May 7, 2003
SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS): The hearing will come to order. We're going to have a fun hearing today on a great topic: hydrogen fueled automobiles and other vehicles and other uses of hydrogen fuel. I'd like to begin the hearing of Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee by thanking each of our witnesses. I appreciate you coming today. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for joining us here today and sharing your testimony. Secondly, I want to thank you on behalf of my kids for your leadership in advancing the practical applications of hydrogen fuel cell research. This is an incredibly important issue for the future and it certainly has a lot of excitement and interest for now and for the next generation.
Perhaps a critical duty for any leader, whether you're a CEO, secretary of State, a principal of a high school, is to advance a vision of what we want our country and the world to look like. As did countless generations before we were born, we are charged to leave our children's life better than that which we inherited. I'd also urgeI'd also argue that this notion of the world we would like to leave our children is a vision that unites us. While we often disagree about how to get there, we just as often agree about where we would like to be heading towards.
It is almost universally held we would like to be energy independent. This country is best when it is a forceful advocate for democracy and freedom, and unfortunately far too often our nation's interest in advancing these principles stumble over our interest in affordable and reliable sources of energy. It is a generally held belief that the more affordable and reliable energy sources we can develop at home, the more freely we will be able to advance American ideals abroad.
Generally I think we can all agree that we would like to leave our children a cleaner, better environment. My dad is a farmer in Parker, Kansas, and he farms the land that his dad farmed. My brother farms the same land. Growing up on a farm you can't help but learn the values of good stewardship. I have no doubt that Dad is going to leave to my brother Jim the land better than he found it.
I've been very blessed to see a great deal of this country and I have a great faith that we are living on a gift from God. As stewards of this country, such is our responsibility to pass on the gift to the next generation in better condition than it was received. But we can't ignore that we are also stewards of the economy. If we listen to the debate around here, it's very clear that weagain, that we agree that a robust economy makes this country strong. Again, we don't all agree on how to get there, but I suspect that it's a wholethat's a whole different hearing. We have a tremendous burden to keep the economy growing and to continue creating new jobs.
If the duty of a leader is to advance a vision of the future, perhaps the greatest trick of leadership is not having to sacrifice one goal for the sake of another, and therein lies the importance of the hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element on the planet. Two-thirds of the planet is water; two-thirds of water is hydrogen. I'm trained neither as a scientist nor an engineer, but as near as I can figure we have all the hydrogen we need right here within our borders. As for the environment, at worst the emissions of hydrogen fuel cells is minimal, and the efficiency of fuel cells is unmatched by conventional technologies.
Likely, the initial generations of fuel cells will rely on some form of petrol chemicals, most likely natural gas, to produce the hydrogen. However, the modest amounts of CO2 emitted from these power sources are dwarfed by the emissions of today's cleanest internal combustion engines. In addition, today's internal combustion engine captures only 15 to 20 percent of the energy in gasoline. Fuel cells, on the other hand, convert 40 to 65 percent of hydrogen energy into electricity. The potential of this 160-year-old technology to help us achieve cleaner air by the time my kids are driving their kids to school is staggering.
Not only can our economy be sustained in a transition to a greater reliance on hydrogen, but our economy can grow as we move toward hydrogen. As we've seen in the past several years, our economy is extremely sensitive to fluctuations in energy costs. Moving away from the more limited and unstable commodities of fossil fuels towards the more abundant hydrogen has a tremendous potential to insulate the economy from fluctuations in energy prices. In addition, where there is innovation there is growth. As American companies, like those represented here today, develop the innovative technologies that carry us into hydrogen-based transportation and possibly hydrogen-based economy, our country will see growth follow.
However, for all the potential, hydrogen fuel cellsto paraphrase Robert Frost, there are many miles before we sleep. The timeframe we've laid out for the transition to hydrogen-based transportation is almost unmatched in human history. To meet the timeframe, our commitment must be unwavering. We thank those of you who are here to testify today in advance for all the hard work and the dedication and the leadership you will invest, and have already invested, in this mission. And that's why we look forward to your testimony and presentation and answering the questions today.
We've been joined by another advocate of hydrogen technology that's approached me and talked with me on the floor about this issue and has aggressively supported it, Senator Dorgan from North Dakota.
SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D-ND): Senator Brownback, thank you very much. Let me jut make a couple of comments before we begin the hearing. I will not be able to stay for the entire hearing, but I'm especially pleased that you're holding it because I think this is the issue. We have the energy bill on the floor. It includes an initiative dealing with hydrogen and fuel cells. The president has indicated his interest and his administration's support for this. I've indicated previously that that is enormously welcome because putting the administration's support behind this direction is not only a breath of fresh air, but is an enormous source of strength to move something like this through the Congress.
I've indicated also, without meaning to be highly critical, that the president's specific proposal was more timid than I would like it to be. I had offered legislation here in the Congress, prior to the president making his proposal, a more robust proposal that I think we ought to embrace in sixroughly $6.5 billion proposal over 10 years that sets targets and timetables that would set targets of having 100,000 fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2010, and 2.5 million vehicles on the road by 2020. This is not a project that will be achieved just because we wish it so. The issue of finding a new supply of energy, particularly hydrogen, means that we have issues dealing with the production, the transportation, the storage of hydrogen, the continued development of increasingly sophisticated fuel cells.
