[GBlist] Re:[GBlist] hydrogen/energy policy-Off Topic
I like the idea of moving to a hydrogen fuel
based economy, and yeah, I'm better off than some schlub back in the middle
ages and all, and having spent time in urban Northeast cities and more recently
rural Mexico, I know I take (and enjoy) a relatively large slice of
the pie...
But the administration's energy policies for the
period of time between now and when a hydrogen fuel economy is in place, say the
next 20 years, are not the kind of political leadership I
want. In the current administration, a small group of business leaders
exert enormous clout over Bush and his team in getting the rules changed to
their benefit. Here's a NYTimes editorial that shows the results of that
fact:
Steve
Coming from an administration fixated on producing
more of the same old fossil fuels, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's promise on
Wednesday of a major government investment in fuel-cell cars powered by
pollution-free hydrogen seemed almost revolutionary. Yet environmentalists who
have parsed the announcement are not turning cartwheels. And for good reason.
Despite hydrogen's immense promise, the administration's plan is in fact a
setback for greater near-term fuel efficiency, for reducing our reliance on
Middle Eastern oil and for slowing global warming...
...Yet there is no infrastructure in place for
delivering hydrogen to cars, and a commercially viable vehicle with an on-board
system for converting natural gas into hydrogen is, by many estimates, decades
away.
Meanwhile, the administration is getting rid of the
only program that seemed to be making any headway — a joint industry-government
undertaking begun by Vice President Al Gore called the Partnership for a New
Generation of Vehicles...the investment so far — $1.5 billion from Washington,
at least that much from Detroit — has not only created useful technologies, but
also contributed crucially to the development of a viable hybrid
gas-and-battery-powered car capable of well over 40 miles per gallon. Detroit
plans to bring hybrid models to market in the next two years; the Japanese are
already there.
Any federal pressure on Detroit to proceed with
this program and develop high-mileage family sedans in the near term appears now
to have vanished. Yet the next 10 to 20 years are vitally important to anyone
who cares about urban smog, about acid rain (vehicles contribute to that, too)
and about global warming. Americans will buy 150 million vehicles during the
next decade, and Mr. Abraham's program won't do a thing to reduce the amount of
oil they will consume. Nor will it do anything to reduce America's near-term
dependence on foreign oil, which was supposed to be one of the main objectives
of the Bush energy program.
...Mr. Abraham calls his new vehicle the Freedom
Car, presumably because it will free us from fossil fuels and the countries that
produce them. We hope he is right. In the meantime, though, the only people set
free are the manufacturers, now relieved of the obligation (absent strong new
fuel economy standards) to produce serious breakthroughs in the next few years.
