A hydrolley homer?

(This column appeared in the Tribune on March 9, 2008.)

In 1932, Babe Ruth added to his legend by pointing a promise at center field and batting a home run out of the park. In 1942, Douglas McArthur told the Philippines, "I shall return," and he did. In 1961, JFK told the world the US would "put a man on the moon" and there stands our flag today.
There's something brashly American about calling a shot and giving the world license to smirk at failure but also obliging it to salute success.
So here goes my swing: The world's first hydrogen streetcar-"hydrolley"-manufacturing plant will be located here in Mooresville and the already-proposed Beatty's Ford Road to Central Avenue streetcar line in Charlotte will be among the pilot projects to use its output-the hydrolley.
Before shooting the moon, Kennedy conferred long with his science advisers. McArthur knew well America's will and industrial might. And I'm not wishing on a star either. We've got an excellent chance.
In February, 2007, the transit journal Passenger Transport ran a story on hydrolleys which I co-authored. To the best of my knowledge, that was the first time anyone suggested the technology in print.
Then on August 13, the first public session on the future of hydrolleys was held at the Catawba College Center for the Environment as part of Mooresville's Third International Hydrail Conference and I was among the speakers.
On October 3, 2007, I was in Columbia, SC, for a meeting on "Uses of Hydrogen In The Military" when I met Dale Hill, the CEO of Mobile Energy Solutions, the firm building a hydrogen fuel cell bus to be demonstrated in Columbia. It had not escaped Dale's attention that, with hybrid hydrogen fuel cell technology working well on rubber-tired buses, it should work even better on streetcars with only one-seventh the rolling friction.
Dale agreed to meet with Mayor Bill Thunberg and others next time he came to North Carolina and on October 18 we all had lunch at Soirée. The next day the Mooresville South Iredell Economic Development Corporation showed him one or two potential plant locations. There was only idea-swapping, but we can hope! Also that morning Dale was interviewed by The Tribune's Megan Pillow, who later wrote what was probably the first hydrolley story ever to appear in the general press.
Five years ago Mooresville sought to speed the advent of hydrogen fuel cell railway technology by giving it a name-"hydrail." We wanted government, academic and business people all around the world to be able to find everything on the Internet about the subject by entering just one word-hydrail-into their search engines.
The strategy worked beyond our fondest dreams! As of last Sunday afternoon, Google found 1,920 articles for "hydrail." And as Mooresville's June 9 Fourth International Hydrail Conference in Valencia, Spain, draws closer, look for as many as 3,000 hydrail "hits" on Google.
"Hydrail" is now the general term of art for hydrogen railways, so let there be hydrolleys too! Why not put a Mooresville imprimatur on the hydrogen fuel cell streetcars we hope to build here?
A decent respect to the opinions of those who may never have heard of "hydrail" or "hydrolleys" requires that we declare what these critters are.
The trains most of us know are diesel-electric powered. A big diesel-driven generator produces electricity to power the electric motors that propel the train. But diesel petroleum is imported and expensive. Diesels emit dangerous pollutants and the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. By contrast, hydrail uses hydrogen-powered fuel cells to make the driving electricity onboard, emitting only heat and pure steam.
Conventional streetcars are also called "trolleys" or "trolley cars" because of the trolley arm on top of the car that brings down external electricity from the grid via the overhead catenary wire to power the traction motors. Trolley technology is 120 years old: tried and proven and known the world over.
But the overhead power wiring is vulnerable, breathtakingly expensive to build and maintain-about $2 million per mile of track to build-and, when strung through an otherwise beautiful city, is as ugly as homemade sin, making new trolley lines an environmentally hard sell.
Per APTA, the transit trade association, some 25-50 municipalities like Charlotte are now looking to streetcars as urban people-movers for traffic and pollution relief. If Mooresville can offer hydrolleys that use hydrogen instead of overhead power supply wires, they ought to sell like lakefront lots priced at $1,000 an acre!
Mooresville has done exceptionally well when competing to attract established industries like retailing and racing. Now it's time to show we can also plant our own brand new industry, hydrolley manufacturing, and grow it up here "from seed."

(Mooresville's Stan Thompson is a retired strategic planner and environmental futurist for BellSouth Telecommunications. His column appears every other week in the Tribune. Email him at: HST2nd@aol.com)