But as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, running gasoline through the carburetors of our vehicle fleet forever and ever makes no sense to me. Fuel cells are up to twice as efficient as running gasoline through carburetors in terms of putting power to the wheel, and it just makes sense to me, especially given what we've seen in Iraq and the Middle East recently, that our economy should not be so overly dependent on foreign sources of energy. The fastest growing part of our energy usage is in transportation by far, and we import 55 percent of our oil. That is expected to increase to 68 percent by the year 2020.
That is a path that's unsustainable and it's a path that jeopardizes this country's economy. It holds it hostage to conditions that we do not, cannot and will not control. So I suggest that we will continue to dig and drill, we will continue to increase production of oil, coal and natural gas. I support all that. But if digging and drilling is our only energy strategy, then we arein my judgment we are confined to a yesterday forever strategy.
Mr. Chairman, I've told everyone I guess, my first car was a 1924 Model T Ford. I restored it as a young teenager. I put gasoline in the 1924 Ford the same way you put gasoline in a 2003 Ford. Not a thing has changed in a century. And the new dream and vision of a hydrogen economy with fuel cells toparticularly for our transportation fleet, but also stationary engines and others, is something that can cause fundamental change in this country that is positive: positive for our economy, positive to make us less dependent on things that we can't control. I just think that this requires a robust, aggressive push from all of us in public policy.
I'm really pleased with the people you have testifying. I've worked with many of them. Mr. Garman has been to North Dakota and we've talked about other energy, wind energy.
But, Mr. Garman, I know that you are representing the administration's view of how much we can do. And you and I have a slight disagreement about how aggressive we can or should move, but we have no disagreement on the direction. And that's what's refreshing to me. This administration has put itself in the position of saying let's move in this direction. I say you bet, let's do it and let's be very bold about it as we do it.
My hope, Mr. Chairman, finally is that when the energy bill leaves the Senate, even though we nearly tripled the amount of effort in the Energy Committee on the hydrogen piece, we're up to a little over $3 billion at this point, my hope is that we can nudge it up even a bit more so that your grandchildren and my grandchildren canwhen they turn the key on their vehicle, they're going to be turning their key on a vehicle that has a fuel cell and uses hydrogen. And if Ione final point. I won't go beyond this.
Mr. Garman came toSecretary Garman came to North Dakota to talk about wind energy. And there's a wind energy component in this as well because wind blows intermittently, but you put up the new efficient wind turbines and produce electricity and use electricity through the process of electrolysis to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, store the hydrogen, use it for our vehicle fleet and it all fits together in a wonderful, wonderful way. And because of that I sleep better, and it was therapeutic to say all of this. Thank you.
(Laughter.)
SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you very much, Senator Dorgan; a passionate supporter of hydrogen, as is obvious.
Senator Lautenberg, do you have an opening statement?
SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG (D-NJ): Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And I listened with interest to Senator Dorgan's statement, and he talked about fixing up his 1924 vehicle. I had an energy-less vehicle in 1924. It was my mother pushing me in a baby carriage and -- (laughter) -- you can't find that kind of energy around any more. But I didn't realize that you were old enough to understand that. But -- (laughter) -- and I'm pleased to be here also and to join in this discussion, this review of where we go beside fossil fuels and how we get where we want to go. And I'm not talking about the mileage alone.
The alternatives have to be found to the way we do business today. And it's so rare that we hear things like "conserve" or "sacrifice" or things of that nature. And I think the best way to get where we'd like to be is to really devote our energy and our resource to this opportunity with the hydrogen fuel cells.
And I just passed the car that's parked outside downstairs that General Motors is showing. It's a hydrogen fuel cell car, but it's stillit's prototypical, it's not ready at all for production. But they are going into hybrid production, I was told, next year and that will add something like a 10 percent efficiency factor and that translates immediately to the use of oil, the importation of oil, I mean the numbers are staggering if we just get to do something.
Well, in the State of the Union address President Bush announced a new $1.2 billion research and development initiative for hydrogen fueled vehicles. Now, as those in this room know now, hydrogen fuel cells hold enormous promise as an efficient low-emission source of power and theoretically it's possible to create a hydrogen fuel cell that only emits water, and the water can be used again as a source for more hydrogen. The president's initiative is meant to complement the Department of Energy's Freedom CAR program, a two-year-old cooperative research program between the federal government and universities and private industry.
But as important as hydrogen will be down the road, I can't help but think that the initiative merely scratches the surface. It's designed to I think hide the relatively poor record that we've had with regard to cutting auto emissions and our dependence on OPEC oil now at a time when we know how precarious that supply is and the availability. The fastest, cheapest way to cut our dependence on foreign oil now is to make our cars and trucks go further on each gallon of gas that they burn. The fact is the automakers are keenly aware of hydrogen promises and are investing $2 to $3 billion of their own money each year to develop the technology.
The federal government's money, the $1.2 billion, would be better spent promoting near term fuel economy improvements in our cars and trucks. And this near term component is what's missing from the president's approach. According to the National Academy of Science, existing technologies could be used to raise fuel efficiency to 40 miles per gallon without compromising safety. The NRDC estimates that we could cut the amount of oil our cars and trucks use by a half by the year 2020, and by three-quarters over the next three decades compared with business as usual projections. And total consumer savings from these improvements would equal nearly $13 billion per year in 2012, and almost $30 billion by 2020.
