Question: Introduction: there has been much discussion in the engineering community as well as the popular press recently about the possibility of using hydrogen as a

 Introduction: there has been much discussion in the engineering community as

Introduction: there has been much discussion in the engineering community as well as the popular press recently about the possibility of using hydrogen as a fuel for highway transportation, especially once petroleum supplies decline, as they are expected to do sometime in the next 10 to 30 years. Along with large-scale hydrogen generation facilities (e.g. solar power stations in the southwestem US that electrolyze large quantities of water to make hydrogen) and the ability to store and combust hydrogen safely and efficiently on board the vehicles, the hydrogen dispensing station is another key component in this technological system that must work correctly in order for the technology to succeed. The hydrogen power park is therefore the replacement for today's gasoline filling station. The term \"power park\" indicates that the facility is not only a filling station but also a facility where electricity can be generated without pollution for distribution on the electric grid. Background on the site layout: a plan view of the particular power park design to be analyzed is shown in Attachment 1 (given out together with this document). The site is approximately the size of an average gasoline filling station, and can roughly be divided into three parts. The first third is for dispensing hydrogen to vehicles, the middle third is the retail facility (including a convenience store and restrooms), and the last third is the mechanical room for generating the hydrogen and clean electricity. The particular design under study is situated next to a sewage treatment plant, so the raw material for both the hydrogen and for use in the fuel cell is biogas from the plant. The biogas is scrubbed before it leaves the treatment plant, so it arrives in the power park at the same level of quality as natural gas that is sold on the gas grid, and can be used in either a methane steam reformer (device for converting methane to hydrogen) or fuel cell without further purification. The benefit of using biogas from the treatment plant is to reduce total solid waste output (since digesting the waste from the plant and converting the gas from this process into hydrogen reduces its total volume) and also to provide an energy source for hydrogen that is not based on fossil fuels and does not contribute to increased C02 in the atmosphere

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