Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority CEO Matt Carpenter says transit agencies can do two things to reduce pollution. “One is [to] just have really great service and attract people out of their cars. The other thing is [to] look at ourselves: Most of the pollution that we create comes from our buses.”
So for the past eighteen months, TheRide’s “Zero Emissions Bus” initiative has been reviewing options with a consultant. In January, Carpenter expects to bring a proposal to the board “to purchase as a pilot project two hydrogen-fuel-cell buses and one outdoor fueling station.” Because hydrogen is highly flammable, fueling can only be done safely outside.
Instead of burning hydrogen directly, these would be HCEVs—they’d run the gas through fuel cells to produce electricity, which in turn would drive electric motors. All that technology is expensive: The price tag is about $1.1 million per bus, roughly twice what the AAATA pays for a diesel bus. Carpenter hopes to get a federal grant to cover the cost.
After the upfront expense, the next challenge will be to find cleaner sources of hydrogen. “Most liquid hydrogen is created by burning natural gas,” admits Carpenter. “You can use electricity from solar or wind power to also create hydrogen. If you do that, it’s called green hydrogen, and it is truly zero emissions.”
He expects they’d “start with what you might call gray or blue hydrogen created with fossil fuels,” trusting that “over the twelve- to fifteen-year lifespan that it’s gonna take us to make this transition, somewhere along the line green hydrogen becomes available and affordable.”
The political timing is right, Carpenter says. “We released our pilot project proposal for hydrogen buses on the same day that President Biden announced the Hydrogen Hub decision. They selected seven sites around the country to jumpstart the production of industrial scale hydrogen creation.”
Within days of Biden’s announcement, congresswoman Debbie Dingell announced that the Department of Energy had awarded the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen up to $1 billion to develop regional supply chains for the production, distribution, and use of hydrogen in trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles. One facility will be at the American Center for Mobility at Willow Run Airport.
“That would absolutely have an effect on us,” Carpenter says. “Right now the closest location where we could get hydrogen is Sarnia, Ontario!”