By lifting the fuel economy standards for the national fleet to 40 miles per hour -- 40 miles, I'm sorry, per gallon by 2012 and 55 miles per gallon in 2020, we'd save nearly four billion barrels of oil over the next dozen years. And the by year 2012 we could save nearlyit's believed with credibility, nearly two million barrels each day. That's more oil than we imported from Saudi Arabia last year, and three times our imports from Iraq. By 2020 savings would grow to nearly five million barrels a day, which is almost twice the amount that we currently import from the Persian Gulf.
When it comes to hydrogen I'm anxious to learn more from the witnesses today about this exciting technology, how long it will take before hydrogen fueled cars and trucks are commercially feasible. But I would suggest that we should also hold a hearing, Mr. Chairman, on why President Bush hasn't announced any initiatives to cut auto emissions and our dependence on OPEC oil now. And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this meeting.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Senator Lautenberg.
Our first panelwe have two panels today. The first panel is the Honorable John Marburger III. He's director of Office of Science and Technology Policy. And the Honorable David Garman, assistant secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Gentlemen, we're delighted to have you here today, delighted to hear your testimony and look forward to that and answering questions.
And, Mr. Marburger, if you'd be willing to go first, if that would be all right. We will put your full statement into the record as if presented, so you're free to summarize if you'd like.
MR. JOHN MARBURGER III: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Dorgan, Senator Lautenberg. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the president's hydrogen fuel initiative. I will keep my oral presentation short so there's time for questions, and I appreciate that my written testimony will be included in the record.
The president's national energy policy report that was released two years ago this month set forth a vision for a clean, secure and affordable energy future. That vision includes a key role for hydrogen as an energy medium across the entire spectrum of energy applications. President Bush, as you noted, emphasized in his State of the Union address this year that one of his chief domestic goals is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Mr. Marburger, could you pull that microphone closer to you. I'm afraidI don't know if it's picking up very well. There you go. It's --
MR. MARBURGER: The president subsequently announced the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to develop the technology to enable mass production of clean hydrogen powered automobiles and the infrastructure to support them by 2020. The Hydrogen Fuel Initiative complements the previously announced Freedom CAR partnership, which includes fuel cell, hybrid electric and other advanced automotive technology research. Other new initiatives have followed, including the Carbon Sequestration and International Leadership Forum, the FutureGen Zero Emission Coal-Fired Electricity and Hydrogen Power Plant Initiative, and an international partnership for the hydrogen economy.
In a related but much longer term initiative, the president announced U.S. participation in the international collaboration on fusion energy research. Hydrogen is important because it can serve as a primary energy carrier. Like electricity, it can be produced from many different domestically available energy sources using technologies that do not emit pollutants or carbon dioxide. Furthermore, hydrogen based transportation, power and heating systems promise dramatic efficiency gains with greatly reduced noxious air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. These technologies, together with the other elements of the president's energy plan, have the long- term potential to substantially reduce or eliminate our nation's dependence on foreign oil, while improving the environment.
Our transportation sector, for example, runs almost exclusively on oil and we are importing more than half of our oil needs every day. Hydrogen can be produced from diverse domestic energy sources, including natural gas, coal or nuclear energy, or biomass, wind and solar power; anything that produces electricity. Although we will continue to strive for efficiency improvements in conventional vehicles, hydrogen fueled vehicles can potentially remove petroleum from the equation altogether.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are potentially more than twice as efficient as conventional cars and trucks. And if you consider the entire well to wheel energy cycle, including the efficiency of hydrogen production from natural gas, fuel cells still are more efficient and produce significantly less CO2 than conventional diesel or hybrid electric vehicles. Widespread of fuel cell powered cars and trucks would also yield significant air quality improvements, particularly in urban areas. As hydrogen production shifts toward newer energy source technologies such as coal power with carbon sequestration, or nuclear power, our transportation sector could reduce emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases to near zero.
So what do we have to do to achieve this hydrogen vision? There are significant technical challenges. First, we need a hydrogen infrastructure for convenient and affordable refueling of the vehicles and devices. The private sector builds infrastructure only when the business case is attractive. And considering that our current infrastructure delivers gasoline for less than the price of bottled water, this is a significant challenge. When produced from natural gas, hydrogen is currently four times more expensive than gasoline. The president's hydrogen fuel initiative proposes a large increase in R&D funding for technologies that will drive down the cost of production, storage, distribution and delivery of hydrogen.
As the infrastructure develops, hydrogen will likely come from a number of different energy sources and production methods as determined by the marketplace. The mix will depend on regional factors like the cost and availability of feed stocks or environmental constraints or state regulations. They hydrogen distribution and delivery systems will involve a combination of centralized production facilities, pipelines, local production at neighborhood fueling stations, and truck delivery to rural areas.
After the infrastructure challenge is the need for the fuel cell vehicles themselves to be cost competitive with the conventional vehicles that they will replace. Even in mass production, fuel cells today would be 10 times more expensive than comparable gasoline engines. Currently available high performance fuel cells require relatively large amounts of precious metals, such as platinum, and highly engineered materials. Agency R&D efforts focus on reducing these costs, and very promising new technologies are emerging. A third challenge is need for hydrogen storage systems with sufficient energy density to provide a 300 mile vehicle driving range without excessive size, weight or cost.
