Publication date: 11-December-2003 
Source: The Orange County Register

The first pieces of the "hydrogen highway" across California, a proposal made famous by newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, are quietly being assembled, many of them in Orange County.

The county is home to a hydrogen-power research center at the University of California, Irvine, and hosts a scientific conference in Costa Mesa this week on alternative fuels, with hydrogen as its major focus.

An Irvine company, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide Inc., manufactures hydrogen car components; that city also will likely be the site of one of the state's first permanent hydrogen refueling stations, with an interim station now on the UCI campus. Up to two mobile stations would be placed in other Orange County cities.

Working hydrogen fuel-cell cars crafted by Toyota and Honda are already being tested in Southern California -- though they remain far from ready to be sold to consumers.

At least one expert worries that the flood of enthusiasm may have bubbled over its banks. The "hydrogen economy" is getting its start, but on wobbly legs, still plagued with questions about safety, pollution and economic worth.

"The current frenzy is the word I use," said Scott Samuelsen, a UCI professor and director of the university's National Fuel Cell Research Center. "It's a little bit unsettling to me."

Hydrogen car research and testing has consumed the time of bright engineers for a decade. The effort really got a boost, however, when President George Bush announced in his State of the Union address in January that hydrogen would be a central focus in his energy policy.

Research money began to flow, automakers' interest in the fledgling technology soared. Toyota and Honda promised working hydrogen fuel-cell cars by year's end.

Another burst of enthusiasm came after Schwarzenegger made the hydrogen highway a central plank in his environmental platform during his campaign for governor.

Samuelsen says it's best not to rush headlong into the hydrogen future.

"It's going to take a number of years to develop the codes and standards that are needed for the public use of hydrogen," he said.

Samuelsen is especially concerned that those codes ensure that hydrogen cars -- carrying highly pressurized tanks that could explode -- are safe in a crash.

Experts say hydrogen is no more dangerous than gasoline, and might even be safer. But we've had nearly a century to develop safety standards for gasoline engines, and relatively little time to come up with similar standards for hydrogen.

Hydrogen refueling stations must also be designed to ensure public safety in case of an accident.

The first practical hydrogen cars are likely to be of the internal combustion type, burning hydrogen just as conventional cars burn gasoline.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District is providing funding and support to create refueling stations -- and asking for proposals for converting as many as 30 cars to run on hydrogen, which produce nitrogen oxides but no other pollutants.

That project could begin within a year, said Chung Liu, head of technological advancement at the air district.

Toyota and Honda skipped over that step. They have their sights set on the next generation of hydrogen cars: those that would use hydrogen to power an electric fuel cell.

Harmful emissions from such vehicles would be essentially zero.

Both carmakers have working models of hydrogen fuel-cell cars in the hands of drivers, who are providing feedback to the companies on what they like, and don't like, about the cars.

Significant problems remain. Carmakers, for instance, know the importance of the other side of the equation: manufacturing the hydrogen. Most is now made from natural gas, though coal can also be used. But researchers are working to develop emission-free processes such as solar power.

Range is also an issue. It's better for hydrogen fuel-cell cars than for electric cars, which proved to be marketing failures in recent years because they could go only about 100 miles between charges.

Today's fuel-cell cars can go about 200 miles; a typical gasoline-powered passenger car can go 300 to 400 miles between fill ups.

Car companies know they must increase the range of the vehicles to sell them on the open market.

Until they can be made economically, and enough fueling stations exist to keep them on the road, the government-backed hydrogen revolution could still sputter to a halt.