Achievement

IGERT trainee Michelle Everett headed up a group of 15 undergraduate students to prepare a final report to the US EPA for their P3 (People, Prosperity and Planet) project entitled “H2BEV: A Case Study of the Reliability, Cost, and Environmental Sustainability of Hydrogen Fuel Cells vs. Battery Electrics for Near Urban Personal Transportation.” The undergraduate students were from four engineering programs: chemical, electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering. Ms. Everett’s role was to coordinate the authorship of the final report and to advise the team on the development of a basic sustainability analysis of different transportation options for short distances (30 mile round trip) commuting to work in areas similar to Knoxville. The group found that the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle would produce less net emissions but that the battery electric vehicle was less expensive. Both vehicles were found to be an acceptable alternative to an average car for the majority of commuters.