10/27/2005

UPS Expands Real-World Testing of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology

As an answer to the rising fuel cost the shipping company UPS has implemented the use of a hydrogen powered delivery car. UPS has a fleet of over 88,000 vehicles and could make an impact in their costs if they move to this new technology. Not only is the vehicle clean burning, the different system offer 10% more cargo room. As technology continues to increase the long run effect of increasing fuel prices can be countered.

1 comment:

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Morgan's post for spelling errors.

I've indicated on previous posts that I am dubious about alternative energy sources like hydrogen.

Having said that, UPS is the sort of organization that can be relied upon to make a reasonable test of this sort of thing.

One of the problems with alternative fuels is that the costs of the underlying gas distribution system are grossly underestimated. My guess is that we're probably looking at prices of $10-15 per gallon to justify building a distribution system for getting alternative fuel to the public. But, UPS can do this on a fleet level in a large metropolitan area.

The message here is that if we don't see lots of fleet operations (which can contrl fuel distribution) going towards alternative fuels, then it isn't going to happen for the general public.