"Critics of President Bush's energy policies are urging Congress to scale back his much-touted hydrogen-car research program in favor of existing technologies that can reduce U.S. energy dependence and cut global-warming pollution now. Two years ago, Bush launched a five-year, $1.2 billion program to develop a commercially viable hydrogen fuel-cell car "so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free." He's now asking Congress to increase funding for the program by $500 million.
Congress is even more gung-ho on hydrogen. The House energy bill authorizes $4 billion over five years for hydrogen research and another $1.3 billion for a new-generation nuclear reactor that would produce hydrogen for cars as well as electricity. The Senate, which is at work on its version of the measure, allocates $3.8 billion to hydrogen.
However, many scientists and energy experts say it has become clear that it will take decades to overcome the significant technological and infrastructure hurdles facing commercialization of hydrogen cars - if they can be overcome at all. "I think the hydrogen research should be cut radically and we should be spending the resources on encouraging the utilization of technologies that are either already developed or very near commercialization and production," former CIA Director James Woolsey said. Hydrogen-powered cars are "a nice dream - it's worth spending a bit of money on as an R&D project - but as a principal focus for the next generation of vehicles, I think it was wrongheaded when it was adopted and I think it's wrongheaded now," Woolsey said.
Woolsey is part of a bipartisan coalition of former defense and other high-level administration officials, political leaders and environmentalists urging dramatic action to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Studies last year by the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society concluded that commercially viable hydrogen cars would take considerably longer - about 20 to 30 years - and cost more to develop than had been anticipated."
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