(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

A couple of weeks ago Hydro Kevin from the outstanding Hydrogen Cars & Vehicles blog let me know about a blog entry that he had posted about the song “Hydrogen Highway” by Elmers Youngest.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear about this.

Kevin writes in the blog entry that:

“Hydrogen Highway is an engaging country rock song aimed at rallying people around the cause of energy independence and cleaner air.

Hydrogen Highway is the ninth track on the album, ‘Elmers Youngest: A Kid With a Cause,’ a CD featuring other important social topics such as homelessness, AIDS and drug addiction plus love of God and country.

According to Elmers, ‘Due to the oil crisis in our country and the need for alternative fueling, I felt that hydrogen was the way to go.  Maybe if people’s hearts are touched by this song, it might motivate many, to a new approach regarding our oil dependence.’”

Hydrogen Highway is a catchy tune that has indeed touched my heart.  I have listened to it many times and get inspired every time I do.  I know one day Elmers is going to play it in front of thousands and thousands of hydrogen advocates.

I highly recommend listening to this very inspirational song.  Kevin has included a link to the song in his blog entry which you can get to by clicking here.

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

Many years ago, I heard Oprah Winfrey say “You should believe people when they show you who they are the first time.”  Since companies are made up of people, this also applies to them.

The oil companies have shown us exactly who they are time and time again.  They are truly amazing when it comes to finding, distributing, and refining oil.  But they are absolutely terrible when it comes to developing alternatives to oil.

Furthermore, all of the talk about what oil companies should be doing has not changed them one bit.  And don’t believe the commercials you see on TV from some of them which makes it look like they are making a serious commitment to alternatives to oil.  Hydrogen will be the next transportation fuel and the oil companies are barely involved in the industry outside of the facade of putting up large exhibits at conventions.

For example, GM has been working with Shell in order to get the fueling stations built to provide hydrogen for the Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that are part of the Project Driveway demonstration program.  GM delivered the fuel cell vehicles, but Shell did not keep their promise to build the hydrogen fueling stations.  Therefore, GM had to pay for temporary hydrogen fueling stations, so the customers driving the Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would have a place to refuel.

Clearly, Shell and the oil companies have no interest in funding the replacement for oil.

The beauty of capitalism is that others can take advantage of the situation and become leaders within the hydrogen industry.  But who will step up and seize the opportunity?

When I think about this, the company that keeps popping up in my head is GE.

GE is one of the top companies in the world.  They hire people who are very talented and manage them extremely well.  Nearly every time I have come across a GE employee, I have been impressed.  GE employees are very professional and come across as winners.  The performance of the company validates this.

Furthermore, unlike the oil companies, GE does not have a psychological addiction to fossil fuels.  Hydrogen would fit very well into the company’s ecomagination program.  GE has already done really well in the area of clean energy with GE Wind which was bought from Enron back in 2002.  The company also has a very promising electrolyzer technology.  These two technologies will provide a good foundation for getting involved a lot more with hydrogen.

However, at this point, GE definitely does not “get it” when it comes to understanding that the revolution with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is on the verge of beginning (see Hydrogen Fact #1 - Hydrogen cars are just about ready to be commercialized, but the hydrogen fueling infrastructure needs to be built).

Once the people at GE learn the facts, I believe they will seize the opportunity and become a force within the hydrogen industry.  This will be done by acquiring companies and technologies in the area of hydrogen infrastructure.

The global market for hydrogen fueling stations and hydrogen pipelines will be in the trillions of dollars over the next 10-15 years during the transition from oil to hydrogen as the dominant transportation fuel.  GE loves large growth opportunities where they can be the leader and this certainly applies with hydrogen.  I believe the company will get involved in most aspects of hydrogen.  However, a couple of areas where GE might not get involved are in the ultra-competitive business of operating the fueling stations and delivering the hydrogen to fueling stations in trucks.

GE currently has no expertise in building hydrogen fueling stations or laying and operating hydrogen pipelines.  Therefore, they must obtain this expertise.  This could be done by acquiring the companies Air Products and Smart Pipe.

