Hydrogen Buses for Football Fans at the FIFA World Cup in Berlin
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 06.17.06
Wish you were here? In Germany this week, the entire scene revolves only around Football; Berlin is a 24/7 party--an experience certainly repeated in all of the key stadium cities where fans with and without tickets throng the streets to cheer their team or any team which takes their fancy. So it seems only appropriate that TreeHugger should continue to share the Green News behind the fancy footed moves...
Football fans in Berlin coming or going from the Olympic Stadium or the Tegel Airport may catch one of the first two hydrogen buses in the Berlin bus network. The two MAN vehicles will be joined by 12 others to create a fleet of 14 hydrogen buses which, along with smaller fleets in other cities, will serve to test three different engine technologies as part of the EU's hyFLEET:CUTE project. The project continues through 2009.
The buses will be tanked at a service station set up by the France-based company TOTAL, which is supporting the HyFLEET project as part of its sustainable development program and to contribute to the establishment of a safe hydrogen infrastructure for the future. The station is itself part of the experiment: a steam reformer will generate, on site, gaseous or liquid hydrogen meeting the majority of the fuel needed to feed the buses. Additionally, fuel cells from the Sweden-based Vattenfall will be used to power and heat the tank station.
In case you missed the earlier coverage, check out other eco-initiatives of the FIFA for the World Cup in the TreeHugger article Green Goal Scores
Via ::Technische Universität Berlin Energy Systems (English)
The question must be asked. When will these buses find their way into American cities on a large scale? I applaud the effort in Germany and hope to see buses (including school buses) switching over to this renewable resource.
In what way is it renewable?
Where does the energy come from to produce the hydrogen?