Bush resorts to hot air while America burns President ignores current problem of gas-guzzling cars by switching budget to hydrogen power future
Paul Brown, environment correspondent Thursday January 10, 2002 The Guardian President George Bush has abandoned plans to develop fuel-efficient petrol cars in favour of hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles in order to end America's dependence on imported oil. Fuel cells, which act like batteries, produce no emissions except water vapour, and are already in prototypes. They are, however, at least 10 years away from mass production. The decision to abandon the Clinton administration's £1bn, five-year programme to produce a generation of fuel-efficient cars and instead leapfrog directly into the hydrogen age met a mixed reaction yesterday. Environmentalists were suspicious of the president's motives. America's love affair with gas-guzzling cars - it consumes a quarter of the world's oil - leaves the economy exposed to price rises. The energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, announced in Detroit, the home of the car industry, that the aim of the new programme was the eventual replacement of the internal combustion engine, which has dominated world transport for a century. Fuel cells use stored hydrogen and oxygen from the air to create electricity but are currently far from economic. A second practical problem is the creation of the supply chain. Despite these difficulties the big three car companies - General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler - are pressing ahead with a joint venture with the Bush administration. Mr Clinton's plan was to develop affordable cars which were capable of 80 miles to the gallon. Some prototypes were running at 70 miles per gallon but none reached production. Meanwhile, fashion had led many Americans in the opposite direction - with a big increase in the popularity of four-wheel drive vehicles which use even more fuel than the traditional family car. In Europe, pressure from the European Commission has forced the industry to gradually improve the fuel efficiency of vehicles and reduce pollution, but the effect has been largely swamped by the increase in the number of cars. Environmental groups in the US favoured the European way, saying that these efficiency improvements were a useful stop-gap until new technologies could be developed in 10 or possibly 20 years. Kara Saul Rinaldi, deputy policy director for the Alliance to Save Energy pressure group, said she welcomed the investment but fuel economy standards for petrol engines were also essential. "We are looking at long-term technology when we have not made the first step. Raising fuel economy standards is the first step." Steven Nadel, executive director of the American council for an energy efficient economy, said: "I think fuel cells are a useful long-term goal, but the big problem is that the Bush administration proposal does not seem to address anything for the next 10 years. There is a lot of technology that can go into cars in 2006 or 2007." Although this year's £100m budget for fuel efficiency is likely to be diverted to hydrogen cars, all has not been lost. Many lighter components and other fuel-saving devices have been developed and are in use. Toyota and Honda will be introducing hybrid cars that use petrol and electricity by 2004. Honda and DaimlerChrysler will have fuel cell-powered vehicles at the same time but these are unlikely to be for anything but a tiny market. Hydrogen is already seen as the fuel of the future because it is plentiful and non-polluting. The problem is how to achieve mass production in tanks to be fed into vehicles or to burn for electricity production. Iceland, which has a tiny population but a vast surplus of energy because of its hydro-electricity and thermal supplies, plans to be the first country in the world to go over to a hydrogen economy. In America a production possibility is to use surplus energy from wind farms for hydrogen production.
