Running on hydrogen

'The idea is eventually to offer consumers cars and trucks that perform just like today’s and don’t cost any more. The only significant difference is they will run on domestically produced, clean, safe hydrogen, rather than gasoline from imported oil.’

So said US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman at last month’s annual conference of the US National Hydrogen Association.

He was reporting on a $380million research programme, co-funded by his department and a clutch of car manufacturers, which will evaluate fuel cells and the development of an infrastructure for hydrogen supply.

‘If our research programme is successful,’ he says, ‘it is not unreasonable to think we could see the beginning of mass-market penetration by 2020.’

If anything, that target might be somewhat conservative. Hydrogen filling stations are already in operation in many countries. Admittedly, most of these are demonstration facilities, but the fact that they are being designed to have the ‘look and feel’ of conventional forecourts shows the efforts being made to gain consumer confidence.

Economics aside, that surely is one of the stumbling blocks to the widespread adoption of the technology. As anyone who has seen one of the three prototype hydrogen-powered London buses knows, their environmentally-friendly exhaust ‘fumes’ — nothing but steam, of course — do have a tendency to deter passengers who fear the bus is either on fire or about to break down.

But, in a city that has only recently put its 40-year-old Routemaster double-deckers out to pasture, new buses generally receive a wary welcome anyway.

Elsewhere in the world, however, the pace is quickening. In addition to the US government’s enthusiasm, Japan also has a goal of 5 million fuel-cell powered vehicles on the road by 2020.

With the likes of General Motors, BMW, DaimlerChrysler and Ford all actively involved in hydrogen-fuelled vehicle development, that might not be so much hot air after all.