So, this got me to thinking how converting to a hydrogen-based transportation system and economy in general will create thousands of good paying jobs. This also got me to thinking about the resistance from the Big Oil Companies and the political right. Treehugging environmentalist voters don’t usually vote with the conservative right so there are a couple of groups with a vested interest in seeing that these jobs don’t materialize.

But, rather than waiting for good paying jobs to fall into our laps courtesy the future hydrogen economy, I started wondering what jobs are out there now for those with qualifications and skills in this area. And, it turns out there are more than I had imagined.

For instance, the U. S. Department of Energy recently posted two job openings with the title of “INTERDISCIPLINARY GEN’L ENGR/PHYS SCIENTIST, GS-0801/1301-14”. The salary for these positions is between $105,211.00 – $136,771.00 /year. I think these would qualify in most people’s eyes as “good paying jobs”.

Below are some other websites I checked out that are also posting hydrogen job openings. Some of the jobs deal with hydrogen fuel cells, others with hydrogen and internal combustion engines and still others hauling hydrogen. If you happen to be one of the nine percent who is unemployed in this country right now and want a career of the future, now, then please check out the hydrogen jobs being offered at the resources below.

Hydrogen Job Resources

http://www.fuelcells.org/ced/career/fcjobpages.htm

http://www.hydrogenjobs.org/

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/industry/industry-directory

http://www.jobsinfuelcells.com/jobopenings.htm

http://www.fuelcellmarkets.com/article_default_list.fcm?section=12&subsite=1

http://jobsearch.monster.com/search/?q=hydrogen

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=hydrogen&l=

In my February 10, 2011, commendation of public broadcasting for its help in raising hydrail awareness, I failed to credit Ira Flatow’s excellent program, Talk of the Nation – Science Friday. On September 4, 2009, Ira ran a great segment on hydrail but never mentioned the technology by name. Web searches on the subject don’t find it. (Perhaps, if NPR’s webmaster reads this, a hydrail tag can still repair the oversight.)

While putting the segment together, the producer contacted me for experts to interview. I immediately thought of Ontario’s Dr. Alistair Miller, whom (over his strong protests) I always credit as being the “Father of Hydrail” because of his seminal 1999 paper explaining why rail and maritime hydrogen fuel cell applications are the easiest to implement.

By introducing the producer to Dr. Miller, I blew my best chance to snag the “fifteen minutes of fame” that Andy Warhol said we’re all due. If I had thought fast, I might have been on NPR!

But, being devoutly Southern, I chose to Do The Right Thing instead.

The producer did too. Given a choice between interviewing a North Carolina accent that Sheriff Andy might have heard in Mayberry barbershop or a Scottish one as articulate as Sir Walter Scott and as real-life tech savvy as “beam me up” Scotty on Star Trek, he chose the latter. It was a reasonable choice.

A less reasonable choice was omitting the word “hydrail” from the script, rendering the segment invisible to search engines. What could have been a home-run for hydrail science awareness became a bunt instead.

Still, it was a bunt heard by 1.3 million listeners—the vast majority of whom would otherwise never have guessed that fuel cells will soon power trains and streetcars (hydrolleys).

So, thanks anyway, Ira.  Maybe next time.

There is a natural affinity between the emergence of hydrogen fuel cell railway technology (hydrail) and public broadcasting—though I’ve only just noticed it. Both worlds fall within the province of early adopters and other folks driven to scratch below the surface to see how things work and how they come to be.

With listener input and support, national and community public broadcasting can fill the great void in accurate hydrogen economy reporting—a gap that commercial media have been unwilling to address.

With this in mind, I recently dropped-in at one of my local public television stations to enlist their aid in calling hydrail to the attention of The News Hour and Nova. As I’d expected, the reception was cordial.

My family lives in the Greater Charlotte NC area—a community served by four excellent public broadcasting stations, two radio and two television. Though we’re retired and watch our money, we are members and enthusiastic contributors to all four stations because they offer access to information that is both interesting and unavailable elsewhere.

Hydrail is a case in point.

Mooresville, NC, near Charlotte, is my home. Over the years, the former Mayor—Bill Thunberg—has been my closest ally in the advancement of hydrail technology. It all began around 2003 with our quest to have the planned commuter rail line from Charlotte to Mooresville introduce hydrail technology as a US DOT new-technology demonstration site.

That quest is very much alive, though it’s overshadowed a bit by the success of the international collaboration our initiative has since become.

Locally, and nationally, public television and radio could do much to help move hydrail into the public conversation and out of the narrow world of scholars and agencies.

Charlotte has had its own public television service since August 27, 1965, when WTVI was originally licensed to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. Today its expanded vision is to highlight and address issues and needs that will enhance lives and improve its served communities. In the city that’s most mentioned internationally as an ideal “alpha site” for hydrogen streetcar (hydrolley) introduction, that vision implies a station role in hydrail education.

Charlotte is also served by WUNG, a university-related station. NC is nearly 500 miles across and the State’s 17-campus University has created a twelve-transmitter network so that the widely-separated mountain, Piedmont and coastal regions can monitor State issues as well as each other’s news.

