DOE to slash budget for hydrogen fuel cell research by 41%

[wtmusic]

"If we lived in some imaginary post-partisan Bizarro world where we had the prospect of spending as much money on clean energy as we ought to based on the realities of climate science and peak oil, then cutting the hydrogen doesn’t wouldn’t be needed. We’d just increase the R&D and deployment programs for energy efficiency and renewable energy and electric drive vehicles several times.

Similarly, if the anti-science, pro-pollution conservatives and their enablers hadn’t killed the climate and clean energy jobs bill, again, we would have had more than enough money to fund even the implausible clean energy strategies.

But we’ve entered a period where political and budget realities mean we have to focus resources on the clean energy technologies and low carbon strategies that deliver the biggest bang for the buck. Hydrogen not only has massive technological problems that will require large amounts of continued R&D funding. It has a staggering infrastructure costs that would require tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to jumpstart a genuine hydrogen economy."

http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/14/obama-chu-slash-miracle-hydrogen-program/

[Kolesar]

1. Battery-electric vehicles are here already

So I am with Chu.

[lfairban]

2. I'm with Chu too!

I never liked hydrogen. It creates more pollution than it eliminates.

If Duba like the idea, how great can it be?

[Nihil]

3. Nice to see the truth presented so clearly & objectively.

> But we’ve entered a period where political and budget realities mean we have to
> focus resources on the clean energy technologies and low carbon strategies that
> deliver the biggest bang for the buck. Hydrogen not only has massive technological
> problems that will require large amounts of continued R&D funding. It has a staggering
> infrastructure costs that would require tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars
> to jumpstart a genuine hydrogen economy.

Isn't it refreshing to hear the facts without the customary sugar-coating & weasel-words
to keep the sponsors happy?

:thumbsup:

[wtmusic]

4. Joe Romm is known for that.

He admits he was a big proponent of hydrogen when he was Energy Secretary during the Clinton Administration, and it was a mistake.