Will the Hydrogen Economy Take Off?

Hydrogen is hot, but whether it really will fly is another story.

Hydrogen. Lighter than air, ubiquitous, and energy dense. Its use as a fuel results only in water and heat emissions, which sure sounds better than the NO_X, SO₂, mercury, and carbon dioxide emissions from today's power plants. Yet the hoopla surrounding hydrogen is more hype than real, at least for now. Although much has been made of President Bush's proposal to spend $1.7 billion over five years on hydrogen research, currently there are less than two dozen fuel cell vehicle prototypes on the road in the United States. And while stationary fuel cells show increasing promise, there are no existing pilots, or any planned, that approach commercial scale. In fact, none of the experts interviewed by believed that a commercial-scale, hydrogen-fueled power plant would become a reality in the next decade, if ever.

Furthermore, to get from here to there is going to take money-a lot of it. But so far, the utility industry isn't plunking down any serious research and development (R&D) money. There's a long way between the now of fossil-fueled energy and the nirvana of hydrogen-powered vehicles and electricity.

"Utilities are not spending much at all on research relating to the hydrogen economy," says David Walls, a director at Navigant Consulting. The sector, he observes, has been somewhat of a follower so far on hydrogen, waiting to see how the infrastructure and technology to produce, transport, and store hydrogen develops.