Op-Ed: Hydrogen Cars as Snake Oil

Hydrogen cars as snake oil
By Sen. John Sununu
Special to The Hill
June 20, 2005

There's a particularly sharp episode of "The Simpsons" in which the town of Springfield is conned into buying a very expensive - and ultimately useless - elevated rail system. The salesman's pitch is simple and persuasive: he appeals to his victims' vanity. By the time he has finished, the assembled townspeople are chanting: "Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!" If you stop rustling this newspaper for just a moment and strain your ear toward the Capitol, you might hear the echo beneath the Rotunda: "Hydrogen Car! Hydrogen Car! Hydrogen Car!"

Having spent a few years studying to be an engineer, I appreciate the power and value of technology as much as anyone. The federal government plays a vital role in funding research in basic areas of science and medicine, principally through the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Thus, it is all the more appalling that while NSF suffers another year of marginal support, we're about to gamble billions of dollars subsidizing the development of a new car.

This is a lesson Congress has failed to learn over and over again: asking government bureaucrats to pick winners and losers in our markets does not work. Attempting to do so wastes precious capital resources, creates unachievable expectations, and distorts the marketplace of ideas.

It's a road we've been down before. Many will remember the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), the Clinton Administration initiative that partnered with the Big Three domestic automakers to make automobiles more fuel-efficient. We were told we would see tremendous results: a family supercar that would travel 80 miles on a gallon of gas. The flood of federal money into "efficient" diesel technology encouraged private sector resources to flow toward similar projects (the better to qualify for federal subsidies). After eight years and $ 1.5 billion, not a single PNGV vehicle ever reached a showroom. Taxpayer funds were wasted and private sector capital misallocated.

Others may recall the Synfuels Corporation, promoted under President Carter. Thankfully, Congress and President Reagan ended this program in 1985, but not before the taxpayers paid through the nose. In fact, one project alone - the Great Plains Coal Gasification Plant - cost over $1.5 billion. Synfuels pushed private capital toward areas such as oil-from-coal and shale oil extraction, methods that remain prohibitively expensive even after twenty-five years. Today, the sources of energy promised by Synfuels represent a miniscule portion of our country's daily needs.

Incredibly, the Energy Visionaries are at it again. PNGV has been replaced by a new "better" and "bigger" initiative: FreedomCAR. Where PNGV sought to increase fuel efficiency, FreedomCAR's mandate is to create an affordable automobile that runs on hydrogen. In conjunction with FreedomCAR, the federal government is also pursuing a Hydrogen Fuels Initiative. Together, President Bush expects these programs to cost $1.7 billion through 2008. Like any other futuristic promise (remember nuclear power too cheap to meter), if hydrogen sounds too good to be true, it is.

A hydrogen fuel cell, the heart of the hydrogen car, converts hydrogen into electricity to drive a vehicle's engine as in today's increasingly popular hybrid electric cars. But pure hydrogen does not grow on trees. It must be created using energy - electricity to remove hydrogen from water, or high temperature steam to remove it from natural gas. In either case, the fuel cell acts to store energy, delivering it to the engine when you put the pedal to the metal.

Granted, electric vehicles can reduce emissions on the highway; but if fossil fuels remain the main source of energy to create hydrogen, no significant overall reduction in pollutants is achieved.

In May 2004, both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society stated that a commercially viable hydrogen car would take 20-30 years to produce. And yet, the Senate Bill sets a goal of 100,000 hydrogen-powered cars on the road by 2010, and 2.5 million vehicles by 2020. These arbitrary numbers represent "cheerleading" at best. More likely, they will mislead the public into believing this dream is far closer to reality than any reputable source would claim.

And what about infrastructure? According to the National Petroleum News, there are nearly 169,000 service stations in the United States today. With recent estimates of conversion costs nearing $1 million per pump, infrastructure costs could reach hundreds of billions of dollars.

It may be that a dramatic breakthrough five years from now could alter these economic obstacles. Or not. But that is precisely why we encourage, and should have confidence in, competitive markets. They will do a far better job of financing and rewarding technological innovation than the most wisened of federal bureaucrats. Federal subsidies and potential infrastructure costs represent tremendous amounts of economic resources placed at risk in a highly speculative venture. This is not the role of government.

Today, General Motors is working on a hydrogen car. So are Ford and DaimlerChrysler. Overseas, no less than Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW are each working on their own hydrogen vehicles as well. Let them work. Let them compete. How many Monorails do we have to buy before we learn our lesson?

Sununu is a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

http://www.sununu.senate.gov/oped6-21-05.html