Instead of stranding hundreds of thousands of subway riders, a power outage like last month's record-breaker may do little to inconvenience passengers in the future. That's because fuel cells—electrochemical energy conversion devices that form water from hydrogen and oxygen and in the process, generate electricity and heat—are being developed to run trains and could someday take subway systems off the electricity grid.

The Denver-based Fuelcell Propulsion Institute intends to turn a 120-ton diesel locomotive into a fuel cell-powered train. If successful, this five-year project could pave the way for subway systems that will no longer be reliant on electricity.

"Subway systems running on the grid is obviously a precarious proposition," says Arnold Miller, project spokesman. "Fuel cell subways would not be dependent on the grid."

This would certainly be good news for the approximately 350,000 people who were stuck inside the New York City subway system for up to three hours during the biggest North American blackout on August 14. Two weeks later, a much briefer power failure halted subway trains in London for about 40 minutes during the peak of evening rush hour, briefly trapping passengers underground.

Subway officials from New York, Denver and London are helping to guide the project, which is financially backed 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 emphasized that MTA's involvement in the project did not commit its subways to the technology.

Miller noted that another project participant, Texas-based BNSF Railway company, pays $1 billion a year for diesel for its heavy freight rail. He claimed that fuel cells could ultimately reduce that cost by 20%.

Fuel cells chemically combine hydrogen with oxygen, generating electrical power and releasing only water vapor as a byproduct. Hydrogen is difficult to obtain, store and distribute, however. Extracting supplies of this abundant element can consume a lot of energy from fossil fuels. Fuel cell supporters are banking on wind, nuclear and solar energy to help develop hydrogen supplies in the future, allowing the devices to be truly eco-friendly energy sources.

To learn more about this technology, check out Fuel Cell Fundamentals.

Source: Fuel Cell Locomotive Could Free Subways from Grid
Reuters, Aug. 27, 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=569&ncid=738&e=2&u=/nm/20030827/tc_nm/energy_fuelcell_locomotive_dc