hydrogen

U.K. subsidizes EVs, Amory Lovins talks trucks, and more green auto news

Photo by Sara Barz. Last Thursday, the UK government announced it would offer British citizens subsidies of 2,000-5,000 pounds ($2,900-7,500) for electric vehicles. To facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles, the government will set aside 20 million pounds ($30 million) to invest in electric-vehicle charging stations in city centers and high-traffic regions. This is welcome […]

Hydrogen fuel-cell car wins 2009 World Green Car award

Honda FCX Clarity.Photo courtesy of the New York International Auto Show.Is the Honda FCX Clarity really the world’s greenest car? According to the world’s leading automotive journalists, it is. Thursday morning they gave the hydrogen-fueled Clarity the World Green Car award at the New York auto show. But at my table, after the award was […]

The false hope of a hydrogen economy is on its death bed

The ChiPs are down for the hydrogen highway cul de sac -- literally. The future Ponches and Jons of the California Highway Patrol won't be policing the hydrogen highway.

The false hope of a hydrogen economy is on its death bed. This dream was embraced and elevated by President Bush, who said in his January 2003 State of the Union address:

With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free.

I have explained at length many times why the first car of child born in 2003 -- or the last car, for that matter -- will not be a hydrogen fuel cell car, most notably in my best selling book, The Hype About Hydrogen [Note to a picky semantic people: The book was not a best seller, but it was the best-selling of all of my books]. Maybe my best (and certainly my most widely read) paper available online [PDF] is "The car and fuel of the future," published by Energy Policy back in 2005. It is still worth reading if you want to understand why plug in hybrids, not hydrogen fuel cell cars, are the car of the (near) future.

The last vestiges of a hydrogen economy are collapsing. First, we had Honda's new FCX Clarity, which the company optimistically billed as "the world's first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production." If so, the Clarity has demonstrated to the world how distant the whole enterprise is (see here, here and here).

Now Greenwire ($ub. req'd) has a long story on the collapse of another one of the few remaining pieces of the dream, "Has Schwarzenegger's hydrogen highway gone bust?" excerpted below:

L.A. Times: ‘Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won’t work in cars’

"Honda's striking, amazing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle may be the most expensive, advanced and impractical car ever built."

So writes Dan Neil, the L. A. Times car guy in "Honda FCX Clarity: Beauty for beauty's sake" (see here, vehicle details here).

You will never buy a hydrogen car. And I say that mostly because I know that in the unlikely event a major car company actually ever tries to sell you one, you are just way too smart to bite or even nibble. And I say that not because you read ClimateProgress, but because you are breathing at all. Hydrogen cars are simply too impractical.

It is time for President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu to drastically scale back the federal hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle program, to a small basic research program focused on long-term breakthroughs in hydrogen storage, fuel cells, and renewable hydrogen. This could free up some $1 billion in Obama's first term alone for more important R&D and more urgent deployment efforts (see here).

The hydrogen emperor has no clothes. This isn't news overseas (see here). Nor is it news that the Honda FCX is a lemon, tangible proof of the futility of pursuing the commercialization of hydrogen cars (see here).

But it is a big deal to see the car guy of the L.A. Times -- in the home state of many of the last remaining hydrogen diehards, the state that had until recently seriously entertained building a "hydrogen highway" -- dismantle the vehicle in his review, so I'll reprint it below:

Who's killing the plug-in hybrid?

This East Bay Express story is a must-read article. The same folks who decided the hydrogen highway was the road to the future now very well might kill the plug-in hybrid conversion industry.

I'd say we should send them a copy of Who Killed the Electric Car?, but chances are they only have Betamax.

Cellulosic ethanol ranks dead last

Mark Jacobson (associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Stanford University) has just published a paper in the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. You can read the entire article here (PDF). BEV = battery electric vehicle HFCV = hydrogen fuel cell vehicle CSP = concentrated solar panels PV = photovoltaic CCS = carbon […]

Ford drops hydrogen while GM remains confused about ethanol

The car companies have come back to D.C. begging for money. But this time they have put on the table serious restructuring plans. At first glance, Ford’s plan [PDF] appears to me sounder than GM’s plan [PDF]. I’m interested in your opinions. Assuming we believe they will do what they say, the reports reveal a […]

Electric vehicles crowd out hydrogen brethren at sustainable driving conference

The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress. —– Iceland has long been touted as a hydrogen economy pioneer. So it is quite shocking that electric vehicles — both plug-in hybrids and pure battery electric cars — crowded out hydrogen at a recent Reykjavík conference. Iceland is blessed with abudant hydro-electric […]

The Economist agrees with me on hydrogen

When the world’s uber-centrist magazine of choice runs a headline almost identical to mine, you know it’s all over. Especially when one of that magazine’s leading energy columnists, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, used to sing that technology’s praises (here). Here’s the bottom line: But the promise of hydrogen-powered personal transport seems as elusive as ever. The non-emergence […]