Vancouver 2010: The Hydrogen Olympics

Vancouver is investing in some hydrogen infrastructure to show some clean vehicles to the world during the 2010 winter Olympics. "An $18 million project will soon produce hydrogen for four transit buses, a car wash, and eight utility trucks using storage systems developed by Dynetek." Apparently, the hydrogen used will come from the manufacturing process of sodium chlorate, of which it is a byproduct. It is far from ideal - sodium chlorate is used in pesticides and bleaching - but it is not clear if that hydrogen would otherwise have been wasted, and at least it is not making the process worse. It is said that there is enough hydrogen byproduct of sodium chlorate in Vancouver to power 20,000 fuel cell vehicles. We wonder how many other industrial processes create hydrogen; Until we can clean them up or eliminate them, making sure their byproducts don't go to waste would be a good idea. ::The Hydrogen Olympics