Ford Not 1st With Hydrogen Station

“Ford to Develop Test Car Fueled by Hydrogen” [Aug. 17] states that the $1.5-million hydrogen fueling station on Ford’s research grounds in Dearborn, Mich., is “the first such facility in the United States.” I would just like to point out that the Southern California organization Clean Air Now established a hydrogen fueling station at the Xerox facilities in El Segundo in 1995. Not only was the system a hydrogen fueling station, but the hydrogen was generated by an array of solar cells, thus making it truly clean and renewable energy.

The $2.5-million project was funded by the White House Technology Reinvestment Program to put defense technology to civilian use. The station has been used to fuel internal combustion utility vehicles that have been converted to run on hydrogen, as well as fueling the Ballard fuel cell bus, which has conducted demonstration runs at Los Angeles International Airport and elsewhere. The project has resulted in spinoffs and other projects that are forwarding the development of the hydrogen economy in California and the rest of the country.

WOODY HASTINGS

Board Member

Clean Air Now

Topanga Canyon

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