SFO boosts hydrogen highway
By: Katie Worth
May 24, 2009
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| Hasta la vista, fossil fuel: In this 2004 photo, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fills up the first Hydrogen Hummer made to dedicate the first retail-designed hydrogen fueling station in California at LAX in Los Angeles. (AP File Photo) |
S.F. AIRPORT — In 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger laid out a vision for a “hydrogen highway” — an infrastructure of hydrogen fuel stations to power the thousands of hydrogen-powered vehicles he believed would soon hit the state’s roads.
Five years later, the momentum for this hydrogen highway seems to have slowed. California has only 250 hydrogen-powered cars rather than the 2,000 the administration had envisioned by 2010, and just 26 fueling stations have been built.
But the hydrogen movement has not completely dragged to a halt. Though plans for proposed hydrogen fuel stations in Menlo Park and San Carlos have been dropped, San Francisco International Airport is moving forward with plans to construct a hydrogen fuel station in Millbrae by the end of the year. It will become the third hydrogen station in the Bay Area, after Oakland and Milpitas.
The airport has received a state grant of $1.7 million and is negotiating with alternative energy company Linde Group to construct the station, according to Dimitri Stanich, spokesman for the California Air Resource Board. He said the project will cost at least $7 million. The facility will dispense 120 kilograms of fuel per day to fuel both passenger cars and buses operated by local transit agencies.
The airport is considering converting some of its shuttles that are currently powered by compressed natural gas into hydrogen-blend vehicles, according to Richard Napier, executive director of the San Mateo City and County Association of Governments, which is considering granting the airport $200,000 for the station.
Airport spokesman Mike McCarron declined comment, saying the airport won’t make its plans public until later this month.
But hydrogen-powered transportation isn’t a completely green fix because the typical process to create hydrogen fuel uses fossil fuels, explained U.C. Berkeley Professor Daniel Kammen.
“The downside of hydrogen is it’s only as useful as the energy to make it is green,” he said.
Nonetheless, he said it’s worth investing in hydrogen research and development today because as the technology develops, the barriers preventing it from being truly “green” could be overcome.
Bill Magavern, director of Sierra Club California, said his organization does not favor a proliferation of stations like the one being planned for San Francisco’s airport.
“It makes more sense to do research and development to overcome some of the major barriers that are still preventing hydrogen from being feasible on a wide scale,” he said.
New shuttle likely to be fossil-fuel powered
A hydrogen-powered shuttle unveiled with great fanfare early last year will run out of funding at the end of 2009, and is not likely to be funded again.
Since early 2008, the county’s first hydrogen bus has shuttled people between the Palo Alto Caltrain station and East Palo Alto. The $500,000 cost to lease the bus from Ford for two years was paid by a one-time grant from the California Air Resources Board. The $250,000 cost to run the shuttle was split between the San Mateo County Transportation Authority and the County/City Association of Governments.
There are no plans to renew the funds once they expire at the end of 2009, C/CAG Deputy Director Sandy Wong said.
She said the shuttle will likely be replaced by one operated by fossil-fuel.
