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Giving Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars Another Chance
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/05/hydrogen_fuel_cell_vehicles_and_the_obama_administration_.single.html[font face=Serif][font size=5]Giving Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars Another Chance[/font]
[font size=4]Obama slashed Bush-era funding for the clean-energy vehicle. Now he may reverse course.[/font]
By Steve LeVine|Posted Thursday, May 17, 2012, at 12:28 PM ET
[font size=3]…
Three years ago, the Obama administration abandoned another of its predecessor's central tenets—that the future of vehicle propulsion was zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, backed by Obama, instead launched an aggressive program to develop a new generation of high-performance batteries, the factories in which to manufacture them, and the vehicles they would power. Lithium-ion technology and electrified cars offered the best chance of achieving three key policy objectives, the administration asserted: get the country off of oil, reduce emissions of CO[font size=1]2[/font], and invigorate a new age of American manufacturing.
But electric vehicles are off to a sluggish start in the United States and around the world. Battery costs seem likely to be high for the foreseeable future, and consumers are not buying electrified cars at the rates originally foreseen. Major oil companies are getting the impression that they can relax: The gasoline age will still be with us for at least another two decades, they believe, perhaps even longer.
No one can say whose bet will prove a winner—Obama's or the oil companies'. Yet it is fair to ask: Would the president have been wiser to hedge his gamble by sustaining the George W. Bush-era hydrogen fuel-cell program while also pursuing electrification? The answer is found in a habit of some of the biggest risk-takers of all—venture capitalists, who tend to spread their wagers around rather than hoping a single flash of intuition will pay off. Now it seems that the Obama administration may be reconsidering its distribution of chips—and that change can’t come soon enough. Just as Washington has incubated the battery and electric car industries, it ought to play a larger, proactive role in fuel cells, which solve some of the main problems hobbling batteries (though they have their own challenges).
…
Industry and Department of Energy officials say that Chu seems to have softened his early rejection of hydrogen fuel cells. John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell USA and the incoming chairman of the Energy Department's technical advisory committee on fuel cell vehicles, said Chu made supportive remarks about the potential for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles while speaking at a recent, closed event.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]Obama slashed Bush-era funding for the clean-energy vehicle. Now he may reverse course.[/font]
By Steve LeVine|Posted Thursday, May 17, 2012, at 12:28 PM ET
[font size=3]…
Three years ago, the Obama administration abandoned another of its predecessor's central tenets—that the future of vehicle propulsion was zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, backed by Obama, instead launched an aggressive program to develop a new generation of high-performance batteries, the factories in which to manufacture them, and the vehicles they would power. Lithium-ion technology and electrified cars offered the best chance of achieving three key policy objectives, the administration asserted: get the country off of oil, reduce emissions of CO[font size=1]2[/font], and invigorate a new age of American manufacturing.
But electric vehicles are off to a sluggish start in the United States and around the world. Battery costs seem likely to be high for the foreseeable future, and consumers are not buying electrified cars at the rates originally foreseen. Major oil companies are getting the impression that they can relax: The gasoline age will still be with us for at least another two decades, they believe, perhaps even longer.
No one can say whose bet will prove a winner—Obama's or the oil companies'. Yet it is fair to ask: Would the president have been wiser to hedge his gamble by sustaining the George W. Bush-era hydrogen fuel-cell program while also pursuing electrification? The answer is found in a habit of some of the biggest risk-takers of all—venture capitalists, who tend to spread their wagers around rather than hoping a single flash of intuition will pay off. Now it seems that the Obama administration may be reconsidering its distribution of chips—and that change can’t come soon enough. Just as Washington has incubated the battery and electric car industries, it ought to play a larger, proactive role in fuel cells, which solve some of the main problems hobbling batteries (though they have their own challenges).
…
Industry and Department of Energy officials say that Chu seems to have softened his early rejection of hydrogen fuel cells. John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell USA and the incoming chairman of the Energy Department's technical advisory committee on fuel cell vehicles, said Chu made supportive remarks about the potential for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles while speaking at a recent, closed event.
…[/font][/font]
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