Works
and Burlington Electric departments, and demonstrate, its pro- ponents hope,
that
hydrogen-fueled cars will someday offer a realistic alternative to gasoline.

Rep. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday announced a $1 million grant from the U.S.
Department of Energy to build a small hydrogen-fuel generator and hydrogen pump
at the
Public Works site. It will take its power from a BED wind turbine. The
electricity, using a
device called an electrolyzer, splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. The
hydrogen will be
compressed and stored in a high-pressure tank on the small site.

The station is being built and tested by Proton Energy Systems of Wallingford,
Conn. The
custom Prius, slated to be a Public Works car, is an internal-combustion hybrid.
It is being
converted now so that it will run on hydrogen, with water, rather than carbon
dioxide, as
the byproduct of combustion.

Nick Borland, an engineer with Northern Power Systems of Waitsfield, the overall
coordinator of the project, said he recently drove a similar vehicle in
California, one of
fewer than 100 in the country.

"It feels like a regular car," he said.

The Burlington hydrogen project is one of several across the country operating
with
Department of Energy funding. Chris McKay, a Northern Power Systems engineer,
said the
testers from the various locations will meet at the Department of Energy once a
year to
exchange information and learn from each other.

The Burlington site, Sanders said, will allow testing of the new car under cold
weather
conditions. It also serves as a demonstration project of a "decentralized"
hydrogen-
producing plant.

The technology being used at the Public Works site is familiar from industrial
applications,
said John Kassel, chairman of the board of EVermont, a non-profit group that
will test the
car. Kassel, a former head of the state's Agency of Natural Resources, said the
novelty of
the Burlington project is that the hydrogen will be produced on site from wind,
a
renewable energy source.

Sanders, a candidate to fill the U.S. Senate seat of retiring independent Jim
Jeffords in
November, called the undertaking "a fascinating project with huge potential."

"We cannot overstate the significance of the problem or our need to break away
from
gasoline-fueled cars," he said in a prepared statement. "Cars are America's
biggest reason
for oil dependence and they represent the single biggest piece of our global
warming
problem."

Tim Lennon, campaign manager for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rich Tarrant,
said
Tarrant supports such grants. "It's a good step for the administration and the
Department
of Energy to fund these activities around the country," Lennon said.

"As a United States senator, Rich Tarrant would work to do more in the area of
alternative
energy applications."

Harold Garabedian, EVermont's research director, said the Burlington hydrogen
facility will
have capacity enough to serve up to eight hydrogen-fueled cars.

http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage4184.html


The single Prius, which will run about 80 miles on one hydrogen fill-up,
represents "a
beginning" for the innovative hydrogen application, he said. The practical
problem, he
said, is ultimately to make decentralized manufacture of hydrogen less expensive
and the
hydrogen more readily available.

He said hydrogen is no more dangerous than gasoline in cars.

"The point here," Sanders said, "is to learn."


HOW IT WORKS Electricity splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using a device
called an
electrolyzer
The hydrogen is compressed and stored in high-pressure tanks
The hyrdogen is dispensed into the vehicle, which has a 5,000-psi tank
The vehicle, a converted 2005 Toyota Prius, burns the hydrogen the same way a
regular
car burns gasoline, except water is the main byproduct rather than CO2.
WHEN IT STARTS The fueling station is assembled and being tested in Connecticut
The vehicle is in California undergoing conversion
Construction at the Pine Street site is 90 percent complete
Equipment to be commissioned in the spring