THUNDER BAY – Business – On June 22-23, 2015, the tenth in the Mooresville South Iredell Chamber of Commerce’s series of annual International Hydrail Conferences will be convened at the Charles Mack Citizens Center. Hydrail is a form of wireless battery electric train or streetcar whose operating range is greatly extended by continuous recharging from onboard hydrogen fuel cells.
During the past year, the world’s first hydrail streetcars (trams) have appeared in Aruba (Caribbean Netherlands); Dubai City, Dubai; and Qingdao, China. Forty more hydrail commuter trains are to be deployed in Germany between 2018 and 2020; they are essentially identical to hydrogen trains that the Mooresville Chamber suggested for CATS proposed “Red Line” line to Charlotte around 2003.
The purpose of the Hydrail Conferences is societal: to speed deployment for environmental, climate and transit cost reduction advantages. They are convened in collaboration with the Energy Center at Appalachian State University.
This year’s Hydrail Conference presenters are academics, scientists, engineers, legislators and manufacturers from Austria, Canada, Germany, the UK and the USA. Discussions are highly technical and seating is limited. However—subject to space availability—members of the public who wish to attend can register between noon on Thursday, June 18, and noon on Friday, June 19, by visiting http://www.hydrail.org/conferences/hydrail2015.
The Mooresville conference is the first in the USA since 2009. Previously Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Spain and Turkey have hosted the Chamber’s Hydrail Conferences.
Hydrail streetcars and trains emit no climate-harming CO2 or other pollutants. Their wireless rail corridors cost about $10 million less per mile to build. To the extent that renewable energy and nuclear power are used to produce hydrogen for the fuel cells, no carbon dioxide or other pollution is created.
Stan Thompson, co-organizer
Tenth International Hydrail Conference
