CarSeekBlog

Amidst stories of tragedy on the luge track, and complaints that NBC isn’t giving enough coverage to athletes from countries than the USA, it may have gone largely unnoticed that VANOC, the organizing committee for both the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, has been pushing to make this year’s games, “…the greenest Olympic Games ever…” and we’re not talking just in terms of carbon footprint reduction tactics like heating the Athlete’s Village with waste heat from a municipal wastewater plant.

Vancouver is already home to Ballard Power Systems, which manufactures fuel cells, and it serves as the northern terminus of the “Hydrogen Highway” which runs up the west coast of North America. Given these two factors, it should come as no surprise that the Olympics and Paralympics are being used to showcase hydrogen fuel cell technology and vehicles.

How are they doing it? Well, there’s a fleet of 20 buses powered by fuel cells, and operated by BC Transit, in Whistler (site of many of the skiing events). The buses were built by New Flyer Industries of Winnipeg with fuel cells provided by the afore-mentioned Ballard, and hydrogen storage supplied by Calgary-based Dynetek Industries. The hybrid drive system came from ISE Corp, in California. Each of the low-floor buses has a top speed of roughly 55 mph, and can carry up to 60 people. Even better, these buses have zero tailpipe emissions, and are twice as efficient as their smelly diesel counterparts

BC Transit’s Whistler Transit Centre, which cost $89.5 million to build, is the world’s largest hydrogen refueling station, as well as being a joint venture between the governments of British Columbia, Canada, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, and the Canadian Hydrogen Fuel Cell Association. In addition to the buses, there is also a fleet of eight Chevrolet Equinox SUVs, being used to ferry VANOC officials, media representatives, government officials, athletes, and other VIPS back and forth between Olympic venues. These Equinoxes were built by General Motors Canada.

Also provided by GM Canada is an extensive fleet of vehicles that includes several thousand fuel efficient Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC vehicles, over 30% of which sport green technology, like flex fuel or hybrid systems.

Clearly VANOC has gone for the gold when it comes to green tech at the Olympics.

Filed under: GM, Going Green, In the News by Mel