Saturday, September 01, 2007

Argonne's Green Transportation Event

This past Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, the group involved with transportation research here at Argonne held an open day for Argonne and U. of Chicago's employees to visit their temporary display area. On exhibition are all the latest technology in fuel-efficient vehicles and alternative fuel sources for road vehicles. This includes the latest technology in hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and even hydrogen-powered vehicles.

While some of these new technology have a lot of obstacles left to over come to make them a viable alternative to current fuel sources, it was still nice to get a closer look at them, and get to talk and ask questions to the experts doing research work with these vehicles. The hydrogen source, for example, still has plenty of issues to deal with, including how to produce hydrogen without consuming even more power than it can produce, and how to transport it over long distances.

Here are a few pictures taken during this event.



There was a nice crowd at the first session in the morning.



There were several different types of hybrid and fuel-efficient vehicles on display. Many of them were loaded both on the front and on the back of the vehicles. Here are three of them.







The "star" of the event was the five BMW vehicles that were hydrogen-powered. The event highlighted the research work done by BMW and other automobile companies in this area.



This is the hydrogen fueling tank that was used to refuel one of the vehicles as part of the demonstration.



We were shown how one of these vehicles is refueled. Just look at the size of that insulated transfer line and what actually coupled to the car!



The hydrogen fuel tank is in the trunk of the vehicle, right behind the rear passenger seat.


A few lucky attendees got to do a test drive around the Argonne campus in these BMW vehicles. I wasn't one of the luck ones. :(


It was a fun event. Again, it is always nice to see the actual vehicles and get to talk to the experts. That was the best part of the whole event for many of us, especially those car fanatics. :)

Zz.

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