The plant would consist of five 2-megawatt fuel cells that together would generate 10-megawatts of power, enough energy for nearly 10,000 homes.
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James Murkett, principal at Farmington-based PurePower LLC, the project developer, said the fuel cell project hopes to participate in a state program aimed at developing 100 megawatts of power from clean energy sources in Connecticut by 2008.
Get Your Driver's License in a Fuel Cell-Powered Car
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., May 31 -- Over the last year some lucky individuals have had the opportunity to drive a zero-emissions Mercedes-Benz fuel cell-powered passenger car to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California to complete their driver's test.
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DaimlerChrysler has spent more than $1 billion in fuel cell vehicle research and development. No other manufacturer has accumulated more data or driven more zero-emissions miles -- almost two million.
Nissan Offers Fuel Cell Vehicle Test Drives
As part of its efforts to further the practical use of fuel cell vehicles, Nissan is offering consumers the chance to test drive its X-TRAIL fuel cell vehicle.
The test drive will be offered for up to a year from Nissan's headquarters in Tokyo. In June, the high-pressure, hydrogen-powered model will be available for test driving every weekend. The schedule for the rest of the year will be announced at a later date.
Nissan will use the feedback generated from customer test drives, as well as data acquired through public-road testing in Japan and overseas, for its ongoing FCV development.
The X-TRAIL FCV is equipped with a Nissan-developed fuel cell stack that has a power generation capacity of 90kW giving the model a top speed of 150 km/h. The model also features a compact, 35MPa high-pressure hydrogen storage cylinder resulting in a cruising range of more than 370 km. The model was approved for public road testing by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in December 2005.
Vehicle research looks beyond oil
Hillebrand says he's confident the nation can move away from its dependence on foreign oil, but he believes the solution lies in a combination of new options, not one single answer.
"We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, because we've got all the coal we want. We're the Saudi Arabia of shale oil, tar sands, biofuels. ... Solar, wind," Hillebrand says. "The U.S. has got substantial carriers of fuel and energy supplies. The problem the U.S. has is they're not oil; they're in different forms.
"So what our research is really focusing on is giving the U.S. alternatives to just using oil, and there are a lot of alternatives."
Of course driving these types of cars should have other perks. Perks like really neato new fabric.
Honda Develops Bio-Fabric for Use in Fuel Cell Automobile Interiors
Tokyo, Japan, May 25, 2006 (JCN Newswire via COMTEX) -- Honda Motor Co., Ltd., (TSE:7267) today announced it has succeeded in developing bio-fabric, a plant-based fabric with excellent durability and resistance to sunlight, for use as a surface material in automobile interiors. Bio-fabric offers the benefit of offsetting CO2 emissions produced during incineration in the disposal stage with CO2 absorption that occurs during the growth stage of the plants that are used as raw materials. Despite this benefit, plant-based fabric has not been used commercially for automobile interiors due to concerns about limited durability and aesthetic issues.
The new bio-fabric developed by Honda overcame such issues, and achieved a soft and smooth material appropriate for the surface of automobile interiors, with high durability and excellent resistance to sunlight to prevent color fading after prolonged use. In addition to seat surfaces, this bio-fabric can be used for the interior surface of the doors and roof and for floor mats. Honda will install these bio-fabric interiors to the company's all-new fuel cell vehicle which will be introduced to the market within next three years.
The article states that the new material will cut down the energy used normally for the process by 10 to 15 percent. Wow.
| technorati tags: alternative energy, fuel cells, vehicles, environment,energy, clean energy, cars, renewable energy, green energy |
