Mooresvile, N.C., Furniture Retailer Donates $5,000 for Rail Project

June 24, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on June 25, 2012

Mooresville, N.C.-based Merinos Home Furnishings made a $5,000 travel grant to the Mooresville South Iredell Chamber of Commerce's international hydrogen railroad project.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Energy signed a memorandum of understanding with Mooresville's Chamber of Commerce to promote alternative fuel vehicles. The chamber put its emphasis on railway vehicles-and that has made all the difference.

The chamber's work became the Mooresville Hydrail Initiative, which has received support from 15 countries, the European Commission and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Mooresville coined the name hydrail now used around the world to describe the new green rail technology.

All this activity has entailed considerable international travel. Volunteer Stan Thompson has made invited hydrail presentations across the USA and in Canada, Denmark, England, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Turkey.

Until now the travel cost has come from the pockets of the Chamber volunteers working on hydrail. But recently Turkish-born Chamber Member Michael Bay, owner of Merinos Home Furnishings, donated $5,000 to help fund travel.

"If the chamber from a town this small can reach so far at least we can help make the stretch a little less difficult," Bay said.

Bay is a sustainable energy advocate who is making his mammoth Merinos retail facility a showcase for energy conservation. When an Istanbul-based agency of the United Nations invited the chamber to bring the project there, they sought out Bay for protocol guidance.

The Chamber's hydrail project, mounted since 2005 in cooperation with Appalachian State University, consists mostly of convening annual International Hydrail Conferences around the world where scientists and engineers pursuing hydrail (fuel cell railroad technology) meet to exchange expertise and support. In 2010 the UN co-hosted the conference in Istanbul.

The first use of Bay's Chamber gift will fly Appalachian State's Research Analyst, Jason Hoyle, to speak at the University of Birmingham, England, where the 2012 International Hydrail Conference will be convened on July 3 and 4.

Stan Thompson and former Mooresville Mayor Bill Thunberg will also speak at the Hydrail Conference hosted by the University of Birmingham's Centre for Railway Research and Education.