East Coast Gets First Station in Proposed Privately Built Hydrogen Highway
By John O'Dell August 27, 2010Toyota Chips In With 10 Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles for Station Builder Sun Hydro
By Danny King, Contributor
California's version of a so-called hydrogen highway may be languishing in a weak economy, but an East Coast version is getting started with its first fueling station and 10 Toyota hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles.
We here at Green Car Advisor won't quibble with that - we believe there is an important role in the transportation sector for hydrogen-fuel and fuel cell electric vehicles.
SunHydro, which plans to build a chain of self-service hydrogen fueling stations from Massachusetts to Florida, will receive 10 Toyota fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) in the Connecticut area this fall, SunHydro and Toyota said in a statement.
The vehicles, part of a broader Toyota demonstration plan that will include the deployment of 100 FCEVs in the U.S. over the next three years, will be used by employees of SunHydro and its parent, Proton Energy Systems.
"This is a big step for Connecticut, our country, and the overall evolution of alternative fuels in the U.S.," said SunHydro founder Tom Sullivan, who previously founded Lumber Liquidators.
Toyota, along with Honda, General Motors and other automakers, is looking to develop production-ready FCEVs within the next five years.
Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles use hydrogen stored in pressurized tanks and piped though a roughly suitcase-sized fuel cell that extracts the electrons to produce electricity that propels the vehicle.
They emit only water vapor, although production of the hydrogen does create emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants at the source.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California Hydrogen Blueprint Plan several years ago that set a goal of as many as 100 statewide hydrogen fueling stations by the end of this year, with a longer-term goal of as many as 250 stations.
So far, though, only 21 have been built and a dozen under construction.
Meanwhile, America Honda Motor Co., which said in August 2008 that it planned to lease 200 of its Honda FCX Clarity FCEVs over the ensuing three years as part of a demonstration project, has only leased about a dozen because of a combination of a slow economy and lack of fueling stations.
Still, a coalition on nine major automakers has signed a pledge to be producing market-ready fuel cell vehicles in "significant" volume by 2015, and there are active hydrogen fuel infrastructure development programs in Germany and several other European countries.
In the U.S, according to the National Hydrogen Assn., there are 72 operational hydrogen fuel stations, with 24 more under development.
For its part, SunHydro lists nine fueling stations on its Website as part of its first phase, which includes outlets in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.
The company says that its third phase expansion plan will see hydrogen stations "everywhere."
We can only hope.
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