London has long appeared to be an epicentre of environmental activity with former mayor Ken Livingstone introducing the London Congestion Charge which forced drivers to think green or pay the price. However, new mayor Boris Johnson has other ideas.
Mr Johnson has thrown a roadblock in the way of the progression of hydrogen vehicles by cancelling an order Mr Livingstone had placed for 60 hydrogen vehicles, according to a report by analysts in the London office of Boston-based Global Insight economic consulting.
The scheme was intended to be England’s largest hydrogen transport project to date and was expected to boost interest in hydrogen vehicles such as cars, trucks, motorcycles and scooters worldwide while prompting increased demand for hydrogen refueling stations.
However, now Mr Johnson will only accept 10 hydrogen buses ordered by his predecessor after deciding that the 60 smaller prototype fuel-cell vehicles would not create a stimulus in the market for hydrogen powered vehicles.
Expense is also believed to be a major issue. The 10 buses alone are expected to cost about £1million each – and Mr Johnson does not have enough faith in the smaller prototypes to believe they are worth such significant expenditure.
Do you think that Boris Johnson is right to put the brakes on these hydrogen vehicles? Let us know your thoughts.
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I can see where Boris Johnson is coming from. It’s OK being a pioneer but not at ANY cost. If he is advised that the vehicles will be more expensive and the order is not enough to act as a stimulus to the industry, why should Londoners pay the cost and be lumbered with potential white elephants when the next generation of vehicles could be cheaper and more efficient ?
Comment by John Coley — August 10, 2008 @ 11:56 am
We recognize that expense is always a concern, but putting the cost foremost will keep London locked into fossil fuels until they begin to run out, until there are shortages at any price shortly after 2010 (ASPO). Then the building of alternative fueled vehicles will be politically expensive as well as pound costly. It takes energy to build vehicles. If there is not eouugh oil energy to go around, whom to you take it from to build the alternative vehicles? The lorry drivers, the taxies, the fishing fleet, or private cars. Short sighted stupidity seems to be the province of elected politicians. You must build the hydrogen infrastructure while there is oil energy to do it with. Waiting until the oil runs out before you try to change is exceedingly stupid.
John Gotthold CTO Independent Energy Rersearch. IER-USA.org
Comment by John Gotthold — August 10, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
Fuel-cell technology is still very much experimental and is so energy inefficient that whilst using this technology will create buses which emit no tailpipe pollution producing their hydrogen fuel still negatively impacts upon the global environment.
According to information obtained from oil company BP when renewably sourced electricity is used to produce the hydrogen emissions of the harmful greenhouse gas CO2 increases by 582 tonnes for every Gwh of power generated. Furthermore, for every 9Gwh of energy invested just 1Gwh of usable power will reach the buses wheels – generating, compressing & storing the hydrogen will waste the rest of the energy.
London should be looking to use overhead wire powered electric trolleybuses, as these are a tried, tested and proven technology successfully used in over 350 towns & cities globally. They are also very fuel efficient – when sourced renewably over 90% of the electricity actually gets usefully through to drive the vehicle. When trialed in Vancouver, BC, they found that one fuel-cell bus consumes as much power as a dozen trolleybuses and unlike trolleybuses which can work 24+ hour duties without even needing to be refuelled the fuel-cell buses needed refuelling after just 4.5 hours – barely half a workday! So for this plus other reasons resulting from their comparative trials they have just bought a fleet of brand new low-floor electric trolleybuses.
Another issue is that fuel-cell buses are so heavy that their unladen weight is roughly similar to that of a diesel bus carrying a full complement of passengers. Since governments usually set legal limits on how much a bus may weigh (partly to reduce wear & tear on the road surfaces) the net result is that passenger capacities of fuel-cell buses are lower than fossil fuel or trolleybuses of comparable size.
For Britain we should be looking at the tides as a source of energy.
Simon
Comment by Simon Smiler — August 11, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
Boris was quite right to cancel this expensive trial scheme.
The best way of dealing with pollution from buses in London is to re-introduce trams and trolleybuses to the capital. They are both proven technology widely in use in mainland Europe (and elsewhere).
Comment by Peter Relf — August 11, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
Boris is right to hold back on hydrogen vehicles! For urban bus networks there is a much more sensible solution than the hydrogen bus. Hydrogen is a very inefficient way of piping energy to a vehicle – ten times less efficient than sending it down a wire. Electric trolleybuses are the solution to powering urban bus networks in a clean, green environmentally friendly and sustainable way. On urban networks, trolleybuses are cost competitive with diesels and much more environmentally friendly. Essentially the economics of trolleybuses are that cost savings in running electric vehicles pay for the power supply infrastructure.
Comment by Irvine Bell — August 12, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
This is absolutely the right thing to do.
Hydrogen fuel cells are not the answer to greenhouse gases and climate change. On the contrary, their intrinsic energy inefficiency makes them a total disaster in this regard.
This was a typical Ken ‘be seen to be doing something’ at any cost effort.
Simon is correct. If you want energy efficient public transport at affordable costs which can use sustainable and non polluting power, you need direct electric trolleybuses operating on electricity made from renewables. You still get the clean air at street level, free from the toxic and carcinogenic fumes produced by diesels, but with tried and tested technology at an affordable cost and without the other environmental damage related to fuel mells.
Comment by Gordon Mackley — August 13, 2008 @ 8:54 am
The hydrogen bus trials should be cancelled altogether. Even testing ten of them is unfeasible. Acceptance is growing of the fact that hydrogen fuel cells onboard vehicles will not prove viable. The overall energy efficiency of using onboard fuel cell propulsion systems to drive vehicles is about 10 or 11%, or on a par with the steam engine. In a society faced with energy constraints, driving vehicles with onboard fuel cells will not prove workable – it is a waste of energy. A real step forward in transitioning away from petroleum based fuels could be made by converting public transport systems to direct electric operation. Public transport easily lends itself to the use of grid-connected electric vehicles, which represent the most energy efficient form of transportation.
Comment by Kevin Brown — August 13, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
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