And in this showdown between a small and very large university, David has a head start on Goliath.

The new zero-emissions race season has been organized in Amsterdam under the auspices of the Alternative Energies Commission of the governing body of a major European motor sports series. University teams will compete in karts that are expected to reach a top speed of 60 miles per hour.

The vehicles will get bigger in subsequent seasons of the “student edition” phase of the competition. By 2015, organizers plan to scale up to full-size racing cars and open the competition to manufacturers. Shell Hydrogen and other European companies are supporting the race competition designed to demonstrate the commercial viability of this promising new technology. The only emissions from these vehicles is water vapor.

This week the Lawrence Tech team submitted preliminary plans for its race kart. Final plans can be submitted after Sept. 1. Teams that win entry into the competition will receive an 8.5-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell and a hydrogen storage cartridge for their vehicles.

The university teams must design karts from the ground up that harness the energy from a fuel cell safely and efficiently. The completed race cars will be evaluated in June 2008, and a four-event race season is tentatively scheduled to begin the following month.

About 40 Lawrence Tech students have been working on their Formula Zero entry since January. The multidisciplinary project involves students from all four colleges at Lawrence Tech: Engineering, Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences and Management.

The UCLA team didn’t announce its intention to compete until recently and hasn’t submitted its preliminary plans.

“Any team that joins now has their work cut out for them,” said Lawrence Tech student Michael Samaroo. “We welcome the competition. This is our generation’s future.”

Lawrence Tech got involved in Formula Zero after Samaroo, a mechanical engineering student who is focusing on fuel cells, approached the organizers while studying in Germany on an exchange program.

The Lawrence Tech students have named their team Element One after hydrogen’s spot on the periodic table. The goal of the Element One team is “to change the way that people think about energy and sustainability through high-performance, zero-emissions racing.”

“The technology for zero-emissions transportation is already available,” Samaroo said. “But there is a lack of infrastructure and a lack of government support because there hasn’t been a demand for the technology. That’s what we’re doing -- creating a demand through racing. Zero-emissions racing is the perfect platform.”

Energy storage and management is a key mission because a fuel-cell system produces energy within a limited range. Every team must develop its own sophisticated software to manage the transfer of energy from the fuel cell to high-torque electric motors. Lawrence Tech’s team plans to use ultra capacitors -- high-energy, high-power-density electrochemical devices that are easy to charge and discharge -- to deliver bursts of energy for acceleration during a race.

For information about Formula Zero, go to http://www.formulazero.nl. For information about the Lawrence Tech team, go to http://www.ltu.edu/element1/index.asp.

Lawrence Technological University, www.ltu.edu, offers more than 60 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degree programs in Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. Founded in 1932, the 5,000-student, private university pioneered evening classes 75 years ago, and today has a growing number of weekend and online programs. Lawrence Tech’s 102-acre campus is in Southfield, with education centers in Livonia, Clinton Township, Traverse City, and Petoskey. Lawrence Tech also offers programs with partner universities in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Asia.