(Reuters distributed the following article on August 27.)
NEW YORK — The hundreds of thousands of subway passengers trapped for hours on the New York City subways during the largest North American blackout earlier this month take note: one day subways could run independent of the electricity grid.
The Denver-based Fuelcell Propulsion Institute plans to convert a 120-ton diesel locomotive into a fuel cell-driven train, a project that could one day make fuel cells a reality for subways.
“Subway systems running on the grid is obviously a precarious proposition,” said Arnold Miller, spokesman for the five-year project. “Fuel cell subways would not be dependent on the grid.”
During the largest North American blackout earlier this month, some 350,000 people were trapped for up to three hours in the New York City subway system.
Subway officials from New York, Denver and London are providing guidance for the project which is funded by the U.S. Army and the National Automotive Center in Michigan.
“We’re just there observing,” said a New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority official, who stressed that MTA’s participation did not bind its subways in anyway to the technology.
Miller said another participant in the project, Texas-based BNSF Railway company, spends $1 billion a year in diesel costs for its heavy freight rail. He said fuel cells could eventually lower that bill by 20 percent.
Fuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen in a chemical reaction that produces electrical power emitting only water as a byproduct. Obtaining supplies of hydrogen, however, can take large amounts of energy from fossil fuels. Fuel cell backers hope wind, nuclear and solar energy will help build supplies of hydrogen in the future, enabling the technology to be a clean source of energy.