When it comes to the future of automotive technology, electric cars get the lion’s share of the attention. But hydrogen-powered vehicles are slowly gaining traction, first with an announcement last week that auto companies are spending billions on fuel cell vehicles, and now with news that Germany is planning to launch a countrywide hydrogen fueling network by 2015!
A total of eight companies (Daimler, EnBW, Linde, OMV, Shell, Total, Vattenfall and the NOW GmbH National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology) are working to bring the fueling network to fruition. In its first phase, scheduled for 2009-2011, the companies involved will lobby for public support and begin fuel station installations. The second phase will see the mass rollout of hydrogen-powered cars along with an accompanying fuel network.
Germany isn’t the only country trying to speed up the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology. Canada is working on a hydrogen highway to link Vancouver and Whistler in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, while Denmark is planning a hydrogen network to connect Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany.
The US currently leads the world with hydrogen stations and fuel cell vehicles. A map of stations in California is at http://www.cafcp.org/stationmap. The US station map is at http://www.h2andyou.org.
Chris White
California Fuel Cell Partnership
You have to ask yourself why hydrogen? The answer that springs to my mind is that the big corporates are protecting themselves – spending billions that could be put to massive energy generation projects and reducing carbon emissions so that they can still have a product people need and can only obtain from them and their buddies. But then I just don’t trust corporations.
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