One of the articles in IM‘s forthcoming September issue looks at fuel cells vehicles for underground mines, and mentions the Fuelcell Propulsion Institute (www.fuelcellpropulsion.org). A government-industry consortium – the Mine Safety and Health Administration, United Mine Workers of America, a fuelcell-vehicle developer, safety consultancy, and a coal company – are developing and will demonstrate a zero-emission, fuelcell-powered coal mine vehicle. The vehicle’s fuel will be derived from coalbed methane from the mine in which it operates.
Making further progress in this area, BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) and Vehicle Projects recently unveiled an operational hydrogen fuel cell switch locomotive at BNSF’s Topeka System Maintenance Terminal. This included a limited demonstration of the prototype locomotive, which is on its way to Colorado to begin an extended period of field testing.
BNSF, Vehicle Projects, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and the Department of the Army had announced plans to develop the locomotive on January 9, 2008. The prototype switch locomotive has the potential to reduce air pollution, is not dependent on oil for fuel, and could serve as a mobile backup power source for military and civilian disaster relief efforts.
A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp, BNSF Railway Co operates one of the largest North American rail networks, with about 32,000 route miles in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. BNSF is among the world’s top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other American railroad, carries the components of many of the products depended on daily, and hauls enough low-sulphur coal to generate about 10% of the electricity produced in the US.
Vehicle Projects (since 1998) located in Golden/Denver, Colorado, serves heavy industry and transport by developing prototype fuel cell vehicles that improve productivity, worker health and safety, environmental quality, or energy efficiency and security. Its core in-house activities are project conception and fundraising, vehicle engineering design, and consortium organisation and management.