Air Products is one of the top hydrogen infrastructure companies and has a tremendous amount of experience in producing, storing, and delivering hydrogen.  They also have a lot of experience in building hydrogen fueling stations.  Air Products has many other business units and GE could sell these after the company is purchased (or GE could just buy the hydrogen division from Air Products if that would be easier).

Smart Pipe is a start-up company based in Houston, Texas that has a portable factory technology (see pictures of this fascinating technology in pages 6-20 in the following link) for restoring damaged pipelines.  The portable factory technology can be used for laying polymer hydrogen pipelines.

Furthermore, GE will need to hire people with expertise in operating long-distance pipelines.  And the best polymer hydrogen pipeline technology will need to be licensed.

Once this is done, GE would be involved in producing the hydrogen with their wind turbines and electrolyzers, laying and operating the hydrogen pipelines, and building the hydrogen fueling stations.

This is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity that is perfect for GE.  And that is why I predict it won’t be long before GE Wind will be joined by GE Hydrogen.

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

I was recently watching a discussion about oil prices on CNBC and I thought I heard well-respected energy analyst John Kilduff say that global demand for oil was 87 million barrels per day and global supply of oil was 85 million barrels per day.

I thought to myself, “That can’t be right.”

I knew that global supply of oil was 85 million barrels per day.  But I didn’t think that demand was already 2 million barrels above supply.  I thought supply and demand were almost exactly the same right now even though the demand for oil would soon exceed the supply.  If this were already the case, oil prices would have to go much higher.

It turns out that it was indeed true.

The following article from Forbes which was published on April 15th notes that:

“The oil cartel [OPEC] predicts global oil demand in 2008 will average 87 million barrels per day…”

The following Bloomberg article from April 17th notes that T. Boone Pickens says that there are:

“Only 85 million barrels of oil globally in the market coming a day and I don’t think you can increase that 85 million.”

The reason given by Pickens for the inability to increase global oil supply is “high depletion rates of existing wells.”

Therefore, oil is headed towards $150 per barrel.  Pickens said that:

“When you have 85 million to cover 87 million, the price has to go up.”

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

How much will it cost to build the entire U.S. hydrogen infrastructure?  This question gets asked a lot.  Is it $10 billion?  $100 billion?  Or could it be as high as $1 trillion as I used to think?  This post will try to answer this question.

The two parts that will make up the hydrogen infrastructure are the retail hydrogen fueling stations and the hydrogen pipelines.  The assumption is going to be that the hydrogen will come from clean sources of energy (e.g. wind power from the Great Plains region or solar power from the Mojave Desert), so the number of miles of hydrogen pipelines will reflect this.

Currently, there are around 170,000 gasoline fueling stations in the U.S.  Right now, hydrogen fueling stations cost about $2 million to build.  However, this will obviously go down a lot over time.  I’m going to assume that the hydrogen fueling stations will eventually cost $1 million to build.  Therefore, the average cost of all of the 170,000 hydrogen fueling stations will be $1.5 million.

This will equal a cost of $255 billion for all of the hydrogen fueling stations in the U.S.

Polymer hydrogen pipelines are estimated to cost $500,000 per mile.  Regarding the number of miles of hydrogen pipelines that will be needed, the closest comparison that can be made is with the current natural gas pipeline infrastructure.  Although there are about 2.2 million miles of natural gas pipelines, only 300,000 miles are long-distance transmission pipelines.

Trucks will be the most practical way to distribute hydrogen locally to fueling stations.  Therefore, I’m going to estimate that 300,000 miles of hydrogen pipelines will be needed.  This will equal a cost of $150 billion.

Therefore, the total cost of both the hydrogen fueling stations and the hydrogen pipelines will equal $405 billion.

Some people could obviously argue that the cost will be higher and others could argue that it will be lower.  However, this figure provides a really good general idea of what the total cost would be.

