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A new piece in the East Bay Express tells the tale of AC Transit's decision to move forward with a $28 million purchase of 12 zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell buses -- that's just over $2M per bus, and the same total price tag of 55 hybrid buses. Robert Gammon in the Express calls this a "boondoggle," and points to President Obama all but eradicating the federal fuel cell program due to costs.
But AC transit, one of the largest agencies of its kind in California, has been gung-ho for zero emission buses over hybrids, cost be damned. We personally hate seeing and smelling buses that belch out exhaust, but maybe there's a good case for why hybrids are the more pragmatic answer. What say you, dear readers?
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I am absolutely all for the Hydrogen fuel cell. It's beyond debate that it's the way all our vehicles will be powered. Hybrids are a blind alley. It's a dirty little secret that the millions of fuel sipping diesels in Europe were developed on the back of the turbo diesel technology perfected in mass transit. So if hydrogen busses speed our path to hydrogen cars then $2mill per bus is a small price to pay. Plus, hybrid=KQED-listening, long-tooth having, cabbagy-smelling, non-turn-signal-using, tenured comparative literature teacher.
Well, that's less than 1/2 the price of a new bart car.
Boeing's 2008 price list, for comparison:
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/prices/
Hydrogen is one of those cool technologies that has a lot of promise, but it is not very practical right now. Making hydrogen is an energy intensive process and fuel cells use platinum, another expensive and limited resource. Now if you can make the hydrogen by using solar and wind power then you've got 100% clean energy; and if you can find a way to make fuel cells with a more plentiful and cheaper material than platinum then the costs go down. I think it’s going to take large government agencies, like AC Transit and VTA, investing in this technology to work out the kinks and make it more cost effective and practical.
Or the large government agencies could, you know, "invest in technologies" that work NOW and move people NOW. AC Transit should not be a fuel technologies R&D shop - it should be a bus line.
Buy the hybrids, save money, and move more passengers with them thereby reducing auto traffic and pollution far more than with a few hyper-expensive test vehicles.
That flies in the face of the government's long tradition of experimenting on the poor. If we followed your rhetoric we wouldn't have all the wonderful timesaving inventions we take for granted, like crack cocaine, LSD, AIDS or Swine Flu.
Oh, the humanity!