Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

5 big travel lessons from an accomplished conservationist

Cruise ship drags dead whale into New York, prompting investigation

The case for eating at Italian gas stations

‘Bunker mentality’ at Columbia lit protest spark that spread nationwide

A mystery illness stole their kids’ personalities. These moms fought for answers.

The greatness — yes, greatness — of the Planet of the Apes

Eighth-inning decision burns the Nats in a 4-2 loss to the Red Sox

Nats win opener at Fenway behind Patrick Corbin and a lockdown bullpen

Commanders rookie DT Johnny Newton needs a second foot surgery

Bishop vanished. His species can still be saved.

VCU grads walk out during Gov. Youngkin’s speech

Northern lights glow worldwide

Fooled by AI? These firms sell deepfake detection that’s ‘REAL 100%.’ 

Apple apologizes for iPad ad after blowback 

Google’s new ‘Find My’ device network is useful but a stalking risk

Tens of thousands in Georgia protest Russian-style ‘foreign agents’ law

Israeli operations in north and south Gaza force displaced to flee again

‘Nothing left’: At least 300 dead as flash floods devastate Afghanistan

Kristi Noem’s dog killing is pure Southern gothic

Claire Messud turns her family’s history into a masterpiece

Joseph Epstein, conservative provocateur, tells his life story in full

Carolyn Hax: Keep scrolling seven hours per day, or give therapy a try?

Ask Amy: Mother isn’t accepting of her gay son

Ask Amy: What do I say about my former walking buddy who yelled at me?

I used to dismiss my mom’s advice. Then I found a note she wrote before she died.  

Photos of his mom at lunch are a balm people didn’t know they needed

Dog hit by car loses leg, is adopted by firefighter who helped her

The urgent air defense lessons of April 16 

Are smartphones destroying childhood? It’s complicated.

In the campaign against Donald Trump, do the ends justify the means?

An unexpected sight to behold: Ted Cruz working bipartisan deals

Narrative of Trump snoozing in court takes hold — much to his annoyance

Manafort will no longer take on Republican convention role

Courtroom photo ban adds to hurdles for Trump trial journalists

Israel’s shameful ban on Al Jazeera

Checks, not sex, and other takeaways from Trump’s New York hush money trial

Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen testifies in hush money case

As the bus rolls into D.C. traffic, the ride inside is so quiet that all a passenger can hear is the creaking and squeaking of the vehicle’s frame.

Now and then comes a faint, high-pitched whistling of its motor, but the whoosh of the wind outside and the air-conditioning unit is much louder.

But perhaps the only thing better than the lack of noise is the lack of emissions from the bus’s hydrogen-fueled engine.

The blue bus — one of just more than 60 in use by public transit agencies in the United States — is powered by a chemical process that transforms hydrogen and oxygen into electrons and water. The electrons power the bus engine. The water trickles out the tailpipe.

Kirt Conrad, chief executive of the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA), brought the hydrogen-powered bus to Washington to promote the vehicles as an alternative to louder, dirtier diesel buses that most cities and suburbs use to move people around.

“The funny thing is that passengers get used to the diesel noise,” Conrad said. “The first time you ride one of these, everybody whispers.”

I tried a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and here's what it was like

The roadshow — funded in part by the federal government and the Toyota Mobility Foundation — was intended to build a market for vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells, especially for public transit. Conrad and representatives from the bus and fuel cell manufacturers met with officials from Metro, Alexandria DASH, the Fairfax Connector and other regional transportation officials. DASH took the vivid blue bus for a spin over a few routes.

“It handles pretty good compared to what I drive now,” said Joseph Fletcher, a DASH operator who drove the bus into Washington for a demonstration Thursday at the U.S. Transportation Department. Come early next week, the blue SARTA bus will be headed back to Ohio the way it came — on a flatbed.

Fredrick Kunkle 

Hydrogen fuel cell technology has long been seen as prohibitively expensive and exotic but has been working its way toward the market since Honda, Hyundai and Toyota announced plans in 2013 to begin rolling out passenger vehicles. The U.S. Energy Department, in a 2016 report on the growing use of hydrogen fuel cells, says California has led the way, with a few hundred vehicles on the road and about 20 refueling stations open to the public.

Sunline Transit Agency, headquartered in Thousand Palms in California’s Coachella Valley, operates 23 hydrogen-powered buses, as does AC Transit in the Oakland area, according to Sydney Krueger, a sales consultant with BusStuf 2.0.

Supporters tout the fact that the hydrogen-powered fuel cells go farther than battery-powered vehicles. But the technology has its downside, too, and some believe its prospects have been overhyped. While hydrogen can be produced from water through electrolysis, the process consumes a significant amount of electricity. A more common method at the moment produces the gas from methane, which is a fossil fuel. Building a network of hydrogen refueling stations is costly and lags far behind recharging stations, while a big chunk of the market has already voted in favor of batteries and plug-in electric cars.

Forget plug-in electric cars. Toyota is betting on hydrogen fuel cells

Yet hydrogen power has its believers, including Japan. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/700877189/japan-is-betting-big-on-the-future-of-hydrogen-cars">NPR</a> reported last month that the nation is eager to become the first “hydrogen society.”

Conrad’s proud to say that his corner of Ohio has the third-largest fleet in the country. Just don’t ask him about the risks of using a highly flammable gas such as hydrogen. And if you do, don’t mention the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1994/07/22/bogus-blimp-gas/13bed95d-db18-45ad-a4f2-92c72b3aa88f/?utm_term=.596d26ca77ef">Hindenburg</a>, the German airship that exploded at a landing site in New Jersey in 1937 when static electricity ignited a leak.

“Around work, I kind of kid around say, ‘We don’t mention the word “Hindenburg,” and if you do, we’re going to write you up,” Conrad said. He said the zeppelin’s outer lining was more to blame for the fatal catastrophe than the gas.

Conrad said handling hydrogen requires the same precautions one would use for natural gas. If anything, because it’s the lightest element on the planet, hydrogen dissipates rapidly in the event of a punctured tank. And no fuel comes without risk, including the gasoline and diesel that’s sloshing around inside millions of vehicles.

But he also hopes his demonstration tour will help educate people. The bus, wrapped in a blue bubble, cost about $1.2 million, or just about twice what a diesel bus would cost, Conrad said. But it also gets about twice the mileage.

SARTA pays about $4.60 per kilogram of compressed hydrogen gas, which produces about the equivalent amount of energy as a gallon of diesel fuel. (AAA says diesel costs about $3.06 a gallon at the moment.) As the idea of using hydrogen fuel cells catches on, the pricing should become even more competitive, he said.

SARTA, which received more than $4 million from the Federal Transit Administration in 2016, will have 18 buses on the road by the end of the year, including the first hydrogen-powered paratransit buses, Conrad said. The fleet serves the area around Canton and operates in partnership with Ohio State University on the school’s campus. Conrad said his passengers, drivers and even mechanics who have become accustomed to using compressed natural gas don’t notice much difference with the hydrogen-powered buses, except for the quiet ride.

Pray for Us Sinners: The Hail Mary Murder

Yale University

Fredrick Kunkle is a reporter on the Metro desk. He has written about transportation, politics, courts, police, and local government in Maryland and Virginia.