Hydrogen highway to become reality in British Columbia

The 2010 Olympics which are due to be held in Vancouver are set to offer a great display case for the potential of this technology. The problem with hydrogen thus far has been mainly in how it is generated. When a clean source is used the process is often quiet arduous and slow.  

Other ventures such as Honda’s experiment in Southern California have relied on solar powered hydrogen generation stations for one family experiment. BMW’s 7 series hydrogen powered sedan’s running in Germany at current can only tank up at a handful of stations.  The hydrogen highway will in effect be powered by a manufacturing plant in Vancouver which produces 600 kg of hydrogen an hour. This is enough to hydrogen to fuel up thousands of vehicles on a regular basis.

200 million Canadian Dollars will also be given to venture from government, an initiative which was rolled out by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a wider package of $1.5 billion EcoTrust Canada fund. The question remains which vehicles will run on the route as effectively the hydrogen highway will give the infrastructure for companies to test their vehicles, a choice which is aimed at bringing fuel cell research consortiums to the area.  This would cut out a major cost course traditionally associated with these types of projects for the manufactures of these types of vehicles.