Although $405 billion is obviously a lot of money, it is about $100 billion less than has been spent so far on the Iraq War.

Furthermore, as discussed in Hydrogen Fact #7 and Hydrogen Fact #8, the entire hydrogen infrastructure could be built without any subsidies (although, for all practical purposes, the federal government will almost certainly need to get involved in building the initial hydrogen fueling stations).

Consumers would simply pay for the hydrogen infrastructure through their purchases of hydrogen fuel.  The loans on the hydrogen fueling stations and hydrogen pipelines would be paid back over 20 years by including the infrastructure cost as part of the cost of each kilogram of hydrogen sold.

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

The following article from CNNMoney.com that was published today opens by noting that:

“Toyota said the strong yen and weaker U.S. sales took a bite out of January-March earnings and projected worse was to come - a 27% plunge in its full-year profit.

It would be the first drop in full-year profit in seven years for the automaker.

The results and outlook released Thursday highlight how the tough North American auto market is hammering profits.”

Toyota is arguably the top car company in the world in terms of sales and quality.  They have had an incredible amount of success for many, many years.  However, high oil prices can even take a toll on the best car company in the world.  Today’s announcement of falling profits is an ominous sign of things to come.

The title of Hydrogen Fact #12 is “Many consumers will stop buying cars powered by gasoline as fuel prices continue to rise even further, so car companies will be very motivated to start selling hydrogen cars soon.”  The first paragraph states that:

“The days of powering our cars with gasoline in an internal combustion engine will be over much sooner than most people think.  High oil prices that will go much higher are taking away the economic viability of our current transportation model.  Hydrogen fuel cell cars are the only option for meeting all customer requirements.  Therefore, the transition away from oil to hydrogen will begin in the near future.”

Let me say that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in large numbers will not suddenly show up tomorrow, next month, or next year.  People will still continue to buy cars with gasoline-powered internal combustion engines.

However, we may look back years from now at Toyota’s announcement today of falling profits as the beginning of the end of the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine.  Toyota is the gold standard when it comes to making money in the auto industry.  When their profits begin to go down, you know that the entire industry is in a lot of trouble.

If oil prices were to go back down, this would only be a temporary problem.  However, oil prices are going to continue to rise.  Global demand is simply outpacing global supply.  As I wrote about on Tuesday, a Goldman Sachs analyst (who has an excellent track record of forecasting oil prices) predicts oil could hit $200 a barrel as soon as this year.

How many people are going to be lining up to buy a new car when gas prices are heading towards $5 or $6 per gallon?

Furthermore, Toyota has made tremendous progress with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.  The Toyota FCHV is a mid-size SUV (Highlander Hybrid) powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that gets 80 miles per kilogram of hydrogen and has a driving range of 480 miles.

Although Toyota will never admit it for fear of losing current new car sales to people who might instead wait for hydrogen fuel cell cars, I guarantee you that they are making plans to bring hydrogen fuel cell cars to showrooms.  My guess is that the earliest the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could be brought to market would be 2011.  Although this seems like it is right around the corner, a lot can happen in three years.  Just look at how much higher oil prices are now than back in 2005.

Therefore, Toyota would be wise to start being a lot more aggressive (like Larry Burns from GM) about calling on the government and energy companies to build the initial hydrogen fueling stations.

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

BusinessWeek is reporting that Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti said in a client note released today that:

“We believe the current energy crisis may be coming to a head, as the lack of adequate supply growth is becoming apparent.”

The BusinessWeek article says that Murti “predicted that oil prices could reach $150 to $200 a barrel over the next 6 months to two years.”

Oil is poised to set another record today as it is currently trading at over $122 a barrel.

The speed at which oil prices have advanced is incredible.  It was just two months ago on March 2nd that I wrote a blog post about T. Boone Pickens predicting that oil could reach $150 a barrel in two years.  Oil was right around $100 a barrel at the time.

