New York to Build Hydrogen HI WAY.

$2 million in federal support has been awarded to establish the Hydrogen "HI WAY" Initiative in New York State. Funding for the project, which will create a hydrogen energy infrastructure validation platform across the state, is included in the Conference Report for Fiscal Year 2004 Energy and Water Appropriations. Reps. John M. McHugh (R-NY), James T. Walsh (R-NY), and John E. Sweeney (R-NY) spearheaded the effort, which will bring together a team of industry, academic, state and federal partners to create the infrastructure and end-use technology to support production of hydrogen energy.

http://mchugh.house.gov/pr2003/111803_hiway.html

rather a method of transport
but it must be manufactured somehow

In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush proposed $1.2 billion in spending to develop a pollution-free "Freedom Car". It is true that no pollution is emitted from a hydrogen-powered vehicle, but one must consider the entire energy cycle and infrastructure requirements to figure the impact of this proposed vehicle on the environment.
A hydrogen-powered vehicle has a fuel cell on board that takes hydrogen from a pressure tank and combines it with atmospheric oxygen to create electricity to run an electric traction motor. The only exhaust is pure water as vapor or liquid. This design is wonderful for the automakers--they would be freed from the engineering challenge of reducing tailpipe emissions and they would be freed from the onerous task of preparing regulatory paperwork on emissions. The challenges in hydrogen lie in developing a new distribution infrastructure and in creating the hydrogen.

There are methods of converting electricity into hydrogen that could be used in a transportation system. However, there are large conversion losses in converting electricity to hydrogen and it would take an unspecified, but quite large, collection of wind turbines to produce enough electricity to operate our truck and automobile fleet. America could expect to supplant the wind turbines with additional conventional electrical generators: coal and nuclear. In the proposal for the Freedom Car initiative, new funding for conventional electricity (coal, nuclear, and natural gas) is more than $22 million, exceeding the $17 million allocated for renewable electricity. (Note that elsewhere in the energy budget, alternative energy funding is slashed by $86 million.) The administration's real plan is to build a huge number of coal-fired and nuclear power plants to provide the electricity that will be used to produce hydrogen-alternative energy is not on the agenda. It will take a massive number of these new generating plants to overcome the aforementioned conversion losses.

The Freedom Car initiative does nothing to lead us to a sustainable economy. Further, the additional coal-fired plants and the additional carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere will contribute to global warming with its expected effects: increased global temperatures, melting ice caps, higher ocean levels, flooding, crop failures, starvation, and extinctions. Leaders have told us to that "sequestration technology" will be used to recover the carbon and somehow process it and pump it into deep wells in the Earth. This process will require even more energy, and it has not been demonstrated that sequestration will work, much less if it can be done in a cost-effective manner.

There are alternatives to the hydrogen proposal. Efficiency requirements for electric appliances and automobiles have already obviated the need for additional power plants and have reduced our demand for imported oil. Hybrid-electric vehicles are still a maturing technology with even better efficiencies to be seen in the future. If we required manufacturers to meet higher fuel economy standards, manufacturers would soon provide a selection of vehicles with vastly better mileage performance.

There are production diesel automobiles with impressive fuel economy-a hybrid with a diesel engine would yield even more mileage performance. The burgeoning biodiesel industry may provide the fuel we need through the gas station infrastructure that we already have in place.

It is lamentable that our leaders feel compelled to promote traditional energy solutions that rely on a traditional and centralized energy distribution system. If we are ever going to achieve a sustainable energy situation, it is going to require federal requirements on automakers to improve efficiency. Further funding for alternative energy will be needed to achieve energy independence in the long term.

http://ohio.sierraclub.org/northeast/hydrogen.htm

smaller cars, less horse power, encourage the view that cars are for transportation not fun and games. However, if a politician tried to promote this view he/she would never get elected. Al Gore tried by suggesting that gas prices should be $3.50 per gallon and quickly shut up about it. I happen to think he was correct. That price tag would cause the other things to fall in line. The biggest problem would be that soon only the wealthy would own cars. This would bring about fuel subsidies for the poor.

Even with all of the problems it would be better than having our troops dying in what appears as a futile attempt by Bush to steal Iraqi oil.

I have read some analysis that says that gasoline prices at the pump do not really curtail driving significantly. I find that hard to believe myself.

Congress did manage to get auto efficiency standards increased in the 70s and 80s, but it would be a horrible fight against the automakers if we tried it now. I think we got burned on the message-control department here, where an indulgent value of over consumption was created to displace frugality and conservation of natural resources.

How to undo it? Ideas are welcome.

Everything about saving money is out the window with Bush's stupid voodoo doo doo. However, many people don't have the money to spend on bare necessities so they have to make tough choices. The economy seems very conflicted to me. One prime example is Dean's tax view where in he says the middle class didn't get a tax cut and if you look at the tuition costs plus all of the rise in local taxes he is correctly calling it a scam, but he'll have to explain it over and over to get it across to the voters. I wish him luck, he'll need it.