I am not exactly sure why we are still hearing about hydrogen fuel cells as means to power automobiles. The east coast now has a hydrogen fueling station thanks to the township of Hempstead, New York and the gracious compliments of the New York State Energy Research Development Authority. This tune came off the charts not long after it got there and now it is just a disturbing reminder for those of us that try to lobby for investment in sustainability by the country.
Countless people have already conveyed that Hydrogen cars, or more importantly a hydrogen infrastructure, is not viable for our country.
“Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and it’s not even clear that they are a good idea in the long term. Because the prospects for hydrogen cars are so uncertain, we need to think carefully before we invest all this money and all this public effort in one area.”
– Alex Farrell, Assistant Professor of Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley
Farrell also points out that the cost to raise the fuel efficiency of gasoline powered cars is trivial to putting hydrogen vehicles into production. So why are we still hearing about this, let alone why is $2 million spent on a refueling station on long island? Then again, we have graduated to a different power of spending. Next to $2 trillion, what is a couple of million?
One answer is that a number of organizations do not want to look like they have wasted time and money on a technology and that somehow being able to say “Look, we built some! they work!” makes it all worth while. The truth is that in today’s market they do not need to do that. If there are any upsides for the auto companies in this recession it should be that they need no better excuse to push things off their drawing boards right into the trash. At a time where R&D dollars are less easily spent, no one would cast any blame on shelving (we can only hope permanently) time and effort to fuel cell powered cars.
This is just one more reminder of the misallocation of resources by a former administration that really had no genuine desire for strides in efficiency and sustainability. Most likely, it will not be the last.
Via CNET