Simply by ignoring environmental extremists:
The European Union and the United States agreed today to pool research efforts into hydrogen fuel cells, despite having widely differing views on how the technology will impact on future energy policy.
While the EU views hydrogen-powered fuel cells as a means to harness renewable sources of energy like solar or wind energy, the United States is focusing on ways to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
“This agreement lays out the framework for our two entities to collaborate on a matter important to both the U.S. and the European Union – hydrogen research,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham at a meeting with his European counterparts in Brussels.
Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Hold on and listen to the shrieking:
Jeremy Rifkin, author of a book called The Hydrogen Economy and an adviser to Mr Prodi said Europe’s vision is “incomplete” without the focus on reversing the energy grid. “It’s a glaring omission from the European plan,” Mr Rifkin said, but he added that even without it Europe’s approach to hydrogen is more enlightened than the approach being pursued by the Bush Administration.
Although the United States is spending far more on research into the use of hydrogen, environmentalists including Mr Rifkin accuse it of channeling that money into producers of fossil and nuclear energy. The DoE has earmarked just over $1 billion for a ten-year plan to extract hydrogen from coal, for example.
Yawn. Even positive steps are met with resistance because it isn’t good enough. Shakespeare had it wrong- first we should kill all the activists.
Barney Gumble
“Although the United States is spending far more on research into the use of hydrogen,..”
Hydrogen from hydrocarbons–yet another policy gift to the Carbon Club again.
JPS
Barney,
Can you suggest an alternative source of hydrogen that (a) is practical to supply on very large scale [hint: solar isn’t there yet, hydroelectric has environmental problems, and windmills kill threatened birds] and (b) won’t result in more fossil fuels being consumed and more CO2 being released somewhere else?
Takes a hell of a lot of energy to get it from water–and most energy production is, to borrow your phrase, “a gift to the carbon club.”
Sweet Lou
IMO, the environmental movement can be roughly divided into the talkers and the doers. The talkers are more visible, and sillier, but the doers are making some worthwhile progress and are pretty well grounded.