"It's a clean and safe fuel," said Gug Sresty of Parsons Engineering, the company that designed and built the new hydrogen fueling station. "Nothing but water comes out of the tailpipe. ... Stations like this can become stepping stones to energy sustainability."
Charleston, W.Va. -- The hydrogen fuel production and dispensing station that opened Monday at Yeager Airport will be the first of three such facilities to be built between Charleston and Pittsburgh within the next few years, officials say.
Charleston's new hydrogen station, near the Federal Aviation Administration building on Eagle Mountain Road, will serve as the model for a similar facility to be built with West Virginia University in Morgantown.
"Having these stations in Charleston and Morgantown creates a corridor allowing hydrogen-powered vehicles to travel between the two cities," said David Haberman, president of the Mountain States Hydrogen Business Council.
An announcement is expected later this week that a third hydrogen fuel facility will be built in Pittsburgh, which would extend the corridor into southwest Pennsylvania, Haberman said.
Most hydrogen-powered vehicles have storage systems allowing 150 to 250 miles of travel between refueling.
The Charleston fueling station, a cooperative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory and Yeager Airport, is a small-scale demonstration project, designed to initially produce and dispense enough fuel for only a few vehicles each day.
The Charleston airport is getting three hydrogen-powered vehicles from the Department of Energy for donating the land for the new fueling station. The airport has also agreed to buy a fourth hydrogen-powered pickup truck that had been used in an Arizona demonstration project. The Air National Guard's 130th Airlift Wing has received a hydrogen-powered forklift for use in loading aircraft and other applications.
But the number of hydrogen vehicles is growing, and can be expected to continue to grow as technology advances along with the desire for using a clean, domestically produced fuel that can be produced for about the same cost as gasoline, according to Haberman.
U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd included $1.2 million in the energy and water appropriations bill for the coming fiscal year for designing and building the Morgantown hydrogen fuel facility.
"It's a clean and safe fuel," said Gug Sresty of Parsons Engineering, the company that designed and built the new hydrogen fueling station. "Nothing but water comes out of the tailpipe. ... Stations like this can become stepping stones to energy sustainability."
Weirton-area native and WVU alumnus Ray Hobbs, now manager of the Future Fuels Program for Arizona Public Service, can attest to the safety of such self-serve, self-operating hydrogen plants. He designed one of the nation's longest-operating hydrogen production and fueling stations, which began operating in 2002 in downtown Phoenix.
"It runs day and day out, in the middle of a historic district, with more than 17,000 fuelings so far, and no incidents," he said.
Charleston, W.Va. -- The hydrogen fuel production and dispensing station that opened Monday at Yeager Airport will be the first of three such facilities to be built between Charleston and Pittsburgh within the next few years, officials say.
Charleston's new hydrogen station, near the Federal Aviation Administration building on Eagle Mountain Road, will serve as the model for a similar facility to be built with West Virginia University in Morgantown.
"Having these stations in Charleston and Morgantown creates a corridor allowing hydrogen-powered vehicles to travel between the two cities," said David Haberman, president of the Mountain States Hydrogen Business Council.
An announcement is expected later this week that a third hydrogen fuel facility will be built in Pittsburgh, which would extend the corridor into southwest Pennsylvania, Haberman said.
Most hydrogen-powered vehicles have storage systems allowing 150 to 250 miles of travel between refueling.
The Charleston fueling station, a cooperative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory and Yeager Airport, is a small-scale demonstration project, designed to initially produce and dispense enough fuel for only a few vehicles each day.
The Charleston airport is getting three hydrogen-powered vehicles from the Department of Energy for donating the land for the new fueling station. The airport has also agreed to buy a fourth hydrogen-powered pickup truck that had been used in an Arizona demonstration project. The Air National Guard's 130th Airlift Wing has received a hydrogen-powered forklift for use in loading aircraft and other applications.
But the number of hydrogen vehicles is growing, and can be expected to continue to grow as technology advances along with the desire for using a clean, domestically produced fuel that can be produced for about the same cost as gasoline, according to Haberman.
U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd included $1.2 million in the energy and water appropriations bill for the coming fiscal year for designing and building the Morgantown hydrogen fuel facility.
"It's a clean and safe fuel," said Gug Sresty of Parsons Engineering, the company that designed and built the new hydrogen fueling station. "Nothing but water comes out of the tailpipe. ... Stations like this can become stepping stones to energy sustainability."
Weirton-area native and WVU alumnus Ray Hobbs, now manager of the Future Fuels Program for Arizona Public Service, can attest to the safety of such self-serve, self-operating hydrogen plants. He designed one of the nation's longest-operating hydrogen production and fueling stations, which began operating in 2002 in downtown Phoenix.
"It runs day and day out, in the middle of a historic district, with more than 17,000 fuelings so far, and no incidents," he said.
"We're looking at developing stations at key highway intersections to provide hydrogen fuel to the maximum number of people with a minimum of infrastructure," said Haberman.
"Initially, we need locations where we have champions -- often universities -- to show the benefits of using hydrogen. Here, our champions are the airport and the military."
The automatically operated plant at Yeager Airport produces fuel through a water electrolysis process. An electric current passes through water to separate it into oxygen and hydrogen gases.
Since coal is used to provide the electricity at the Charleston hydrogen plant, West Virginia-produced hydrogen fuel represents a new way "to build and expand on coal's energy heritage," said Curt Peterson, WVU's vice president for research and economic development.
Should hydrogen become a major source of vehicular fuel, "it will allow us to reduce a major source of carbon emissions," Peterson said. "We would be able to limit carbon emissions to a single source -- power plants," where pollution controls can more efficiently be put in place.
"It's a great use of coal," said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association. "It's another dimension we clearly have to open up -- one we perhaps haven't taken full advantage of. It's nice for West Virginia to be on the leading edge."
The Charleston hydrogen fuel facility was built in Aiken, S.C., and trucked to Yeager, where it was installed on concrete pads, starting about 10 days ago. It produced its first batch of fuel on Monday morning.
"This station was built to be replicated," said Haberman. "It's not a situation where someone is just trying to make a buck."
The Morgantown hydrogen fuel station will be nearly identical to Charleston's.
"This shows that West Virginia is rich in technology, research and vision, as well as natural resources," said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. "... We're using brain power to power us into the next century."
The opening ceremony for the Charleston hydrogen fuel facility was held in conjunction with the Mountain States Business Council's fifth annual Hydrogen Implementation Conference, which continues today at Charleston's Embassy Suites.
@tag:Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelham...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5169.
Post a comment