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 merica's first street-ready fuel-cell
car is a cherry-red, pint-sized coupe. Produced at Humboldt State University's
Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC), it represents a major step toward
a quiet, pollution-free automobile.
 The coupe debuted officially Friday,
April 24, at the Clean Cities Celebration in the City of Palm Desert, CA,
about 800 miles south of the lab where it was made. The fuel-cell-powered
neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) is a small car that carries two people,
runs at a top speed of 35 m.p.h., has a range of 30 miles, can be refueled
in two minutes, and emits no exhaust other than pure water.
The car joins three hydrogen-powered
golf carts engineered by SERC, which have been in daily use for 18 months.
Such vehicles are legal, indeed encouraged, on the streets of Palm Desert,
a city that aggressively pursues environmental technologies.
The vehicles are part of a $3.9 million
transportation project to create a fleet of pollution-free vehicles powered
by fuel cells and the infrastructure to support them. The project's next
step is to construct a hydrogen-generating and refueling station where solar
electricity will power the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen fuel.
Two Humboldt State environmental
resources engineering professors, Peter Lehman and Charles Chamberlin, initiated
the project and directed SERC's development of the vehicles. According to
Lehman, "This project is a big step toward the transportation system
of the future. Our ultimate goal is to see full-size clean and reliable
fuel-cell vehicles running on all our nation's highways. The beauty of fuel-cell
vehicles is that they are pollution-free and energy-efficient, and we can
make the fuel right here in America. In electric cars, fuel cells offer
important advantages over batteries: they have greater range, and they take
minutes to refuel not hours to recharge." Lehman envisions a day when
fuel-cell vehicles are sold nationally and solar hydrogen will be the fuel
of choice at gas stations.
The body of the latest vehicle off
the Schatz line was built by Kewet, a Danish company. NEVs are common in
Europe, where the lightweight, energy-efficient cars are used for short
trips within a community. Leaving the Kewet's 10-horsepower (7.5-kilowatt)
motor intact, SERC engineers replaced its batteries with an experimental
fuel-cell power system they developed in the Arcata laboratory.
Partners in the Palm Desert project
are the Department of Energy (providing $1.4 million), the state's South
Coast Air Quality Management District ($825,000), City of Palm Desert ($300,000),
SunLine Transit Agency and technology corporations Dupont, Teledyne-Brown
Engineering, ASE Americas, and W.L. Gore and Associates providing materials
and expertise.
The Humboldt State facility will
provide more than $521,000, drawing interest from a $3.5 million endowment
established in 1995 by the center's benefactor, innovative industrialist
L.W. Schatz of Pauma Valley, Calif. The research center employs 15 students
and graduates of Humboldt's Environmental Resources Engineering program.
It has brought in nearly $10 million to Humboldt County and its work has
attracted international interest.
Lehman said the Palm Desert project
is "a natural extension" of an earlier research effort funded
by Schatz: the Solar Hydrogen Project, which began in 1989 at Humboldt State's
Telonicher Marine Laboratory. Completed in 1992 as the country's first stand-alone
hydrogen energy system, it demonstrated how hydrogen can serve as storage
for solar energy.
"It's amazing to see how far
we've come," said Lehman. "I've learned how powerful a simple
vision is if you just hold onto it." 
America's first street-ready, fuel-cell-powered
car
Builder: The Schatz Energy
Research Center at Humboldt State University.
How it works: A solar array
generates electricity to run an electrolyzer, which produces hydrogen from
water. The hydrogen is compressed, stored and used to fuel a fleet of fuel-cell
vehicles. The vehicles' exhaust is pure water.
The technology: Hydrogen technology
has the potential to help solve pollution and resource consumption problems.
It offers a clean, safe, reliable and domestically produced source of fuel.
From golf-carts to buses, hydrogen-powered vehicles can replace those powered
by internal combustion engines.
Vehicle specifications
Fuel cell type: Proton Exchange
Membrane
Power: 9.0 kW @ 600mV/cell (12.2 hp) Number of cells: 96
Gas storage pressure: 3,000 psi
Fuel cell operating temperature: 120-150F
Range (on a full tank): 30 miles
Refueling time: 2 minutes
Hydrogen tank volume: 31.1 liters
Top speed: 35 m.p.h.
Body & chassis: Kewet (Denmark)
Electric motor size: 7.5 kW (10 hp)
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axe.humboldt.edu; web: http://www.humboldt.edu/~serc