The president's initiative proposes funding increases for each of these vital research areas, along with the development of codes and standards that will foster safe handling and operation of hydrogen fueled systems. The hydrogen vision includes many other applications besides fuel cell vehicles. Stationary fuel cells can provide heating and power for buildings and reliable distributed power generation. As the hydrogen infrastructures develop, local hydrogen production will support distributed power generation and pipeline networks could serve residential applications.
This future oriented initiative does not obviate the need for interim strategies to address our nation's energy and environmental challenges. The administration proposes to continue R&D in non- hydrogen transportation technologies, hybrid electric system for example, energy stores and materials. Our ultimate goal is a petroleum-free, emission-free energy future. The president's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, led by the Department of Energy, proposes $1.2 billion for research over five years to overcome the key technology hurdles to enable a hydrogen-based economy.
There are many other agencies involved in this initiative, including the Departments of Transportation, Defense, Commerce, Agriculture, NSF, NASA and EPA. My office will continue to work with all agencies as usual to assist coordination. The agencies, by the way, are working well together and have already begun to establish collaborative activities.
I thank you very much for allowing me to present the president's initiative here today and I'll be glad to answer questions.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Mr. Marburger, for the presentation and I look forward to the questions back and forth.
Mr. Garman, welcome to the committee and I look forward to your presentation.
MR. DAVID K. GARMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I too will summarize my testimony.
As the chart behind me shows, there is an imbalance between domestic oil production and transportation's demand for petroleum.
This imbalance, which is now around 11 million barrels a day, is projected to keep growing and we're not going to close this imbalance with regulation, with new domestic production, or even both. Although promoting efficiency in the use of oil and finding new domestic sources of oil are important short-term undertakings, over the long term a petroleum-free option is eventually required. We ultimately want a transportation system that is free of dependence on foreign energy supplies and free of all harmful emissions.
We also want to preserve the freedom of consumers to purchase the kind of vehicles they want to drive, and that's the concept behind the Freedom CAR partnership in the president's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, which are designed to help develop the technologies necessary for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and the infrastructure to support them. A transportation system based on hydrogen provides several examplesseveral advantages. Hydrogen can be produced from diverse domestic sources, freeing us from a reliance on foreign imports. And when hydrogen is used to power a fuel cell, the combination results in more than twice the efficiency of today's gasoline engines and none of the harmful air emissions. In fact, the only byproducts of fuel cell operation are pure water and waste heat.
But to bring about the mass market penetration of hydrogen vehicles, government needs to partner with the private sector to conduct the research and development needed to advance investment in hydrogen fuel infrastructure that performs as well as the petroleum based infrastructure we already have. And that's going to be difficult. Our gasoline infrastructure that we currently enjoy has been forged over the last century in a competitive market. It's remarkably efficient. It can deliver refined petroleum products that began as crude oil a half a world away to your neighborhood for less than the cost of milk, drinking water or many other liquid products you can buy in the supermarket.
We're currently bound to that petroleum infrastructure and before drivers will purchase a fuel cell vehicle, they have to have confidence in a new hydrogen infrastructure. And that's why the president in his State of the Union address made a new national commitment backed over the next five years by $1.2 billion for the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, in addition to another half billion dollars for associated vehicle technologies.
And government is not going to build this hydrogen infrastructure. The private sector will do that as the business case becomes clear. But as we develop the technologies needed by the vehicles, we'll also develop the technologies required by the infrastructure. Some of the technology challenges are daunting. For example, we have to lower by a factor of four the cost of producing and delivering hydrogen. We have to develop more compact lightweight lower cost hydrogen storage systems. We have to lower by a factor of at least 10 the cost of materials for fuel cells.
And, fortunately, we're not starting from scratch. Beginning back in November 2001, the Department of Energy began working with industry, academia and other stakeholders on a comprehensive technology roadmap. We've achieved a remarkable level of consensus on what needs to be done and as important as hydrogen is to the long term, we've maintained a robust research and development program in non-hydrogen transportation technologies. Under the Freedom CAR partnership, we've proposed a funding increase in Fiscal Year 2004 for our hybrid technology as well as increases in materials technology.
Many of these technologies will deliver fuel savings both prior to and after the introduction of fuel cell vehicles, since lightweight materials and hybrid technologies will most likely be incorporated into the fuel cell vehicle designs, as well as the conventional and hybrid models that precede them. Auto makers are introducing technologies that have resulted in part from DOE's work in this area. At the recent Detroit Auto Show the major U.S. auto makers announced that they'll have a variety of new hybrid electric models entering the market in the 2004 to 2008 timeframe.
Of course, hybrid vehicles are more expensive compared to conventional vehicles, which is why the president proposed a tax credit for hybrid vehicles in his National Energy Plan and in subsequent budget submissions, and we urge Congress to adopt these important incentives for more efficient vehicles.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I'd be pleased to answer any questions the committee has either now or in the future. Thank you.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you very much, Mr. Garman.
