Hydrogen is currently made from natural gas: making it lose its hydrogen atoms to methane during a physico-chemical reaction. The production of hydrogen is also a strategic concern for the promoters of the hydrogen economy: it takes a lot of electricity to carry out water electrolysis for producing hydrogen and oxygen. When you need energy, it is enough to put stored hydrogen in contact with oxygen from the air - whereby heat, electricity, and water are produced. Problems therefore remain to be resolved throughout the supply chain, from producing electricity via electrolysis, storage, transfer, up to the fuel cell itself. The main advantages of hydrogen as an energy medium are its storage possibilities, compared to electricity, and the low pollution during use.

-- The European Hydrogen Platform was officially launched on October 10, 2002. Its role is to coordinate R&D and deployment programmes at European, national, regional and local levels. It also aims to help raise awareness of the economic opportunities of fuel cells and hydrogen by promoting cooperation in Europe and around the world. Platform participants include industry representatives, users, researchers, public authorities, financial institutions and civil society.

-- Good plans.

The Platform's 'Strategic Research Agenda' aims to make Europe the world leader in hydrogen technologies. It proposes a list of research needs and fund allocations for the main research sectors: 22% for production, 18% for storage and distribution, stationary applications, transportation applications and portable applications. The overall goals are to reduce fuel cell system costs by a factor of 10 to 100, enhance the performance and durability of current fuel cell systems by a factor of 2, to reduce the costs of hydrogen delivered by a factor of 3 or even more - in order to be competitive with conventional systems. The Plan is that, by 2050, half of all vehicles on the road will be hydrogen-powered. The Platform also plans an extended hydrogen distribution network of small fixed power generation units.

The 'Deployment Strategy', adopted by the Platform, favours public/private partnerships in the effort to move from the current research and demonstration of prototypes phase to the mass marketing of hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies, planned for around 2020. The report details the technical, socio-economic and political challenges to be overcome, gives a snapshot of the current situation, proposes a mid-term target (different from the long-term objective of the Strategic Plan) and initiatives to complete. The strategy aims to sell 250 million portable fuel cells (for handheld devices), 100,000 portable generators, between 100 and 200,000 combined heat and power stationary fuel cells, and between 400,000 and 1.8 million specially-equipped vehicles. To achieve these ends, the industry will need major demonstration projects, cost-cutting programmes, development of suitable component standards, and a politically favourable environment for investment. Niche markets are planned for the transition from the demonstration phase to a fully functioning market, thus allowing lower costs for essential components such as fuel cell stacks and hydrogen storage systems.