Hmm... 50% refueling efficiency? Or does that number include the vented off hydrogen from the bus` tank?
(50% would be consistent with LH2 tank venting during hot summer days, though.)

In any case, just for the fuel alone, for hydrogen to become economical the barrel of oil needs to get up to 400-500 USD.

Vastly inefficienty, this hydrogen-hype stuff...

BTW, why not rip out the old, outdated FC and put in a new one with the same metrics, provided by a 3rd party company... Could it be that no one is interested in this? Despite all the hype? Strange...

I see these going on eBay sometime soon.

Interesting to see that even Ballard are now accepting that developing fuel cells for vehicles is stupid.

Can't wait to see the Altair electric bus.

Golly Gee Willikers!!!! Who would have thought [/sarcasm]

you can see why all the car manufacturers are so interested
in fuel cells ,from these figures it seems a lot like a licence
to print money !

T

Wouldn't it be easier just to use trolley buses and bio-diesel/hydrolic hybrids?

The City of Santa Clara has a fuel-cell-powered power plant as well. I think it is SOFC. It makes sense that they would operate these buses, if anybody would, but one wonders what else their data indicate about the very-long-term future prospects of fuel cells. You know, that long awaited time when we get the ubiquity of a "Mr. Fusion" type device.

It is a shame that Ballard has not been adequately supported so they could put a new generation of FCs in these. Ballard made some of the initial improvements in PEM output and should still be in the game.

Santa Clara did have a MCFC in their power plant as a trial. This was more than 10 years ago and it was taken out of service.

I would rather have NG diesel hybrid buses. They are something more practical, are relatively clean and efficient.

Lordy! For that money I could refill my prescriptions.

The astonishing parts cost is where to explore.

Which portion was related to the use of hydrogen and fuel cells? Which portion was spent on other?

Besides these costs consider the capital cost of buying the buses. I suspect FC buses aren't cheap.

My guess: experience and improvements could cut the cost by 80% over the next five years. That puts costs at about $10/mile or about 6X diesel.

Most of the problem was dilbert boss syndrome.

The used a very old 2001 design fc with a horrif 500 hour durability when even in 2005 ballard has far better and more eff and cheaper fcs.

They also used a moronic fuel tank and compounded that blunder with renting the station for a ton.. and I think I remember the station not even being near the routes...



Even now its a moronic idea to test the cost compared to deisel as DURRRR!!! The bloody fuel cells are still in bloody dev and arnt schedualed for mass market for 5-12 freaking years of bloody well captain amazingly obvious DUH!!!! its not ready yet!!!!

Still its amazing the morons didnt manage to waste more money then that... only 32x with all that slop... the buricrats must have forgotten to embezzel/pilfer and pork it as much as everything else... either that or they only jad 12 mediumly overpaod techs standing around scratching thier butts while 1 low paid guy did all the work instead of the regulation 20 high paid expert buttscratchers.

The problem is not in the bureaucratic bungling, but the inefficiency of hydrogen technology.

They could make hydrogen technology more efficient, but I doubt if hydrogen fuel cell can ever catch up with batteries, since innovation in battery technologies is going quickly as well.

Finally, some real numbers. Reality bites.

How much global warming is caused by Hydrogen when it vents to atmosphere? Is it worse than CO2? Doers anyone know. Methane is 21 times worse than CO2

$52 per mile! So with 25 passengers on the bus, a 10 mile ride should cost just a little more than $20. Or $25 if they want to make a profit.

Does this mean that Hydrogen will not become a practical transportation fuel until fusion is perfected?

Duh!

I calculated that it cost $A50 per kilometre to run the hydrogen buses in Perth, Western Australia. The trial was discontinued.

Look at what China has been doing for several years now:

"Luxury electric bus developed in Beijing 05-30-2004

A luxury double-decker electric bus capable of running at least 150 kilometers on one charge has been developed in Beijing. . .

The seven types of electric buses developed by the company have all passed appraisals and acceptance checks of the state. These vehicles boast top speeds ranging from 80 kilometers to 95 kilometers and running distances of 150 kilometers to 300 kilometers on one charge.

China plans to serve the coming Olympic Games with more than 1, 000 Chinese-made electric vehicles. Prior to that, 20 electric buses will soon hit the roads in Beijing."

For typical specs see:
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11922129/Electric_Bus.htm

Chances are that hydrogen will never be a viable vehicle fuel - but hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources could replace natural gas in many, many industrial applications - from fertilizer production to steel and cement production.

I am glad someone is experimenting with fuel cells in a real environment, how else do you learn anything?

I applaud the agencies paying for the buses. At least they have some data.

LOOK UP "RUN CAR ON WATER" THRU YOUR BROUSER OR USE YAHOO OR GOOGLE. IT TELLS YOU HOW TO MAKE ENOUGH HYDROGEN FUEL FROM HYDROGEN COMPRESSED IN WATER WITH ELECTROLISIS, USING ONLY WATER AND YOUR VEHICLE'S BATTERY, TO ALLOW YOU TO RUN YOUR VEHICLE USING HYDROGEN AS FUEL. HOW MUCH DOES WATER COST?

How much global warming is caused by Hydrogen when it vents to atmosphere? Is it worse than CO2? Doers anyone know....

John - don't think that hydrogen itself is a GHG. However, the exhaust from a fuel cell - water vapor - is, and is a more effective GHG that CO2.

There have been other environmental concerns raised about hydrogen leakage - namely that it could potentially deplete stratospheric ozone, much like CFCs (see http://www.theozonehole.com/hydrogeneconomy.htm).

Whst we need now is to wait for the new gen ballard fc and the new fuel tanks and then see what someone can do with todays tech. We would then have a good idea how fast fc is creeping up on old standard and thus when it might go mainstream.


Main improvments I know of are...

1 lifespan Im fairly sure the current gen fc is lasting over 200000 miles and the gen comming out this year or next was gona last alot more.
2 fc cost... it looks like this old fc is costing them 4-500k each... im fairly sure the new unit costs less then 150k and isnt even mass produced so costs will drop a ton when they finaly do start ramping.

3 the fuel itself.. I KNOQ they do alot better fuel tank and fuel econ wise with current tech and I know h2 has been dropping in price.. and I doubt anyone plans to rent a bloody station for that much now adays.

As with evs we need to see more tries at it then now and in the future to get a good idea where h2 is going compared to old fossil fuel and new hybrid bussses.

Millenium Cellular developed a process called "hydrogen on demand" This fuel is solid.....no storage tanks on board. Simple and cheap. Since no one was really building cars, they took their technology in another direction and are applying it to small appliances, like a watch that will run forever. Eventually fuel cell cars will return to this fuel.

@ Carl,

Sure, H2O is a greenhouse gas, but it cycles out of the atmosphere in a matter of hours. CO2 often takes years to cycle out of the atmosphere. CO2 thus has a much larger warming impact. However, as average temperatures rise because of CO2, we will likely see higher average humidity as well, which just increases the potential for run-away warming events.

@ Healthy Breaze -

I generally agree with you with the following caveats:

If we hypothetically convert all transport vehicles to fuel cells, we will be artificially injecting significant additional WV into the atmosphere (i.e., anthropogenic WV emissions), which could also potentially cause the positive feedback loop you're suggesting with your global warming scenario ("...we will likely see higher average humidity as well, which just increases the potential for run-away warming events.").

Is there potentially a "tipping point" for increased tropospheric WV emissions? I'm just not convinced we know for sure what will happen under this scenario.

Why not electric buses? it would have been cheaper to put up the the trolley cables. What ever happened to those experiments in refuelable zinc-air powered buses? metal-air fuel cells: the practical fuel cell.