There are a number of questions that I have, but I think most of them boil down to a question ofyou both put forward the great promise of this in the future. And let's run the clock here about seven minutes, if we could. Both of you put down a promise of this for the future and we can see that and the beauty of that. Both of you put forward a series of technical and cost hurdles to overcome in both the fuel and in the vehicle, the cost of the development itself. Is this doable to be able to meet these costs and technical hurdles? And in what timeframe are we talking about being able to do that, if it is achievable?
MR. MARBURGER: Dave, you're closer to the technical details. I'll do the high level content-free questions and you can do the technical questions.
MR. GARMAN: The president's words in the State of the Union were really chosen very carefully when he said a child born today should be able to purchase a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle when he's ready to drive. We think that the components can be in place for a commercialization decision on the merits of the business case for the auto makers to make a decision to proceed with mass market introduction of the vehicles. That decision can happen around 2015 with real mass market introduction by 2020.
Some of the auto makers are saying perhaps that can come sooner if the refueling infrastructure is in place. Our general finding with respect to alternative fuel infrastructure is that fueling stations, about 20 percent in urban markets and 50 percent in rural markets, need to have the alternative fuel available or customers won't have confidence in purchasing the vehicles. So we have to attack this chicken and the egg problem, not only vehicles but also the infrastructure and that is going to take some time. So I think 2015/2020 is the correct timeframe.
MR. MARBURGER: Let me add to that by pointing out that there are current applications of stationary fuel cells for back-up power and they are developing a market, they are developing the industry and together with that, the infrastructure that will be necessary as the applications move on into the transportation sector.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Mr. Garman, on what do you base that projection of 2015? You're 12 years out from that, that you could get to a commercialization phase and you're talking about a factor of four on the price of the fuel, a factor of 10 on the actual fuel cell vehicle itself. Where do you see those great advances coming in suchreally a pretty short period of time?
MR. GARMAN: We're heartened in part by some great advances that have happened in the recent past. For example, the cost of fuel cells themselves have been brought down by an order of magnitude in the last five or six years, as a consequence of some of the work done at the National Lab and in the private sector on reducing the amount of platinum and other precious metals needed for the fuel cell membrane. We have, through this road mapping process that I referred to in bringing all of the parties together to understand what the technology hurdles were, have really developed a pretty tight set of R&D goals beginning in the 2010 timeframe.
If we are successful in meeting all of our 2010 goalsand I'll provide them for the committee. It's sort of engineering type based goals. But if we're successful, we believe we'll have the basic technology components necessary for the vehicle in place, the technologythe capability at least, somewhere after the 2010 timeframe. So we've given a great deal of thought to these possibilities. You know, the price of, for instance, hydrogen from natural gas, yes, today it is four times higher than it needs to be. But we are already opening some demonstration stations, hydrogen refueling stations and learning a great deal about how to improve the efficiency of the hydrogen production, how to optimize compression, storage and some of the other elements that need to be in place to make sure we can meet our cost targets.
And the reason we are doing these cost targets kind of consistent with the president's management agenda and linking the budget that we are asking Congress for with the achievement of performance goals that we've articulated, we hope to be transparent to the Congress so that you will know and we will know how we're progressing against those goals going ahead.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Mr. Garman or Mr. Marburger, either one of you, Senator Dorgan and I have one similar feature that we have between our statesthere are a number of them, but we do have plenty of wind energy. And we've had windmills and wind electricity generation be recently constructed. Of course, it's been a power source sinceplaces have beenpeople have been farming, and a big problem is the sporadic nature of wind energy and then being able to put that into the grid at a timely or useable fashion.
But if you did convert that wind energy into hydrogen and store it and receive it, it does seem to answer significant questions for wind energy and possibly for hydrogen. Is that correct, or is that too simplistic of a view of putting together these resources?
MR. GARMAN: No, that's absolutely correct. We have tobecause we're using electrolysis as the mode of hydrogen production there, which is the conversion of one energy carrier to another, and there's a certain loss of efficiency whenever you do that. We want to make sure that the underlying wind technologywe continue to bring down the cost of generating electricity from wind. That's very important. And also we're going to have to do a little bit of work on how we get the hydrogen from its point of production at the wind turbine, or close to it, to where it needs to go.
We do have today hydrogen pipelines, about 700 miles worth in this country. We operate them at pretty low pressures. If we were to want to operate large hydrogen pipelines at much higher pressures, we're going to have some materials issues and some other things that we have to confront. We think we can do this. We don't see any show stoppers. The issue is, as always, cost. Competing with that tremendously low cost that energy companies are available to deliver gasoline to your neighborhood for, that's what we have to compete with and that's a tough competitor.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Is thatMr. Marburger?
MR. MARBURGER: Yes, I'd like to that in that hydrogen is not only a great way to store energy. It's a great way to deliver it because, unlike electricity, which has to be brought from the production source to the user by a wire which loses a lot on the way, hydrogen doesn't lose any of its electricity en route. So if you can have pipeline distribution it could be much more efficient than electrical energy distribution over wires. And this is potentially another attractive feature.
SEN. BROWNBACK: As you mentioned, though, Mr. Garman, we've got to get more efficient production of electricity. Then in the present scenario are we likely to produce hydrogen via coal because of the expense? And are we having another set of environmental issues then that are forward with producing hydrogen via coal?
