Friday, April 3, 1998 | 10:04 a.m.
About 10 to 15 of Paul Pate's advanced automotive students at the Cheyenne campus of the Community College of Southern Nevada will get a unique challenge in the classroom next fall.
They'll get to maintain and troubleshoot a new vehicle powered by a zinc air battery, an alternative-fuel technology to be tested in a one-year trial on the roads and highways of Southern Nevada.
Pate, whose National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence-accredited class prepares students getting into the automotive repair industry, sees CCSN's partnership in the demonstration project as an opportunity to give students an up-close look at cutting-edge alternative-fuels technology.
CCSN's participation in the zinc air project is the final component in the bid to begin testing an electric-powered bus that won't have any emissions.
Pate, who has about 350 students ages 16 to 70 in classrooms operating six days a week, day and night, said working with alternative fuels "opens tons and tons of doors" for students.
CCSN joined the team in January at the request of Kenneth Partain, president of the Center for Sustainable Technology, whose company is teaming with the zinc air battery's developer, Electric Fuel Corp., which is headquartered in New York. CST, which develops and commercializes emerging technologies in renewable energy, energy management, environment and transportation, was founded by the Electric Power Research Institute and Bechtel National Inc., and has its headquarters at the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas.
Electric Fuel developed the zinc air system after testing concepts in Jerusalem, Israel. Zinc air batteries also are being developed for portable electronics, like cellular phones. By expanding and connecting several batteries together, the company has assembled a fuel cell that can power a vehicle for about 250 miles -- roughly a day's drive on the average fleet bus. Battery cells can be regenerated overnight when power consumption -- and rates -- are lower.
That's where the CCSN students come in. They'll learn how to quickly change a block of batteries and reconnect the power supply. It's a job that takes about six minutes.
Zinc air batteries produce electricity as zinc inside them oxidizes. Zinc-filled plates within the battery have to be removed for electrical regeneration. If the technology is to become successful, generation stations would have to be built to support regular regeneration.
That's why the technology is expected to be more successful for fleets than individual vehicles. A consumer wouldn't be able to simply plug a vehicle into a wall to recharge it.
The test vehicle in Las Vegas will be a 4.6-ton Mercedes Benz 410 bus. Partain hopes the vehicle will travel all over Southern Nevada, pushing the limits on its use.
"We want it taken down to Hoover Dam, and up on the steep grades to Mount Charleston and in stop-and-go traffic on Las Vegas streets," Partain said. "We want to put it through every type of driving condition, from the hottest days to the coldest to see if there are any weaknesses. After all, this is a test."
Drivers who operate the bus will be asked to keep careful notes on how the bus and its unique fuel system performs.
Partain said CST already is getting some early information on how well the technology operates, since zinc air-fueled vehicles are on the road in Europe. In a pair of publicity stunts, zinc air vehicles traveled between Chambery, France, and Torino, Italy -- Hannibal's route over the Alps in his 218 B.C. invasion of Italy -- and from London to Paris via the English Channel Tunnel in a pair of endurance tests.
German postal workers also are testing zinc air vehicles.
Partain said the Las Vegas test represents the technology's debut in the United States. He believes the extreme temperatures of the valley in the summer and Mount Charleston in the winter in an arid climate will give the vehicle new conditions to conquer.
Once the testing has begun, Partain may face his biggest challenge -- selling companies that operate fleets to buy into the technology. However, armed with data from the tests and promises that the fuel costs will be comparable to diesel and gasoline costs, he hopes to win over fleet users with the promise that the only emissions from their vehicles would be oxygen.
Since he got to drive a prototype vehicle that visited Las Vegas in January, Partain is enthused about vehicle performance. He said vehicles can maintain high speeds and can accelerate quickly. He said the quiet performance is almost disconcerting -- it's hard for passersby to realize that something as large as a bus runs so silently.
Partain said that while the vehicles themselves don't create any pollutants, it would be inaccurate to portray zinc-oxide technology as completely smog free. After all, the plants that power the electrical grids needed to recharge the batteries use fuels that can generate pollution.
But at least the CCSN crew won't have to run any smog checks on the big bus.
archive
