A U.S. Department of Transportation official will be keynote speaker at the fifth International Hydrail Conference, June 11-12 at UNC Charlotte.
Hydrail is emerging technology that uses hydrogen fuel cells instead of diesel-electric generators to power rail transit, such as streetcars and commuter rail. Supporters of the technology in Mooresville, who hoped hydrogen could power a light rail line to Charlotte, have brought previous international conferences to Charlotte and Salisbury.
This year's conference, to be hosted by UNCC's Charlotte Research Institute, will highlight the trend away from overhead electrical power for streetcars. The keynote speaker will be Walter Kulyk, director of the Office of Mobility Innovation at the Federal Transit Administration.
Details: www.hydrail.org/ . -- Bruce Henderson
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Question: How do you produce hydrogen cheaply?. Electrolysis is the way hydrogen is produced in any appreciable amounts. Coal to produce electricity? Entrophy enters into this equation?
I made no comment for or against; I just thought people would be interested in the article.
But now that you have posed the question:
Obviously, a large scale implementation of hydrogen fuel cell technology would require a large scale increase in the production of electricity. There are many ways to produce electricity, some cleaner than others. That is something we must do anyway, and is a separate argument.
Electricity is clean and efficient. Right now, rail is the only transportation system that can use it because of the need for wires. The cost of stringing the catanary or third rail is high, but trucks, buses, and airplanes cannot do it at all.
A hydrogen fuel cell can bring electricity to all forms of transportation, and the byproduct of the use is water.
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