MR. GARMAN: We wouldn't want to do that unless we were successful at sequestration technology. And of course thereyou know, if I wanted to produce hydrogen from coal what I would do is gasify the coal, split off the hydrogen from that gas created and then take the carbon dioxide, the sulfur and the other elements in that gas and sequester that in say deep, un-mine-able coal seams of saline aquifers, so that that's not released to the environment. That is a way theoretically that we could cleanly use coal.
In the near term we believe that most of the hydrogen will be produced from natural gas, the way hydrogen is produced today. We produce some 9 million metric tons of hydrogen each and every year using natural gas. We would need 40 million metric tons to drive a fleet of 100 million vehicles, so we're really not that far apart in terms of what we produce today and what we would need to drive a fleet of vehicles.
So in the near term we think natural gas would probably be the feed stock. But again the great thing about hydrogen is that we can on the farm gasify agricultural residues that are currently left in the field. That can be turned into hydrogen. There's just a variety of methods and processes that we can use. One day we hope to be able to use microbes, bacteria, algae, some other things that even through genetic modification or other means we can use to actually create hydrogen or to synthesize hydrogen, if you will. So this gives us lots of options as a nation.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Senator Lautenberg?
SEN. LAUTENBERG: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Garman, accompanying your statement is a graph that says the oil used in transportation plotted against domestic production. And that's a grim prospect, obviously. When we got the 2000 line, the difference between available oil from domestic sources and that which is presently used began to widen substantially. And so here we are with an expectation that we're going to have to use far more than twice that which we're able to produce domestically. And we're looking at a program that has a lot of potential but also a lot of practical problems associated with it; namely cost, as I looked at Mr. Marburger's statement.
So if those are the projections, why wouldn't we be wise to step up the funding that is offered from the government, considering that the automobile manufacturers are spending between $2 billion and $3 billion each year on hydrogen fuel vehicle research, and we're proposing $1.2 billion. And I don't think that's an annual budgeted item. I expect it to be.
We're going to be throwing away a lot of money long term in this process, and wouldn't you think that the situation is more emergent than $1.2 billion and that we ought to try to see what we can do about expanding that and match the private sector, and really show that the commitment is a serious one? Because I think that if people look at $1.2 billion spent hereenergy is probably the second or third highest priority in terms of our need as a society. I mean, we're drowning in pollution and the dependency on others for our product, our needs. And I think that we have to declare an emergency alarm and get on with the investment.
I take it from each of you that the practicality is there, but the question of how you get this into production is a fairly good sized task. But money can cure a large part of that. We're going to be spending the money. It's a question of where we spend it and when we spend it.
MR. GARMAN: I would respond and agree that there's both a short- term challenge and a long-term challenge, and would argue that the most appropriate use of federal R&D dollars is in long-term technology. Auto makers have technology to produce high mileage cars today. You can buy high mileage cars today. I drive a car that gets over 50 miles per gallon; it's available. The problem is that consumers, for one reason or another, are not choosing to purchase high mileage cars because it doesn't give them the features that they want in a vehicle.
And what's sort of different and remarkable about fuel cell vehicles is that a fuel cell vehicle like the one you saw, the General Motors car outside today and others being planned by the other auto makers, actually provide advantages that consumers will want to buy. It actually gives them advantages. It does things that their vehicles today can't do. And it also confers certain public benefits like reducing our dependence on foreign oil and making our air cleaner to breathe.
So I think that our approach is a good one to make the investments in the long-term R&D. We have other tools at our disposal and in fact the administration used corporate average fuel economy standards. When you look at that graph you see that the largest increase in petroleum use is in the light truck category, and just a couple of weeks ago the administration increased CAFE standards on light trucks for the first time since the 1996 model year, and it was the largest increase in standards in 20 years I believe.
So there are various mechanisms that are available to us. I think the right role for R&D is to solve these truly difficult technical challenges that we have to this alternative that will make these debates about corporate average fuel economy standards absolutely moot, totally remove the automobile from the environmental equation and totally remove the geopolitics of oil from our transportation problems.
SEN. LAUTENBERG: Well, do you think therefore then the pace is an acceptable one at this juncture? Can we accelerate the pace of development by spending more money, or are the automobile companies being foolish in the amount that they're investing?
MR. GARMAN: We're guided in part by the roadmap work that we developed in partnership with private sector, non-governmental organizations and others. The truth is moneyyes, more money can accelerate some things, but you also need time. You need learning cycles where you actually put the technology on the road, discover where the improvements need to be made, redirect your R&D to solve the problems and then again go through another learning cycle to put the next generation technology on the road. So, yes, money is useful and we're glad the president has entrusted us with these resources, but we also need some time.
SEN. LAUTENBERG: I think we also need some encouragement when you say that the consumers haven't turned to these things with a rush, certainly. But I've never heard a wordand by the way, it's not unique to this administration, but over the last years I haven't heard the words conserve, sacrifice, do your part, help us reduce our dependence and if you need a second vehicle, look at the gasolinethe mileage consumption there per gallon and encourage the industry, rather than I think what we're doing.
And there is a delicate balance between jobs and investment, but the industry generally has been permitted to set its own timetable. There were several times in my previous term here when we tried to raise the CAFE standard and it just couldn't go anywhere. But I think in view of what is an emergency character to where we're going, I would think that a more aggressive campaign coming out of the administration, talking about, you know, if you want to do your part, if you need another something, then look at the mileage standards and see what that looks like.
