When the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce held its energy conference this spring, the buzz around town was about hydrogen. The same thing happened when Bart Nelson, president of Nelson Irrigation, presented his paper on hydrogen and fuel cells to the Inquiry Club in Walla Walla in March.

But the question that lurks in the back of people’s minds is, “Is it safe, or will my car go up in a fireball like the Hindenburg?”

Contrary to popular belief, it was not hydrogen that caused the disastrous fire aboard Germany’s Hindenburg zeppelin during its landing in New Jersey in 1937, it was the material used to coat the “skin” of the airship. The combination of iron oxide, cellulose acetate and aluminum powder coating the cotton skin and static electricity caused the fireball sinking of the 804-foot “Titanic of the Skies.”

Hydrogen: Safe as gasoline

According to NASA scientists, hydrogen is a safe alternative fuel, no more hazardous than gasoline. America’s astronauts have used hydrogen-powered fuel cells to generate electricity since the 1960s, but more work is needed to make them cost effective for use in cars, trucks, homes or businesses. Currently, hydrogen costs four times more than gasoline to produce, and fuel cells are 10 times more expensive than internal combustion engines.

President Bush believes moving to hydrogen power would be good for both the environment and for national security. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, he announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative to reverse America’s growing dependence on foreign oil.

Reducing oil imports

The United States currently imports 55 percent of the oil it consumes, and that is expected to grow to 68 percent by 2025. Nearly all of our cars and trucks run on gasoline, and they are the main reason America imports so much oil.

Two-thirds of the 20 million barrels of oil Americans use each day is for transportation. The President believes fuel cell vehicles offer the best hope of
dramatically reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure, and advanced automotive technologies. He wants to develop the technology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses with no pollution or
greenhouse gases commonly associated with fossil fuels.

Protecting the environment

Vehicles are a significant source of air pollution in America’s cities and urban areas. Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to power cars without pollution. When burned in an engine, hydrogen produces effectively zero emissions; when powering a fuel cell, its only waste is water.

The President’s plan is to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions from transportation alone by more than 500 million metric tons of carbon equivalent each year by 2040.

Additional emissions reductions could be achieved by using fuel cells in applications such as generating electricity for residential or commercial uses.

The hydrogen timeline

So, if the President gets his way, the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by fuel cells. His goal is to lower production costs enough to make fuel cell cars cost-competitive by 2010, and make them a practical and affordable choice for American consumers by 2020.

That may seem like a long time to make the conversion to hydrogen. But when President Kennedy pledged back in 1961 to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, it was hydrogen technology that helped get Neil Armstrong and his crew there. When presidents talk and put money behind their words, things get done. Hydrogen-powered cars by 2010 is not just wishful thinking.