Zoomi Life

The much-touted “green” President, Obama, has OK’d a slash in the Department of Energy’s research funding budget for 2010.  In the typical short-sightedness of government types, DoE Secretary Chu said that because “these vehicles are 10 to 20 years away,” they aren’t as imperative as battery electric technology.

This despite evidence to the contrary such as Mazda’s recent deployment of three hydrogen-fueled models, Honda’s successful field testing of the FCX Clarity, and Toyota’s announced commitment towards a fuel-cell model within ten years. Not to mention the proven superior pound-for-pound energy density of compressed hydrogen over battery storage.

Regardless, both Honda and Toyota have announced that this will not curb their continued R&D for hydrogen fuel-cells and Toyota even bumped their field test prototype delivery date to 2014.  A spokesman for the Freightliner Corp. has also told me that they will not be slowing down their fuel-cell work and testing for big rig trucks either.

Not long ago, of course, Chu was all about hydrogen and its future. He promised almost $42 million for fuel-cell research funding into our “hydrogen future” (as he put it). The DoE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committee’s J. Byron McCormick resigned from the committee in protest of the decision.  His email announcing his resignation made waves on the Internet for its scathing treatment of the short-sightednes off Chu’s decision and the limited future of battery vehicles.

Meanwhile, DARPA is continuing research into various fuel-cell vehicle technologies for military applications as well.

On the up-side, it looks like hydrogen won’t slow down thanks to a lack of government funding. Hopefully this will be an exercise in the obvious fact that government intervention doesn’t necessarily mean “good things will happen.”  I’d rather see a private venture take off with something like this and make it happen anyway.

Make sure to read this excellent post by Greg Blancoe at Hydrogen Discoveries, Inc. titled “Top 25 Things I Wish President Barack Obama Knew About Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars and Plug-in Battery Cars.”