Green Energy News | January 7, 2001

January 7, 2001 – Vol.5 No.41

ENERGIES... week of January 7, 2001

CROSSING THE LINE. Nature knows nothing of political boundaries. The wind doesn’t stop at lines drawn on a map. The single largest-yet wind farm will be built straddling the artificial line between the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. The appropriately named Stateline Wind Generating Project 300 megawatt facility will have 450 turbines and supply enough power for 70,000 homes.

Stateline will be built, owned and operated by FPL Energy. PacificCorp Power Marketing (PPM) will buy all of the power for at least 25 years. PPM will market wind power products and may work with the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) to combine the wind power with some of BPA’s hydropower to market another green power product. Construction for Stateline should begin in February and be complete by the end of the year.

BUCKING THE TREND. Well respected in the marketplace for its high-performance cars, BMW will not follow the lead of other manufacturers toward the development of hydrogen fuel cells to power their cars of the future. Instead, the company believes the objective of zero-emission vehicles can be readily achieved by simply adapting conventional cars to run on liquid hydrogen. To help promote this idea the company is sending its fleet of fifteen model 750hL, 12 cylinder hydrogen bi-fueled luxury sedans on its CleanEnergy WorldTour.

BMW makes an interesting point. If hydrogen can be produced cleanly and cheaply in unlimited supplies, can be safely distributed and stored on-board a vehicle, and is considered a zero-emission fuel when burnt, why go to all the trouble to develop hydrogen fuel cells? Further, BMW claims that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would likely be heavier, costlier and, because of the bulk of the systems, not fit into many conventional vehicle designs.

The BMW 750hL cars have a range of 250 miles on 37 gallons of liquid hydrogen - almost 7 miles per gallon hydrogen - and are fitted to run also on gasoline. A current model gasoline fueled U.S. spec 750iL is EPA rated at 13 miles per gallon in city driving, 20 mpg highway. Search for CleanEnergy at http://www.bmwgroup.com/ .

FACING REALITY. Being practical about the possibility of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, General Motors and Toyota working with ExxonMobil have agreed that an interim hydrocarbon-based fuel should be developed that will fuel both fuel cells and internal combustion engines. That fuel would have properties similar to gasoline, but be much cleaner and more efficient.

The companies believe that hydrogen may become a common fuel in the future, but the current situation should not be ignored. There are hundreds of millions of conventional cars already on the road with millions more produced each year and only one refueling infrastructure currently available. Realistically, it would take a long time to develop a hydrogen infrastructure.

GM also announced that it will introduce a hybrid sport utility vehicle by 2004. The ParadiGM hybrid system utilizes a pair of electric motors working in conjunction with either a four or six cylinder engine and a battery pack. GM has plans to adapt ParadiGM to a range of vehicles.