And really, because we know that the vehiclesthere are vehicles available that get more mileage. I've looked at that car and I'm trying to figure out what it is that you saw in that car that you can't get in other cars, but perhaps we can talk about that privately.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you very much.
If I could ask one follow up from Secretary Garman. Based on your experience and your knowledge, what are the greatest challengesand I'd like for you to put these in priority orderto the deployment of hydrogen fuel cell cars? What are the specific set of questions that we have to answer in list of importance as you look at this issue?
MR. GARMAN: Number one I would say is storage, storage of hydrogen onboard the vehicle. Consumers are only going to buy a vehicle that gives them range of 300 or 350 miles between refueling. And the nature, the physical nature of hydrogen is such that it's difficult to store in a manner without using a lot of weight and bulk. And weight and bulk is, in essence, the enemy of an auto maker in trying to design a car that consumers will want to buy. So the method of storing hydrogen today is by compressing it in a 5,000 or 10,000 pounds per square inch pressure vessel. We're looking at a various technologies like chemical hydrides, metal hydrides, carbon nanotubes; other types of materials that can store hydrogen at close to ambient temperatures and pressures. That I would say is number one.
Number two I would say is probably the cost of the hydrogen itself. It needs to be competitive with the cost of gasoline if we're going to get in the ballpark. Maybe down the road Congress can deal with some policy incentives in terms of how hydrogen is taxed or other things, but we've got to make sure that we can produce hydrogen close to the cost of its competitor before consumers will feel comfortable purchasing the car.
And third --
SEN. BROWNBACK: You might think there about making hydrogen out of ethanol. That would --
MR. GARMAN: Biomass is a tremendous opportunity for hydrogen, absolutely.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Good. Nice statement.
(Laughter.)
MR. GARMAN: And third, the cost and durability of the fuel cell itself. They're about an order of magnitude too high today. And also the durability of the fuel cell. You know, when you buy a car you want to make sure it's going to go 120,000 or 150,000 miles, and that's going to require about a 5,000 hour life on the fuel cell. Today the fuel cells are lasting 1,000 hours or 2,000 hours. We need to improve the durability and lower the costs of the fuel cell. Those I would think are the big three.
SEN. BROWNBACK: And you don't see any of them as insurmountable within this 12-year timeframe that you're talking about?
MR. GARMAN: I probably worry a little bit more about storage than the others, and we are actuallywe have pulled together Nobel laureates and other prize winning scientists to help us tackle this problem.
SEN. BROWNBACK: And they feel it is accomplishable?
MR. GARMAN: Yes. I mean, we're going to need a technology breakthrough on that one. All the others I think we can do without a major technology breakthrough, but on the storage I think we're going to need a technology breakthrough.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Like what? What sort of technology breakthrough?
MR. GARMAN: A composition of a metal hydride, for instance, which canand we've got metal hydrides that come close, just not quite there yet. They can actually hold the hydrogen molecules in its matrix without having to use high pressure for storage. And this is kind of a materials challenge, and this isI yield to the expert who's an actual scientist. He doesn't just play one on TV.
MR. MARBURGER: Let me just comment on the relevance of other national priorities for basic research to this problem. These new materials are designed and improved through the processes of nanotechnology. The National Nanotechnology Initiative is likely to produce new materials and new materials preparation processes that will be very relevant both to the storage and to the fuel cell membranes and electrodes themselves. And the figures of merit on these materials have been improving gradually. But I agree with Dave. A technology breakthrough will be necessary, but in view of the many opportunities that existfor example, Dave mentioned carbon nanotubes. If we can find a way to manufacture carbon nanotubes in much larger quantities --
SEN. BROWNBACK: Slow me up here a little bit. Carbon nanotubes? I realize I chair this subcommittee, but I don'twhat are you talking about?
(Laughter.)
MR. MARBURGER: These are nano-scale structures made out of carbon atoms that have unusual geometrical properties, and they have strength properties and electrical conductivity properties, but they also have properties that may make them suitable for storing hydrogen. And the problem with them now is that they're difficult to manufacture in the quantities and specifications that you need. So lots of people are working on this because there are other applications of carbon nanotubes as well. And we hope for a crossover kind of result that can stimulate developments in the fuel cell business and hydrogen business.
SEN. BROWNBACK: You know, we've doubled funding in NIH over a five year time period, widely supported amongst the Congress, a strong feeling that we were just very close to some major breakthroughs in health research and medical information technology, drugs treatment.
Would we have the same sort of promises if we did something similar with NSF, the National Science Foundation, as some people have kicked that idea around? Are we on some of the breakthroughs that we need in this and a number of other areas if we significantly increase that investment?
MR. MARBURGER: NSF is currently the largest shareholder in the National Nanotechnology Initiative and there are certainly very, very important benefits to come from funding those initiatives, that initiative in the Department of Energy and other big physical science agencies as well. Our preference is to focus on the priorities and on the areas of science that are likely to create breakthroughs like this. The physical sciences have been identified as an area that's in need of additional support, and in the president's FY '04 budget request a number of physical sciences programs and projects are singled out for increased funding, including five new nanotechnology materials centers in Department of Energy laboratories, all of which I can assure you will be recruited for basic research on hydrogen economy.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Sounds like a topic we'll need to cover at a future hearing. Gentlemen, thank you very much. I would like the one document you talked about, Mr. Garman. If you could submit that into the record so that we'll have that, it would be appreciated. Very good testimony.