What is the reason behind the high oil prices that are going higher?  It is very simple.  Global demand is steadily increasing due to the rapid growth of China and India, but global supply is not able to keep up with it.

I don’t think oil companies are angels, but they are not the reason for the high oil prices.  It is simple supply and demand.

People are now beginning to realize that this problem is not going away.  It will only get much worse as oil prices head a lot higher.  As I wrote about in Hydrogen Fact #12, many consumers will stop buying cars powered by gasoline as fuel prices continue to rise even further, so car companies will be very motivated to start selling hydrogen cars soon.

The only solution to the oil crisis is hydrogen fuel cell vehicles where the hydrogen is produced from clean sources of energy such as wind and solar power.  It is time to start the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

Plug-in battery technology has numerous problems which include driving range, fueling time, cost, space they take up in a car, durability, safety, weight, cold weather performance, and a negative impact on the environment.

Regarding the cost issue with plug-in battery technology, here is an excerpt from a May 3rd AutoblogGreen post where GM CEO Rick Wagoner criticizes the cost of the Tesla Roadster and Fisker Karma:

“Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California this week, GM CEO Rick Wagoner told the gathering that in order for electric cars to make a difference in global warming it will require large numbers of them to be deployed at prices that mainstream buyers can afford.  While a few hundred Tesla Roadsters or Fisker Karmas may make the owners feel better about themselves, in the U.S. vehicle fleet of 200 million vehicles they won’t make any real measurable difference in the grand scheme of things.  To make a significant impact on fuel consumption and emissions, millions of cars and trucks every year need to be more efficient.  However, that can only happen if those vehicles are affordable to average car buyers.

When Wagoner was asked why it’s taking as long as it is to bring the Volt to market he explained that it’s a lot harder to create a viable $20,000 electric car than one that costs $100,000.”

The Tesla Roadster contains a whopping 6831 lithium-ion batteries.  This is the same type of battery that is used in laptop computers.  And they are not inexpensive.  Therefore, it is easy to see why the car costs so much.

Moreover, the following excerpt from an August 2006 article about Tesla reveals a major cost issue:

“The central concept of Tesla Motors, founded in July 2003, is that there is no need to reinvent the battery, particularly for a product with a small initial market.  Eberhard simply adopted the lithium-ion technology used in laptops and harnessed the momentum of the computer industry.  Let Dell, HP, and the rest of the sprawling PC business, with their billions of R&D dollars, do the hard work of extending battery life and driving down prices.  He’d piggyback on their innovations.”

The problem is that lithium-ion batteries are already mass produced.  They were first commercialized back in 1991 by Sony.  Therefore, the cost benefits of mass production have already been realized.  They will obviously continue to go down in price in the future, but the point is that the potential for reducing the cost of lithium-ion batteries is far less than it was 10 or 15 years ago.  And if the batteries are far too expensive now, how will they ever be economical?

Furthermore, I think Rick Wagoner is wrong to say that plug-in battery technology will make a difference with global warming and emissions.  In the U.S., 50% of the electricity comes from coal and around 20% comes from natural gas.  Therefore, plug-in battery technology would result in far greater use of fossil fuels.

Plug-in battery technology is a half-measure just like ethanol.  The only complete solution to the oil crisis is hydrogen fuel cell vehicles where the hydrogen is produced from clean sources of energy such as wind and solar power.

The car companies are very aware of all of the problems with plug-in battery technology.  Honda is one of the top car companies in the world and they have completely rejected plug-in battery technology!

This is why Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, GM, Daimler, and others are aggressively pursuing hydrogen fuel cell cars.

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell cars and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

Larry Burns, vice president of R&D and strategic planning for General Motors, has been very vocal about the need for energy companies and the government to get involved in building the hydrogen infrastructure.  Although I have written about this several times, the speech he recently gave on April 2nd at the National Hydrogen Association annual meeting in Sacramento, California, will give you a much better sense of the urgency and passion that he has when discussing the issue.

I would strongly recommend listening to this speech.  It is the closest thing you will find to a “State of the Union” address for the hydrogen industry.

