Water District raising H

Dan Kulin

Sunday, May 21, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.

The future of hydrogen-powered vehicles is getting a boost locally with plans to add a second hydrogen fueling station in Las Vegas.

In addition to giving the handful of hydrogen-powered vehicles being tested in the Las Vegas Valley another place to fill up, the hydrogen for the new station will be produced via solar-generated electricity, an environmentally clean method using a renewable energy supply.

The plans for the second station come as Las Vegas prepares to add several hydrogen-powered vehicles to the few that the city has been using for about a year.

Hydrogen has been hailed as the clean fuel of the future - though how far into the future remains a subject of speculation, with some estimates projecting that it will be at least two decades before hydrogen-powered vehicles could become economically viable.

Some, however, already are planning for the day when hydrogen-powered cars and trucks could help to reduce America's dependence on pollution-generating fossil fuels. In California, for example, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing plans for a so-called hydrogen highway, a network of fueling stations close enough to each other to make long-distance travel easier for hydrogen-vehicle owners.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles generally can travel about 200 miles per tank, compared with traditional cars that can drive 300 to 350 miles on a tank of gasoline.

Combined with an anticipated drop in the vehicles' price, the extra fueling stations are expected to promote the production and use of more hydrogen-powered cars.

Las Vegas' new station, to open within the next six months at the Las Vegas Valley Water District's main campus at Valley View and Charleston boulevards, is a joint venture with the UNLV Research Foundation. The Water District will have two small hydrogen-powered trucks that will use the station.

Robert Boehm, technical manager for the project and a mechanical engineering professor at UNLV, said the new station is important because it will demonstrate the production and consumption of energy in an environmentally neutral way.

"Hydrogen is the only fuel that is both renewably based and has no greenhouse gases," Boehm said. "Also, we can make it from renewable sources. It's a way of furnishing fuel for the future."

An $8.9 million federal grant is paying for the UNLV research and construction of the fueling station at the Water District.

Las Vegas is planning to add another eight trucks or shuttle buses that would use hydrogen or a hydrogen/natural gas blend to its small fleet of hydrogen-powered vehicles by the new station's October opening date.

Las Vegas, which has the area's only existing hydrogen station, near Cheyenne Avenue and Buffalo Drive, has been using two hydrogen-powered cars for a little over a year and four trucks that run on a hydrogen/natural gas blend for about six months.

The city's existing hydrogen cars, Hondas worth more than $1 million each, are being leased to the city by the automaker at a reduced rate of $600 a month.

Federal funds also paid for the $30,000-per-vehicle conversion of four city trucks that run on the blended hydrogen and natural gas.

The federal grant also will cover an additional six trucks planned to be similarly converted within the next few months.

Another $500,000 federal grant will pay for two hydrogen-powered shuttle buses expected to start operating around downtown in October, said Dan Hyde, the city's fleet and transportation manager.

The city's $10.8 million hydrogen fueling station, funded with federal and private dollars, was built three years ago.

Unlike the planned Water District station, the city's fueling station has its hydrogen trucked in.

Although water is the only emission from hydrogen-powered vehicles, the production of the hydrogen itself, through a process involving natural gas, creates carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen also is not cheap; the hydrogen equivalent of one gallon of regular gasoline costs the city about $4.50, Hyde said. A year ago, however, it was twice as expensive, he said.

"So it's heading in the right direction at least," Hyde said.

The hydrogen and hydrogen blend vehicles fill up by "plugging in" a hose to the vehicle's tank, much like a normal car is filled up at a gasoline pump.

The engine works by exposing the hydrogen to air, with the hydrogen combining with oxygen to create energy and water.