Since 2005, both the University and its public broadcasting network have played a central role in introducing hydrail (and its Green manufacturing job creation potential) to the public and the world.

A major element in unifying State awareness is a program called “North Carolina Now,” hosted and produced by Shannon Vickery and news-anchored by Mitchell Lewis. “NC Now” has already broadcast two hydrail segments with Mayor Thunberg and me as guests. There is probably no other way the entire State can be informed about hydrail all at once.

Local public radio has also been a valuable portal in introducing hydrail to Greater Charlotte.  WFAE, whose 1981 origin was linked to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has since expanded its mission the be “the station of record for community leaders.”

A flagship program of WFAE is “Charlotte Talks,” hosted by Mike Collins. Twice I’ve had the pleasure of discussing hydrail on “Charlotte Talks.” Mike’s other hydrail guests have included:  Former mayor Bill Thunberg; Dr. Barry Burks, formerly with the US DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratories and now Assistant Director of the Charlotte Research Institute at UNC-Charlotte;  Dale Hill, founder of the high-tech transit vehicle manufacturer, Proterra Inc., whom I wrote about here recently; and Dr. Jan Brecht-Clark, Associate Administrator of RITA, the US DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration.

Our fourth station, WDAV, is a superb classical music station with few ways to support a technology issue. That’s unfortunate; our prospective hydrail debut line runs within a few hundred feet of their studio!

Sadly, public broadcasting’s Federal funding component may be on the new Congress’s hit-list. If that axe falls, chances grow slimmer that the public can access reliable information about the hydrogen economy, hydrail or other hydrogen issues the pop media don’t see fit to embrace.

Therefore I’m writing this blog to suggest that those of us who do see how important hydrogen will be for a clean-energy future should join, upgrade memberships, and otherwise support our local public broadcasting stations—and also let them know that we appreciate hydrogen-related programs and news coverage.

Especially just now, we need to let our Representatives in Washington know that lopping-off funding for one of the best mechanisms for directing future generations of engineers and researchers into their professions would be a short-sighted economic gesture—calamitous for the future of science and high-tech job creation in the USA.

Here’s a video explaining how the Mercedes B-class F-cell fuel cell vehicle will be used in order to get the green message out on four different continents.

I was so excited by the news I decided to conducts a short interview with Anthony English Flores, Account Executive for CCM News:

HydroKevin (HK): What are the 4 continents that the F-Cell will travel to?
Anthony English Flores (AEF): Along the tour route, the vehicles will travel through Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States.
HK: How will the F-Cell be refueled during its travels (stationary hydrogen stations, mobile stations or …)?
AEF: The F-Cell will be refueled by a mobile refueling station that will travel with the vehicles during the tour.
HK: Who will the drivers be for the F-Cell?
AEF: The drivers for the tour include but are not limited to Mercedes Benz drivers and journalists joining the tour at different locations.
HK: Besides driving the F-Cell to different locations, how else will hydrogen technology be featured?
AEF: We will feature examples of Hydrogen technology and mobility along the tour. We are currently involved in an extensive process of researching the most relevant Hydrogen stories along the tour route.

So, as you can see the Mercedes fuel cell vehicle will be an integral part of every show. Viewers will not only receive information about solar panels, wind turbines and other forms of green energy, but they will also receive the constant message that hydrogen cars are the future of the transportation industry. This ecologically friendly trek will bring “green to your screen” as they like to say.

This is happening on two different levels. First, GM’s Project Driveway is giving direct exposure to students with GM’s hydrogen vehicles. Recently, Project Driveway drove their Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell and pulled into Fleetwood Area High School in Pennsylvania so that students could get a first hand look at a hydrogen car in action.

Second, organizations such as the NHA have created its Hydrogen Student Design Contest, which has received a record number of entries this year. Involved will be 36 teams of high school and college students from 16 countries and 5 continents.

It’s these kinds of education and exposure programs to young people which will normalize hydrogen fuel, cars and vehicles going forward. In 5 to 10 years from now these same students will be texting while driving their hydrogen cars instead of traditional gas guzzling vehicles (well, hopefully not texting as this is dangerous but you know what I mean). Normalizing hydrogen cars on the road one former student at a time will usher in a new era of clean energy in this country.

For instance, General Motors has a plant in Honeoye Falls, (which is near Rochester) where several hundred engineers are working on Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles. For the past couple of years GM has been conducting its Project Driveway program that let’s average people drive their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) in exchange for user feedback.

Now, once again, not only is GM asking for feedback but marketing advice. MBA students at the University at Buffalo School of Management are being asked to come up with a marketing plan to launch 100,000 FCVs in the year 2015.

According to professor Arun Jain, “So the challenge is to identify where they should be selling it, what should be the market segment they should focus on, and how should they position the car.”

GM brought in an Equinox FCV on campus for some of the students to drive to give them a feel for what the project would be all about. An even better idea in my opinion is to bring the students and guiding faculty members into the Project Driveway program at this point, so that they have access to the past couple year’s worth of consumer feedback on the vehicle.

