4. Lighter than Air

After 40 years of fighting and law suits it was all smiles between auto executives from Detroit and the regulators of California’s health and emissions. On April 20, 2004, a new governor signed the historic California Hydrogen Highways Executive Order.

Terry Tamminen, then Secretary California Environmental Protection Agency, now an environmental consultant and author of Lives per Gallon, stated, “The basic motor vehicle has changed little in over a century, while air pollution sends one in seven children in this region to school every day carrying asthma inhalers….Four decades ago, President Kennedy’s bold leadership sent Americans to the moon using hydrogen fuel and fuel cells. Today we can certainly harness that same technology to take us to work, to school, and on a family vacation.”

Terry Tamminen now drives a Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The car is an electric vehicle that gets its power from an electric motor and captures braking energy into advanced batteries. The car also has a fuel cell which takes hydrogen from the onboard fuel tank and makes continuous electricity.

Major auto makers are looking for hundreds of individuals and families to participate in early demonstrations of driving hydrogen vehicles. These people will join the thousands that currently ride daily in hydrogen fleet cars, trucks, SUVs, and buses.

Examined are both sides of controversies about hydrogen. When coal power is used, making hydrogen with electrolysis increases total greenhouse gases. In other cases, everything from solar electrolysis to pipelined “waste” hydrogen is providing zero-emission solutions.

A growing number of cities dream of having zero emissions. Electric rail, electric cars, hydrogen trucks, buses, and hydrogen cars will all be part of zero emission solutions. The chapter includes stories from actual hydrogen vehicle users.

Read about the complex debate about natural gas and hydrogen vehicles and about the future of transportation in John Addison’s new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet.

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