I call up our second panel. The second panel is Dr. David Friedman. He's a senior engineer of Clean Vehicles Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Mr. Byron McCormick is executive director of Fuel Cell Activities for General Motors Corporation. And Mr. Francis Preli, Jr., vice president of engineering United Technologies Corporate Fuel Cells, are the three panel members that we would call up for their testimony.
Gentlemen, we're delighted to have you here this afternoon. Your full statements will be put into the record as if presented, so you're free to summarize if you would choose to do so. Dr. Friedman, we will start with you. And the microphonesget them up close if you will. They're not the best technology.
MR. DAVID J. FRIEDMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is David Friedman and I'm a senior engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. UCS is a non-profit organization of more than 60,000 scientists and citizens working for practical environmental solutions. Now as I start I just want to note that in the five minutes it will take me to speak today we will send over $1 million overseas to buy oil. That is $200,000 that leaves the U.S. economy every minute.
This economic burden will continue to grow as long as the U.S. is tied to oil. We will be susceptible to OPEC's market power and Persian Gulf instability. We will also be contributing to many significant environmental problems that impact our health and our economy. While there is no single silver bullet to address this problem, there is a set of technologies that offer short, medium and long-term solutions to our transportation oil problem. Given the size of this problem we must put each of these tools to work.
Today I would like to talk about these technologies and where hydrogen fuel cells fit in. If you would turn your attention to this chart, the top edge, very similar to the chart that Secretary Garman showed. It shows the projected oil use for U.S. cars and trucks only: today starting at about eight million barrels per day and reaching over 14 million barrels per day by 2020. In the short term, as seen in the blue shaded area, cost-effective conventional technologies are available and can be put on the road to quickly and dramatically slow the growth of oil use from cars and trucks, while also saving consumers money.
These technologies include efficient gasoline engines like General Motors' displacement on demand technology. They also include more efficient transmissions, improved aerodynamics, high strength steel and lower rolling of assistance tires. Diesel is another conventional technology option, but it will not be as cost effective as other existing technologies, and it will make it harder to address air quality concerns. Because these conventional technologies exist and are cost effective, we do not need a major research program to get them on the road.
Instead we need auto makers to put them in the showrooms, providing consumers with choices they currently do not have, things like a 35 mile per gallon Ford Explorer or a 33 mile per gallon Chevy Silverado pickup. The administration recently set an extremely modest four year goal for increasing light truck fuel economy standards by 1.5 miles per gallon. This will have a negligible impact on our oil use, barely affecting the top line. It will save less than one day's worth of oil each year between 2008 and 2005.
Significantly more can be done with the use of conventional technologies as the blue shaded area in this chart shows. In the medium-term, as shown in the red shaded area, hybrid technology can stabilize our passenger vehicle oil use through 2020, building on the gains made by near-term conventional technology. Our analysis indicates that hybrid technology can lead to a fleet of 55 to 65 mile per gallon cars and 40 to 50 mile per gallon trucks in the 2015 to 2020 timeline.
Dedicated alternative fuel vehicles also offer near and medium- term air quality and oil savings benefits, and fuels such as natural gas and possibly methanol will provide a major source of hydrogen in the transition to renewable hydrogen feed stocks. These technologies also do not require major public funding for research, but they will be more expensive than other options, especially in the near-term. For this reason, temporary performance-based market incentives will be important to get a sufficient number of vehicles and fuel on the road to bring down their costs.
Finally, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as shown in the green shaded area, build on gains from conventional and hybrid technology and together they can dramatically reduce projected oil use. By 2030 and beyond, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can put us on a path to effectively eliminate our passenger vehicle oil use, but again that's 20 to 30 years away before that will start and there are many technologies that can do a lot in the interim. There is a need for government funded research and demonstration on fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles to ensure that clean hydrogen fuel and vehicles can be made available.
Temporary performance-based market incentives for fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen and importantly renewable energy resources will also be important to bring down costs. These research programs and incentives must also recognize that hydrogen is not inherently clean. Instead, it is an energy carrier that is only as clean as the source. Accelerating the movement to a clean hydrogen future will not be a small or inexpensive task, but the benefits far outweigh the cost. To be successful, such a program will need a clear timetable along with concrete vehicle production and supply goals, and that's something that is missing from the administration's current plans.
In closing, I just want to say that as an engineer I see this broad array of technology that is available as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to roll up our sleeves and get to work making vehicles that are safer, cleaner and less dependent on oil. Because the available conventional and advanced technologies complement each other, this is not an either/or proposition. We don't have to choose between conventional and proven hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. We can do them all and dramatically reduce our oil dependence. We must continue to focus on policies that will put conventional technology to work while we also invest in these longer term options. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Dr. Friedman.
Mr. McCormick, thank you for joining us.
MR. BYRON McCORMICK: Thank you, Senator. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, to testify on behalf of General Motors. As you noted, I'm Byron McCormick, the executive director of General Motors' global fuel cell activities, and I head the team that is developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that people want to drive and most importantly, want to buy.