Three pollution-free buses being tested in San Jose, Calif., will draw their power from hydrogen fueling stations designed by Air Products and Chemicals.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, called the VTA, kicked off a three-year test program Thursday in San Jose. The VTA becomes the latest in a series of American and European transit agencies to test buses that create little or no pollution, to see how the vehicles perform in everyday use.
Financial terms of the deal were not released. The VTA is running the program to comply with tighter pollution regulations on public buses, adopted by California five years ago.
Fleet vehicles, such as buses, are considered ideal users for hydrogen fuel because they refuel at a single central station. In contrast, a national network of stations would have to be built before hydrogen-powered cars enter widespread use.
Buses also are favored for hydrogen conversion because of their stop-start use, and reputation for emitting clouds of pollution as they pull away from curbs. The only byproducts of a hydrogen-powered engine are heat and water.
Under the hoods of hydrogen vehicles, devices called fuel cells separate hydrogen into two parts, called electrons and ions. The electrons create a flow of electricity, which powers the cars. The ions join oxygen atoms in the air to create water.
President Bush anointed hydrogen as America's future fuel in his 2003 State of the Union address, when he announced plans to spend $1.2 billion on hydrogen-related research over the next five years.
Fuel-cell cars remain at least a decade away from mass production, by many estimates.
Other cities that have tested zero-emissions or low-emissions buses include Chicago, London and Madrid. Air Products built a fueling station and supplied hydrogen to the Chicago project, which ran from 1997 to 1999. That test also used three buses and was considered a success, according to reports.
Air Products has built more than 30 hydrogen stations, mostly for auto use.
Hydrogen stations for buses look the same as stations used for cars, said Dave Mc Carthy, Air Products' commercial business manager for future energy solutions. But the bus fueling stations use different internal compressors that pump much faster, because bus drivers want to fill their vehicles in a few minutes' time, Mc Carthy said.
Hydrogen for the San Jose program will come from an Air Products plant in Sacramento.
The San Jose station is not related to a similar Air Products project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Last year, the DOE picked Air Products to lead a team that will design a hydrogen fueling system in California, building up to two dozen stations.
The price tag of that project could reach $91 million, though it's not known how much the federal government will pay. Partners in the project include automakers Honda, BMW, Toyota and Nissan.
Hydrogen industry insiders have called for more real-world testing of fuel-cell vehicles, which, up to now, have largely been developed in private labs and test tracks.
So far, hydrogen vehicles fall short of gasoline-powered cars on reliability, durability and range -- that is, how far they will go on a tank of fuel. Experts believe the vehicles will not succeed on the mass market until they can reach the same standards as gasoline-powered cars.