The great hydrogen hope: clean burning hydrogen has a great deal of potential to help reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. But there are significant barriers to surmount--cost, technology and safety.

When Connecticut Representative Terry Backer heard President Bush call for up to $1.2 billion in funding for research and development of hydrogen as an affordable and safe alternative to fossil fuel for the nation's drivers, his response was tempered by his years as one of the most vocal advocates of what is called the hydrogen economy.

"I thought the president's proposal was great," remarks Backer, "but not enough and somewhat late."

Backer, instead, wants to see Connecticut, as well as the 49 other states, embrace a more activist approach to the hydrogen economy. He calls for tax credits both for the companies in his state that might someday produce hydrogen fuel and the drivers who will use it.

But more than that, Backer wants to help build a "working infrastructure that will make it possible to actually deliver hydrogen to the vehicles," a series of pumps located at a variety of gas stations that will supply the fuel to cars.

"I am not talking about every station," Backer continues, "only a percentage of them. Diesel is sold by only about 20 percent of all stations here, but that 20 percent is enough to fuel a vast fleet of trucks and other vehicles. That is what I would like to see happen in Connecticut."

Five time zones to the west, Hawaii Representative Mina Morita says hydrogen is the key to making her state energy-independent in the next generation.

"Almost everyone here is still focused on oil and gas, more than 90 percent of which we have to import," says Morita, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection. She says it is her goal to change that equation.

"It just makes sense, for our state even more than others, to move away from this traditional dependence on fossil fuels as the answer to all of our needs, and move more in the direction of the hydrogen economy."

To that end, Morita has sponsored a series of bills that will make the use of alternative fuel sources more economically feasible. She also has participated in a number of prominent seminars devoted to advancing what she defines as the beckoning era of hydrogen. "I don't know how much I can do in terms of making new laws, Morita adds. "But I think I can do a lot as a public advocate, trying to get us to think more and more about where we are and where we should be going."

EMBRACING THE POTENTIAL

Although Backer and Morita are separated by more than 4,000 miles, they represent a growing movement among state lawmakers to do what some critics say Washington has not: embrace the potential of the coming hydrogen economy.

"The states are taking the lead on these issues," maintains Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth.

"And the things that the states can do are really rather endless," he says. "In fact, the only thing that might be slowing them down now is a lack of knowledge on how exactly to proceed. But the will, I think, is already there."

Officially the hydrogen economy is defined as what will happen after the world--in particular the United States--abandons reliance on fossil fuels in favor of alternative sources of energy, primarily hydrogen.

Hydrogen, its proponents say, is cleaner, more abundant than fossil fuels--and not dependent on large reserves that are primarily housed in volatile Middle Eastern countries.

The first thing to understand about hydrogen, these same proponents say, is its potential availability. It can come from the electrolysis of water, which is the process of splitting water molecules using electricity to create hydrogen and oxygen. Or it can come from reforming fossil fuels. Because oil and natural gas contain hydrocarbons--molecules that are partly composed of hydrogen and carbon--a device called a reformer, which is essentially a fuel processor, can be used to split the hydrogen away from the carbon. The discarded carbon would be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen advocates say the process of electrolysis is the preferred method for obtaining hydrogen largely because it is cleaner. Getting hydrogen by reforming fossil fuels, on the other hand, means that the country would remain dependent on them, and that greenhouse gases would still accumulate because of the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

At present, the vast majority of current research and development among the nation's major automakers centers around reforming fossil fuels, a process that may not see tangible results for the next decade, says Greg Dana, vice president for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in Washington.

"It is going to be a very expensive process, and one that doesn't entirely solve the air pollution question because of how you have to get rid of the carbon dioxide," Dana says.

"The technology is still in its infancy," he adds "which means that right now every car is going to have to be hand-built." He estimates that a true fuel cell powered vehicle would currently cost between $500,000 and $1 million.

Hydrogen advocates believe the states in the next decade will be the real proving ground of its viability. They point to the recent appointment of Terry Tamminen as the new head of the California Environmental Protection Agency by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a sign that the nation's largest state may be ready to explore the possibilities of a hydrogen economy.

"That appointment sends a real signal to hydrogen supporters," says Paul Hoffman, the author of Tomorrow's Energy: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and the Prospects for a Cleaner Planet.

Tamminen has been a long-time supporter of developing alternative energy and fuel sources, including hydrogen, to satisfy the nation's energy needs. He has even said that he wants to retrofit Schwarzenegger's now-famous Hummer so that it will run on hydrogen.

Advocates also want to see the states retrofit their government fleets so that they, too, can run on hydrogen. "Imagine if people could actually see these various government vehicles running up and down their streets, fueled by hydrogen," remarks Mark MacLeod, director for special projects in Austin with Environmental Defense, a national nonprofit group. "The symbolism would be very powerful."

Author Rifkin would like to see hydrogen used to provide the electricity for prominent public buildings, such as city halls, courthouses and, yes, even state capitols. "The first statehouse that does that, that is powered entirely by renewable-based hydrogen, is going to get an enormous amount of attention across the country," he says.

Other hydrogen supporters want to see the creation of hydrogen parks, modeled along the lines of biotech and software parks, where both corporate and university research would be encouraged by a series of tax credits and the establishment of tax-free zones.

The states can also look to New England, suggests Jim Ohi, where the Northeast Hydrogen Alliance, which is run through the Boston office of the federal Department of Energy, is seeking regional solutions to the challenges of the hydrogen economy.

"I think the best thing that the states could do at this point would be to work together regionally," says Ohi, a senior project leader with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

"Hydrogen derives from a number of resources," he says, "which makes it very amenable to state and regional approaches. "You don't need huge central plants or grids or things like that. What you do need is an agreement on the kind of approaches you want to take, approaches that do not have to be confined to the borders of only one state."

APPROACH WITH CAUTION

Although few people today will defend the wisdom of basing an economy entirely upon the use of fossil fuels, many experts think that the states should be cautious before embracing hydrogen as the single and only solution to the nation's pressing energy needs.

"If you pick just one new technology in advance and say 'it's going to be the hydrogen car' or something like that, you may end up surprised if later we see that hybrids make more sense and are more cost effective," warns MacLeod.

"I think the states should do all they can to provide research and development dollars for these emerging technologies," says MacLeod. "But it would be a major mistake, in my opinion, to get behind only one approach."

In fact, not all experts are even in agreement that the hydrogen economy--especially with its promise of a cleaner environment--can really work.

Richard Muller, professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, counts himself among the skeptics who doubt that hydrogen really is, as its supporters claim, the "clean fuel" of the future.

"The primary downside to the hydrogen economy is the possibility that its value will be incorrectly perceived," Muller says, "and therefore competing technologies such as renewable energy technologies will not get sufficient attention."

Mark MacLeod agrees: "Obviously no state should take only one approach to these challenges," he says. "Instead the real opportunity for the states, as I see it, is to be a part of the early developmental stages where you have a new or nascent technology and are trying to see where it works best."

"I think the states that explore and embrace all of the new technologies will be those that will ultimately find themselves on the cutting edge of a new era."

Connecticut's Backer could hardly agree more: "Just think how exciting it will be to generate energy in a truly renewable way. If that ever happens, we will have entered a whole new world of possibilities, and I really believe that the states are going to lead the way to that world."

Garry Boulard, a frequent contributor to State Legislatures magazine, is a free-lance writer from Albuquerque, N. M.