The U.S. DOE continues to fund hydrogen research, a long term proposition that could be mute moot if plug-in hybrids become commercially successful.
The Department of Energy just issued grants for $8.2million for four projects at university and national research labs. Yes, that is a piddling amount as far as the national energy budget goes, but it is only part of the money going to hydrogen fuel cell vehicle research.
Both plug-in hybrids and hydrogen vehicleswould reduce petroleum consumption and emissions, but hydrogen requires an entirely new distribution network of pipelines and fuel stations, and we are not close to finding any cost effective methods of producing hydrogen from anything but petroleum products today. Fuel cell vehicles have the promise of being able to power a vehicle for 300 miles or more (plug-in hybrids are aiming for 50 miles on a charge), but that is probably just as hard as creating affordable electric vehicles.
Renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro) can be used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, but that isn't nearly as efficient as storing electricity in car batteries. Instead of investing tens of billions in hydrogen infrastructure, that electricity could be sent to plug-in hybrids with minimal infrastructure investment.
Earlier this month the DOE granted $14 million in research for plug-in hybrid batteries, so the agency is covering all of its bases. Fuel cell vehicles remain an option for the long term, but if the goal is to reduce fossil fuel use in the short term, plug-in hybrids seem to be a much better bet.
Source: Clean Edge
