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Major
Field Trial of Fuel-Cell Buses, Perth, Western Australia |
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DaimlerChrysler is at the forefront of
transportation fuel cell development. They, along with Ford and Canadian
technology company Ballard, jointly own a company called Xcellsis which
produces vehicle fuel cells. Three DaimlerChrysler fuel cell buses are
due to be trialled in Perth for a period of 2 years from late 2002. They
will be operated as part of the Transperth fleet on operational bus routes. |
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It is proposed that hydrogen for the trial
is supplied by BP from their refinery at Kwinana, where it is currently
available. This is a ‘least-cost’ solution for the purposes of the trial
only. In the long term the intention is to use
steam reformation of natural gas. The hydrogen, which is essentially a
by-product, will be cleaned and purified to bring it to fuel cell quality. A
range of infrastructure related options will be trialled. BP will bring
their learning from the European Integrated Hydrogen Project (EIHP)
to Perth. |
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The
potential environmental benefits are enormous. Using conservative
assumptions for the introduction of fuel cell buses which are cost
competitive with diesels into the Australian public transport bus fleet as
part of the existing planned replacement programme, greenhouse gas
reductions of more than 500,000 tonnes per annum can be achieved by 2017.
The air quality of major cities can be improved because the buses have
effectively no emissions and therefore no contribution to problems such as
smog.
The buses are extremely quiet as they run on electric motors. |
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Fuel cell powered vehicles
- produce no greenhouse gases although the production of the Hydrogen
may produce some CO2;
- produce virtually no other emissions and will therefore help
improve air quality problems;
- are extremely quiet as the fuel cells produce electricity which
powers an electric motor to drive the vehicles;
- are much more efficient in the way they convert energy; and
- are predicted to be cheaper to maintain and operate that CNG or
diesel vehicles.
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How a
fuel cell works |
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Fuel cell technology is not new. It was in fact discovered in the 1830’s by
William Groves in England. Fuel cells can be likened in some ways to a
battery. However, unlike a conventional battery, as long as hydrogen is
supplied to a fuel cell, it will continue to produce electricity.
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Hydrogen is
fed into one side of a fuel cell. The quality of the hydrogen is very
important to the performance and life of the cell.
The hydrogen is ionised in the presence of a catalyst and the protons
(positively charged parts of the hydrogen) go through a membrane to the
other side of the fuel cell. The electrons (negatively charged parts of the
hydrogen) follow a different path to produce electricity which can be used
to power an electric motor.
Once the protons have passed through the membrane they combine with
oxygen from the air to form water of drinking quality. This is the
technology that has been used in NASA space craft to produce drinking water
as a by-product of power production. |
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More on the fuel cell
More on the
Transperth Fuel-Cell Bus Trial |