An audio clip can be found at the following link (Note: It may take a minute or so for the web page to come up).  The speech lasts just over 24 minutes.

Here are three quotes from the speech that I found particularly intriguing:

“The potential societal and customer benefits of fuel cell electric vehicles are clear and compelling.  Fuel cell technology promises to deliver family-sized automobiles that are fun to drive, safe, look great, refuel fast, go far between fill-ups, and are emissions-free and petroleum-free.  And very importantly it holds the promise to do all of this while keeping automobiles affordable to own and operate.  Quite honestly, no other technology offers this exciting potential.”

“It’s great to have small numbers of these vehicles running around.  But be very, very clear, the mission is to heavily penetrate the 70 million cars and trucks that are built worldwide each year with this technology.”

“We feel it is past time for the necessary infrastructure to accelerate.  What is urgently needed is sufficient investment by energy providers and the cooperation of government to assure auto companies that the required hydrogen infrastructure will be in place when we deploy our next generation of fuel cell electric vehicles.”

(Note #1: This is Hydrogen Fact #11 from “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

(Note #2: I am personally outraged with the lack of leadership and focus on solving the energy crisis despite all of the problems that are a result of our reliance on oil such as high fuel prices, wars, global warming, air pollution, etc.

My feeling is that it is time to stop expecting politicians and corporations to lead.  Instead, we should all become leaders and start a revolution of our own to solve this problem.  YOU must be a catalyst for positive change.

The Hydrogen Manhattan Project is “A movement led by individual Americans to support corporations and elected officials that work towards the goal of having every car on the road in the U.S. powered by hydrogen produced from clean sources of energy by the end of 2020.”  The first step to achieving this goal is to get the government to help build the initial hydrogen fueling stations that the car companies have been pleading for.

The problem is that very few people are even aware of all that is happening with hydrogen cars and how hydrogen can solve the problems we are now facing.  Therefore, I have started a grassroots campaign to spread the word about hydrogen.  If you would like to be added to the e-mail distribution list for the Hydrogen Manhattan Project grassroots campaign, please e-mail me at gblencoe@hydrogendiscoveries.com.)

Hydrogen Fact #11

Although nearly all of the hydrogen produced in the U.S. today comes from natural gas, the grand vision for a hydrogen economy is for the hydrogen to be produced from clean sources of energy such as wind or solar power.

In order for this to happen, hydrogen pipelines will be needed to transport the hydrogen from where it is produced (e.g. large wind farms in the Great Plains region or large solar facilities in the Mojave Desert) to storage facilities close to where the hydrogen will be purchased at fueling stations.

There are currently around 700 miles of hydrogen pipelines in the U.S.  They are located close to where the hydrogen is used which is typically in refineries or chemical plants.

Just like most of the existing natural gas pipelines, these hydrogen pipelines are made of carbon steel.  However, the problem with carbon steel hydrogen pipelines is that they are expensive and have leakage and embrittlement issues.

Dr. Tim Armstrong, research scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, says that:

“Laying pipelines of different iron-based alloys costs $1 million per mile.  One significant cost is welding.  Every weld point changes the microstructure, making hydrogen leakage more likely.”

Due to the leakage and embrittlement problems, carbon steel hydrogen pipelines can only work at distributing hydrogen up to around 500 psi (pounds per square inch).

However, polymer hydrogen pipelines are much less expensive and far more effective at distributing hydrogen.

Dr. Armstrong notes that:

“Current polymer technology allows the manufacture of mile-long polymer pipelines for the oil industry, reducing the number of connections and potential leaks.  Using mobile factories we estimate the cost of laying pipeline would be cut 50%, to half a million dollars a mile.”

Furthermore, polymer hydrogen pipelines can distribute hydrogen at up to 1500 to 2000 psi, which means much more hydrogen can be sent through them.  Another advantage of polymer hydrogen pipelines is that they do not have embrittlement problems.

