5/7/09 U.S. Drops Research Into Fuel Cells for Cars New York Times

WASHINGTON — Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development.

Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration’s budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly.

The retreat from cars powered by fuel cells counters Mr. Bush’s prediction in 2003 that “the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.” The Energy Department will continue to pay for research into stationary fuel cells, which Dr. Chu said could be used like batteries on the power grid and do not require compact storage of hydrogen.

The Obama administration will also establish eight “energy innovation hubs,” small centers for basic research that Dr. Chu referred to as “Bell Lablettes.” These will be financed for five years at a time to lure more scientists into the energy area.

“We’re very devoted to delivering solutions — not just science papers, but solutions — but it will require some basic science,” Dr. Chu, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in physics, said at a news conference.

He said he would probably reverse another Bush administration decision and restore funds for FutureGen, a program to build a power plant prototype. The plant would turn coal into gas, separate out the carbon dioxide — a major contributor to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming — and pump it underground. Then it would burn the hydrogen, which is nearly pollution-free.

An international partnership had selected a site in Mattoon, Ill., for construction of the plant, but the Bush administration decided that the costs were too high and that the money should be spread among more projects.

The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that, Dr. Chu said.

While the budget request for the Energy Department is $26.4 billion, an increase of less than 1 percent, actual spending will actually be far higher because some projects will be financed by the economic stimulus package, said Steve Isakowitz, the department’s chief financial officer.

While Dr. Chu emphasized the allocations for research, a former Energy Department official, Robert Alvarez, pointed out that the budget still includes $6.4 billion for nuclear weapons and $4.4 billion for naval reactors, nuclear nonproliferation activity and safe storage of surplus plutonium. “Weapons still make up the largest single expenditure,” he said.

Reaction from vested interests:
6/1/09 "Reject DOE Budget Cuts for Fuel Cells and Hydrogen" broadcast email sent today by Bud DeFlaviis, Director of Government Affairs at US Fuel Cell Council
5/12/09 Op Ed: Baxter-Clemmons: Fuel-cell research essential to energy, economic future [Completely self-serving. The author is the executive director of the S.C. Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance. Fuel cell research (and government funding of it) certainly is essential to the S.C. Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance.]
5/8/09 Proposal to Cut DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicle Programs Must Be Reconsidered California Fuel Cell Partnership
5/7/09 Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Associations Criticize DOE Program Cuts NHA and USFCC

