Meg Harper
Anand Gopal, research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) and former Schatz Energy Fellow, and Elizabeth Pimentel-Gopal, former HSU Assistant Director of Admissions, drove from Berkeley to Arcata to visit friends and family over the second weekend of September. Rather than a mundane weekend trip, theirs was a precedent-setting event; their entire trip was powered by hydrogen fuel.
Their trip represents the first time the HSU Hydrogen Fueling Station has been used to fuel a vehicle commuting to and from the Bay Area aside from the vehicles under test at SERC. Filling the Toyota Fuel Cell Hybrid vehicle (FCHV-adv) with hydrogen at 700-bar (10,000 psi) gave the vehicle a range of over 285 miles and enabled Anand and Elizabeth to complete their return trip to one of the nearest hydrogen stations (located in Richmond and Emeryville). For Anand the event was especially meaningful. During his time at SERC, the HSU student team that he advised won an international hydrogen energy design competition in 2005, which inspired the development of the HSU hydrogen station.
