Hydrogen highway inches closer (in Canada)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=d1a8fba5-f9eb-4826-a5b1-516c621a5068

Hydrogen highway inches closer

Come 2011, NV gas plant will liquify hydrogen

Benjamin Alldritt, North Shore News
Published: Sunday, March 07, 2010

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.

...

"Even with the trucks coming from Quebec, there's a 60 per cent emission reduction," he said. "When we do it from here it'll be closer to 90 per cent. You do two things with hydrogen. The vehicle operator now has zero emissions, so he's done his job. If you go with fuel cells, he's efficient as well. So then you go back to 'How do I get it to the station?'

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[OKIsItJustMe]

1. One of the most amazing passages...

...

One of HTEC's biggest advantages is that it doesn't make the hydrogen at all. They deliberately opened up shop right next to two large electrochemical plants, Erco and Canexus.

"They both basically take salt, mix it up with their catalyst and then zap it with 60 megawatts of electricity," explained Armstrong. "Erco makes sodium chlorate and those guys (Canexus) make chlor-alkali but they both have waste hydrogen. They've been venting a lot of it."

Dozens of metric tonnes of hydrogen waft into the sky every day, and HTEC's 1,300-kilogram draw will still only take about a tenth of it, at a price comparable to natural gas. A few other firms draw some waste gas, but the vast majority still goes unused.

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[opihimoimoi]

2. Should we be so stupid as to Not take advantage of this...? free energy? a by product? DAMN

We are a crazy species.....

[kristopher]

3. Do you have a financial interest in fuel cell technology?

You continue to promote fuel cells in spite of the clear evidence that they are a poor choice. Why?

http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html