Sound-barrier driver sets another speed record

WENDOVER, Utah (AP):

The only person to break the sound barrier in a car earned another world record yesterday in a demonstration of hydrogen power.

British driver Andy Green reached 406.320 mph (653.908 kph) in a car powered by two hydrogen internal-combustion engines with a combined 1,600 horsepower, setting a record for that vehicle category, according to the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the international governing body of motor sports.

The 64-year-old retired Royal Air Force pilot rocketed across the crystalline crust of Utah’s famed Bonneville Salt Flats in a 32-foot (9.75-metre) car engineered by British construction-equipment manufacturer JCB. The engines, adapted from those used in the company’s heavy machinery, mix pressurised hydrogen gas with air and ignite it to create bursts of power.

To be clear, yesterday’s feat did not come close to the overall land-speed record Green set with jet power in 1997. That year, he climbed into the Thrust SSC, a black needle sandwiched between two cartoonishly large jet engines, and drove it to an outright record of 763.035 mph (1,227.985 kph), breaking the sound barrier and achieving a feat no one has come close to matching. His runs in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert produced sonic booms that shook the nearby town of Gerlach.

‘Fuel of the future’

In 2006, Green also set the land-speed record for a diesel-powered car at 350.092 mph (563.4 kph) at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He returned there yesterday with the goal of surpassing that mark using hydrogen power, which he has called the “fuel of the future”.

In pursuing his diesel-speed mark, Green easily eclipsed the previous hydrogen-combustion world record of 185.5 mph (298.5 kph). He had a 10-mile (16-kilometre) straightaway on which to build speed. A few dozen JCB staff members and reporters watched from a distance through cameras and binoculars.

A remnant of a prehistoric lake bed, the Bonneville Salt Flats lie about 100 miles (160 kilometres) west of Salt Lake City and sit atop a shallow aquifer that helps cool tyres. The low-friction surface and dry desert air are conducive to speed and have attracted drivers since the first race there in 1914.

Green was no stranger to speed when he took his first racing job. He had been flying supersonic military jets when he spotted a British newspaper advertisement in 1994 seeking a high-speed driver to break the sound barrier.

Green did not approach supersonic speeds yesterday, but JCB engineers hope his achievement with hydrogen power will help shake up the clean-energy industry.

The company’s chairman has argued that hydrogen can better meet the demands of heavy industry than electric power.

Hydrogen is only as clean as its source, and the vast majority is currently produced from fossil fuels. JCB has signed a deal to buy green hydrogen, which is created using renewable energy but accounts for only a tiny fraction of global hydrogen production.