Smart Pipe is a company based in Houston, Texas that restores damaged pipelines.  The company uses a portable factory to allow for installation lengths up to ten miles.

This portable factory technology could be used for laying the polymer hydrogen pipelines.  Pictures of this fascinating technology can be found on pages 6-20 in the following link.

The future hydrogen pipeline national infrastructure will be much like the existing long-distance natural gas pipeline network.  Although there are about 2.2 million miles of natural gas pipelines, only 300,000 miles are long-distance transmission pipelines.  The distribution pipelines that bring the natural gas all the way to the consumer make up 1.9 million miles of the total 2.2 million miles.

The future hydrogen pipeline national infrastructure will likely be much closer to 300,000 miles of polymer hydrogen pipelines, because trucks are the most practical way to distribute the hydrogen locally to fueling stations.

(Note #1: This is Hydrogen Fact #1 from “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

(Note #2: I am personally outraged with the lack of leadership and focus on solving the energy crisis despite all of the problems that are a result of our reliance on oil such as high fuel prices, wars, global warming, air pollution, etc.

My feeling is that it is time to stop expecting politicians and corporations to lead.  Instead, we should all become leaders and start a revolution of our own to solve this problem.  YOU must be a catalyst for positive change.

The Hydrogen Manhattan Project is “A movement led by individual Americans to support corporations and elected officials that work towards the goal of having every car on the road in the U.S. powered by hydrogen produced from clean sources of energy by the end of 2020.”  The first step to achieving this goal is to get the government to help build the initial hydrogen fueling stations that the car companies have been pleading for.

The problem is that very few people are even aware of all that is happening with hydrogen cars and how hydrogen can solve the problems we are now facing.  Therefore, I have started a grassroots campaign to spread the word about hydrogen.  If you would like to be added to the e-mail distribution list for the Hydrogen Manhattan Project grassroots campaign, please e-mail me at gblencoe@hydrogendiscoveries.com.)

Hydrogen Fact #1

When will hydrogen fuel cell cars be ready?  This question gets asked a lot.  The short answer is that hydrogen cars are just about ready to be commercialized, but the hydrogen fueling infrastructure needs to be built.

The following quote from Bob Carter, Toyota Division group vice president and general manager, in a recent press release about the Toyota FCHV (a mid-size SUV powered by a hydrogen fuel cell) sums up the situation with hydrogen cars:

“The development of Toyota’s hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains continue to move forward and mature at an impressive pace, far in advance of an infrastructure that will be necessary to support them.”

Here are just a few examples that show how far along hydrogen fuel cell cars are:

Last fall, Toyota released the newest version of the FCHV which is a mid-size SUV powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that gets 80 miles per kilogram of hydrogen and has a driving range of 480 miles.

GM has recently launched a program called Project Driveway where 100 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are driven by members of the general public in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C.

GM announced in June 2007 that “it is moving more than 500 fuel cell engineers and experts from advanced development laboratories to engineering functions aimed at preparing the fuel cell for commercial sale.”

Honda will begin leasing the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to anywhere from a few dozen to 100 customers in Southern California beginning this summer.

Honda and GM have even produced hydrogen fuel cell commercials that have been playing on TV over the last five or six months.

Although the car companies have made tremendous progress with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, the hydrogen fueling infrastructure desperately needs to be built.

To illustrate how important this is, just look at all of the people that have called for hydrogen fueling stations to be built in the last couple of months:

Larry Burns, General Motors (April 2008):

“General Motors today called on the energy industry and governments to step up and help automakers make volume production of fuel cell-electric vehicles a reality by opening more hydrogen fueling stations.

“That message was delivered by Larry Burns, General Motors vice president, research & development and strategic planning.  Burns delivered a keynote address at the National Hydrogen Association’s annual conference in Sacramento, CA.

