Green Wombat

All those Prius owners on my Berkeley block got nothing on this baby: A hydrogen hybrid Prius whose fuel is produced by a wind turbine. Last week I visited EVermont, a Burlington non-profit R&D outfit that operates one of few renewable hydrogen filling stations in the country. Among the (many) stumbling blocks to the much-hyped hydrogen economy is the fact that today most hydrogen is produced by burning fossil fuels, which partly neutralizes its advantage as an abundant clean green power source. The holy grail is hydrogen produced from renewable energy. To that end, EVermont
buys power generated by a wind turbine located next door to its fuel
station (above photo) and owned by a local utility. Wind-generated electricity is used to produce hydrogen
onsite through electrolysis. The result: a truly carbon neutral car. Unlike the Mercedes (DCX) hydrogen fuel cell car
I drove earlier in the week, the Toyota (TM) Prius has a standard internal
combusion engine. The engine was converted to run on hydrogen by Quantum Technologies Worldwide of
Irvine, California.

The car has a range of about 80
miles and will be used by the city of Burlington. The fueling station
itself cost $2 million and was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy
with equipment  donated by manufacturers. EVermont research director Harold Garabedian estimates that filling up the hydrogen Prius costs the equivalent of between $5 and $10 a gallon.

Outrageous? Not if you’re a European already paying $6 or $7 a gallon
for petrol. Of course, mass production and the use of solar panels and other renewable energy sources would bring those costs down.
For a good primer on the challenges and payoffs of the hydrogen economy
check out the current issue of Popular Mechanics.

As the Wombat reported yesterday, California is one of the world’s largest contributors to global warming, and 41 percent of the Golden State’s greenhouse gases come from cars and other fossil fuel-burning vehicles. In the long run, renewable hydrogen may turn out to be the bargain of the century.

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I
had a chance last week to take a spin in the Mercedes F-Cell, the hydrogen fuel cell car based on the A-Class subcompact (sold in Europe and Australia but not in the SUV-loving U.S. of A.). It’s pretty cool. Turn the ignition key and the F-Cell remains silent except for a warp-drive sound as the  system revs up. The ride is smooth and quiet, though the sci-fi sounds effects get louder as the car accelerates. The F-Cell drives and handles like a conventional vehicle – which is the point Mercedes (DCX) likes to make. The fuel-cell system is totally contained in the engine compartment – no bulky tanks or other equipment in the trunk. Mercedes is mum on when F-Cell will, if ever, hit the dealerships but a second-generation version of the car is in the works.

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The green bandwagon rolls on. Today, AutoNation, the largest car retailer in the U.S., called on Detroit and Tokyo to start rolling plug-in hybrids off the assembly line.

“These new hybrids would offer consumers a 50-mile all-electric range, get the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon, be fully recharged at night and deliver all the performance and comfort of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles without the damaging emissions,” said AutoNation chief executive Mike Jackson in a statement. “We believe Americans will buy these vehicles, which is why we want to sell them.”

AutoNation signed on to the Plug-In Partners campaign, a group of enviro activists, cities, companies and utilities trying to create a national market for plug-in hybrids. To create a plug-in Prius, for instance, you swap out the car’s battery for a rechargable lithium ion version.

The car retailer’s move is good news for the campaign but problematic for startups like EDrive and Hymotion – see Business 2.0’s July article – that sell plug-in conversion kits. If automakers heed the call for hyper-efficient hybrids, the conversion kit market is sure to run out of gas.

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