See Also:
5/23/09 Hydrogen shortchanged at the Department of Energy By Congressman Joe Pitts
5/22/09 Hydrogen hopes: Can they restore funding for fuel cells? Energy Secretary Steven Chu "zeroed out" hydrogen funding, but a small band of advocates want to restore the cuts. "Chu evidently got an earful at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Water Subcommittee May 19. . ." Mother Nature Network
5/21/09 No plans to halt research on hydrogen "despite the May 9 announcement that the Obama administration plans to slash hydrogen research in favor of hybrid electric cars" Augusta Chronicle
5/20/09 S.C. lobbying to protect hydrogen funding The State
5/19/09 Hydrogen, Hype and ... Holtz? "[what] bothers me about this latest turn of events. . . is the boldfaced and utterly shameless denials by state and local politicians of what they were saying — no, gushing — just weeks ago about fuel cell vehicles. Those same politicians now say they never focused our attention, our hopes and our money on the “hydrogen highway.” They certainly did, and we all know it. . ." Free Times - Columbia,SC
5/19/09 Energy Dept. will re-think cuts to SC hydrogen fuel research "a Senate subcommittee chairman told the Energy Secretary the cuts to hydrogen would be a mistake. The secretary agreed to continue discussing it" wistv.com
5/11/09 Picking Winners: Team Obama, Hydrogen Cars, and the Future of Transport "The Obama administration seems to be signaling that in this era of trillion-dollar budget deficits and urgency to change the energy mix, not all new technologies are equal. Some deserve funding and some don’t. In short, the federal government seems to be getting into the business of picking winners." Wall Street Journal
5/11/09 Honda, GM Stick to Fuel-Cell Plans as Obama Guts Hydrogen Funds Bloomberg
5/10/09 In S.C., high-tech bet on hydrogen-powered cars may be move in wrong direction The State (Columbia, S.C.) via physorg.com
5/10/09 Hydrogen cuts could affect S.C. projects AP
5/9/09 Harrell’s Hydrogen Dreams Evaporating "S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell has staked his political reputation - and hundreds of millions of S.C. taxpayer dollars - on hydrogen fuel cell research. . . Well yesterday, that mantle was dealt a huge blow. . ." fitsnews.com
5/8/09 Obama Budget Supports Hybrids Over Hydrogen ""We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no,'" [Energy decretary] Chu said in a press briefing." PC Mag
5/8/09 The Feds "Zero Out" Hydrogen Research "President Obama has never shown great affection for fuel cells, unlike President Bush, who loved to be photographed with prototypes. Chu had earlier announced $41.9 million in hydrogen funding but, although the exact amount of the cuts are not known, that money may now be in jeopardy." BNET
5/7/09 Energy Department plans to award $10B in auto retooling loans in '09 "The budget plan, subject to congressional approval, also includes a boost in the Energy Department's vehicle research program to $334 million in 2010, up from $273 million this year. But the administration radically cuts hydrogen research -- after the Bush Administration spent $1.2 billion on developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles over five years. The administration proposes cutting it from $169 million this year to just $68 million in 2010 -- a $101 million cut." Detroit News
5/7/09 Hydrogen car R.I.P. Secretary Chu agrees with Climate Progress and slashes hydrogen budget climateprogress.org (Joe Romm's blog) "For years now, I have been urging the Department of Energy to slash the bloated hydrogen budget and redirect the funds toward clean energy technology development and deployment programs that could actually achieve significant benefits for the American public in the foreseeable future . . . Well, finally, we have somebody running the Department of Energy who gets how unproductive this whole effort has proven to be. Nobelist Steven Chu has rolled out a FY2010 budget that cuts $100 million from the program. Indeed, the budget (see page 4 here) zeroes out the “hydrogen” program and shifts all the money to “fuel cell technologies.”" [More precisely, proposed DoE funding for "Hydrogen technology" (presumably H2 production, on-board storage, etc.) goes from $169M in FY 2009 to zero in 2010. Funding for "Fuel cell technologies" goes from zero in FY 2009 to $68M in 2010. But as the NYT article reports, the $68M will be for stationary fuel cells, not FCs for vehicles or forklifts.]
5/7/09 Energy Department Slashes Hydrogen Transportation Funding in Proposed Budget "In a huge blow to backers of fuel-cell electric vehicles, the nation's top energy official said today he sees little promise of the technology becoming a significant player in the nation's transportation system within the next two decades." Edmunds
5/7/09 DOE Budget to Put More Scientists to Work to Find Energy "Solutions" Science (AAAS)

Amazing what can happen when the influence of science and scientists is brought back into government.

The reactions from National Hydrogen Association (NHA) and U.S. Fuel Cell Council (USFCC) and the California Fuel Cell Partnership (links above) are pretty amusing. They claim that "success is in sight" for FCVs, and in support of this they point to the "hundreds" of FCVs now on the road -- after billions of dollars have been spent on FCV R&D over the past 10+ years.

Who is more credible on an issue like this? Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics and the former Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who has no reason other than the thermodynamics and economics of FCVs to oppose continued funding, or the leaders of hydrogen and fuel cell trade associations, whose livelihoods depend to a great extent on continued government funding of their efforts?

Note that these budget changes are not a done deal. The vested interests are fighting back. Congress has to approve Chu's budget request, and there is always the possibility that politicians will fight to preserve funding for hydrogen R&D that would be spent in their districts.