“‘The automobile industry has reached a critical juncture in our journey to realize the full potential of hydrogen fuel cell-electric vehicles,’ said Burns.  ‘While we have made impressive progress, we have now reached a point where the energy industry and governments must pick up their pace so we can continue to advance in a timely manner’…

“Burns said addressing the infrastructure challenge is essential because the potential benefits of hydrogen fuel cell technology are clear and compelling.  ‘This technology promises to deliver family-sized vehicles that are fun to drive, safe, look great, refuel fast, go far between fill-ups, and are emissions-free and petroleum-free.  It also holds promise to do all of this while keeping automobiles affordable to own and operate.  And just like electricity, it can be made from a broad range of renewable and sustainable energy pathways.  No other technology offers this exciting potential,’ he said…

“‘Clearly, the automotive industry has stepped forward with fuel cell-electric vehicles, and we are doing everything possible to aggressively develop this critically important technology,’ Burns said.  ‘However, we have reached a stage where we cannot continue to make significant progress on our own.  Our customers must have safe and convenient access to affordable hydrogen.  This means the energy industry and governments must join the auto industry in our journey to produce and sell fuel cell-electric vehicles in volume numbers.’”

Currently on the Honda website:

“Honda has brought the fuel cell vehicle from the lab to the fleet and finally to the public.  The major barrier now is building up the hydrogen supply infrastructure.”

Katsuhiko Hirose, Toyota (April 2008):

“Citing ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?,’ a documentary film that explores reasons why electric vehicles never became popular, Hirose explained five miracles needed to diffuse fuel cell cars.

Specifically, the five miracles needed for diffusion of fuel cell cars are (1) cost reduction, (2) comfortable interior space, (3) reasonable fuel prices, (4) efficient diffusion of hydrogen stations and (5) no evolution of rival technologies.  He caused a stir in the audience, stating the industry can overcome all these challenges except for the efficient diffusion of hydrogen stations.

Automobile manufacturers can solve problems by working hard if only the challenges are related to fuel cell cars, whereas the diffusion of hydrogen stations cannot be realized only by automobile manufacturers, he stressed.  To make the miracle come true, he called for cooperation of energy companies and the government toward the diffusion of hydrogen stations.

He also said that it is important to establish more infrastructure before commercializing fuel cell cars and that increasing fuel cell cars as quickly as possible will lower costs for cars and infrastructure maintenance while meeting consumer benefits.”

Richard Branson, Virgin (March 2008):

During an announcement last month of a partnership with GM to use three Chevrolet Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for their complimentary airport shuttle service for their passengers at Los Angeles International Airport, Virgin Chairman Richard Branson spoke out about the need for governments to help build hydrogen fueling stations:

“We are calling upon governments world wide, not just the UK and the US, to assist our businesses by building hydrogen filling stations in key cities so that drivers can fill up their cars more easily.”

Jeff Dorchen, The Huffington Post (January 2008):

“Lazy, that’s what it is.  Bush and what’s left of his advisory posse of the ideologically deformed just don’t feel like bothering to think of anything effective to do.  Did they consider, Hey, let’s spark some industry development, encourage investment in something American ingenuity and work ethic and entrepreneurship can really sink their teeth into.  Like maybe get in on the ground floor of this whole hydrogen economy thing.  Whoever positions themselves to profit from that will be riding the crest as the economic powerhouse of the future.  Think of all the money that would change hands as researchers came up with better ways of generating and storing hydrogen, think of all of the contractors and laborers and tradesman and engineers busy as beavers converting gas stations to hydrogen stations, and the auto industry and the advertising — good lord, a few billion judiciously channeled and matching-funded and dangled like carrots in front of the right noses, and the economy would be blazing on all cylinders — to use a one-day-to-be-outmoded mechanical metaphor.  How about we redirect our resources and young men and women out of destroying the Middle East and channel them toward poising the U.S. economy to be the dominant force behind the hydrogen revolution that will end petroleum’s reign of terror forever?”

Paul Brubaker, Department of Transportation (March 2008):

“The reality is, we cannot wait.  We have to figure out what to do to reach critical mass and create the infrastructure to get these cars on the road sooner than later.”