GM started Project Driveway after all in order to first, test the vehicle, but second, test consumer acceptance of the vehicle. This data would serve the students well in coming up with a plan of action going forward.

The hydrogen was then pushed through a fuel cell along with ambient air, which powered the wheels of the vehicle. From the start line, the Aluminator traveled 76 feet, 5 inches to a finish line that was 77 feet from the start. The closest car to the finish line, the Aluminator won the competition.

Now, I’ve talked about using water, aluminum and some other chemical compound to create hydrogen many times over the past couple of years. I think this is a viable idea that needs more research and development.

When I read the article in Boston.com, however, I was taken aback. According to this source, “A group of Northeastern University students showed the judges at a competition last week in Nashville how autos can make hydrogen under their hoods – thus eliminating the need to create a new nationwide network of hydrogen filling stations.”

The eliminating the hydrogen filling stations part caught my eye. Perhaps this new hydrogen-aluminum fuel could be sold at traditional filling stations and perhaps not. Or perhaps it will be sold at Wal-Mart, Costco, 7-Elevens, bought off eBay or any number of places.

But, the point is that some kind of national fueling infrastructure will need to be in place for the production and dispensing of this hydrogen-aluminum compound and the disposal and recycling of the compound. The infrastructure may not be as expensive as building a nationwide network of thousands of hydrogen fueling stations at $2 million a pop, but there will be a need for some sort of well thought out infrastructure nonetheless.

Perhaps even this hydrogen-aluminum fuel can be used right at the pump to create hydrogen on demand for cars that use compressed H2 gas. Or perhaps this hydrogen-rich chemical compound would be used inside the vehicle and the spent materials disposed of and recycled to be used once again.

The aluminum and water idea is not a new one but it takes us down a whole new path than the compressed or liquid hydrogen scenario. More research is needed not only of the viability of this chemical compound, but how the infrastructure will work needs to be well thought out and mapped out as well.

I’ve talked about Proton Energy Systems before as one of the world leaders in building hydrogen generators for the scientific community as well as H2 refueling stations. Proton currently has about a dozen hydrogen fueling stations operating throughout the United States.

The Proton Energy Scholarship program will make its awards to students based on “…academic performance, strength of application, commitment to further education in a science or technology related field, financial need and demonstrated leadership, work ethic and community involvement.” Applications are due by Feb. 10, 2010.

According to Jeffrey Serfass, President of the Hydrogen Education Foundation, “We are thrilled that Proton chose the Hydrogen Education Foundation to administer this exciting new program. We look forward to identifying and awarding star students who will help us address the global energy and environmental challenges ahead.”

More rules and news can be found at the Proton Energy Scholarship website including questions and answers and how to apply. The high school seniors of today will be the chemists and engineers of tomorrow solving the complexities of building a hydrogen infrastructure for cars. So it’s good to see the business community step up and put money towards education in this kind of transformational technology.

This year, some high school students are racing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles trying to top out the other gas sippers. Some sophomores from Cicero-North Syracuse High School (C-NS) in New York are trying to win the $2,500 grand prize with their 3-wheel fuel cell vehicle.

Each racer drives seven laps around the Auto Club Speedway at 15 mph and when crossing the finish line the fuel mileage is calculated. Corporate donations helped the students to build the $8,000 hydrogen car including fuel cell and parts.

A couple years ago, I had talked about the 2007 Shell Eco Marathon and how the students at Los Altos Academy of Engineering drove their hydrogen fuel cell car to a North American record of 1038 mpg. Now, the C-NS students don’t have match this feat. It’s the experience that counts since this group will be our next hydrogen fuel cell engineers.

The Urban Concept Car is a new category for this year’s competition. No matter what the outcome the ride itself for these students will make memories that will last a lifetime.

The bonded hydrogen is released from the metal powder inside the tanks by using waste heat from the fuel cell, which extends the run time. The bulk of the motorcycle is a Buell cyclone that was retrieved from a scrap yard for this project.

According to Andres, “The aim of the whole project was just to make a functional hydrogen motorcycle with a 1.2kW PEM fuel cell and two metal-hydride containers. The motorcycle could then be used as a point of comparison to other technologies in terms of efficiency, range, speed, etc and confirm the viability of a hydrogen economy.

“As of right now we have the motorcycle working and expect (based on bench tests) a maximum of one hour of operation at full-throttle (worse case) and a max speed of maybe 30mph. However, we are working on fixing some issues with the data logging system and microcontroller that logs data into a USB drive so that we can then analyze all this data after the test rides. After fixing the data-logging we will probably try different gear ratios to get higher speeds or better torque.”

Now, one of my favorite subjects is talking about how the youth of today will be the hydrogen engineers of tomorrow. Andres and Alex are just on the edge of venturing into this marketplace.

Today at the Detroit International Auto Show, GM and SAE will be introducing the Fuel Cell Challenge to students in middle school. This will be part of SAE’s World in Motion program and encourage our youth to pursue careers in fuel cells and other alternative fuel technologies.