It's a Bumpy Ride on the Hydrogen Highway

Hydrogen is touted as one of the transportation fuels of the future. However, the plan of zero emissions hydrogen powered vehicles traveling our highways, where they can be refueled as conveniently as today's automobiles remains an elusive dream.

As the Los Angeles Times reports (click here to read the full article), "California's struggles underline the chicken-and-egg problem of hydrogen technology, which has been touted as a zero-emissions alternative to traditional engines. Which comes first: the cars or the pumps? Like gasoline, hydrogen has to be administered through fueling stations. But with no hydrogen-powered vehicles publicly available, except as use as test cars or city buses, there is little demand for the volatile gas; that lack of demand is in turn a disincentive to create hydrogen stations."

The article explains that California has a goal of 100 stations by 2010, but with the recent closure of 3 stations, the station count stands at 22.

Project Navigator, Ltd. has long been enthused, from a purely environmental consulting and engineering services sector perspective, of the goal to create hydrogen fueling stations (see our services at http://www.h2-environmental.com/).

But in the last few years we have become more cautious, now believing that the investment in gasoline hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles is more prudent.

Tell us what you think.