Westport Innovations Inc. (Vancouver, BC) released the final results of a demonstration of buses fueled with a blend of hydrogen and compressed natural gas (HCNG). Results showed that the HCNG buses retained the same power and torque of natural gas buses while producing about 50% less nitrogen oxide (NOx) and non-methane hydrocarbon (nmHC) emissions.
"The buses have now completed 24,000 miles (39,000 km) on the road, and the HCNG technology has successfully proven itself in a commercially available heavy-duty engine in a real-life application," said Sandeep Munshi, Westport's senior scientist and manager, hydrogen technologies. "We are very pleased to have achieved our goals in this program. We were able to demonstrate that hydrogen-enriched CNG could offer a viable path, using readily available commercial vehicles, towards the eventual goal of pure hydrogen fuel, and that this approach offers immediate and material environmental benefits over even the best commercial environmental solution today, which is natural gas."
