Barack Obama cuts funding for hydrogen fuel cells projects
President Barack Obama released details of his FY2010 proposed budget, which recommends major cuts of funding for hydrogen and fuel cell projects. Within the budget for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Administration proposes zeroing out funding for the Hydrogen Program, which was funded at $168.9 million in the FY2009 Appropriations bill. The Administration instead recommends $68.2 million in funding for “Fuel Cell Technologies,” refocusing the program on fuel cell systems R&D for stationary, portable, and transportation applications. In the DOE Office of Fossil Energy, the budget proposes zeroing out funding for Hydrogen from Coal Research, which received $20 million in the FY2009 budget. The Fossil Energy budget’s Fuel Cells activity proposes $54 million for the Innovative Systems Concepts/SECA program, a reduction of $4 million from the FY2009 appropriation. The Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Network has established an action alert for concerned citizens to “Tell Congress to Restore Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Funding”.
mike fishkin
July 8, 2009 | 2:41 PMThis is a good move. Need to concentrate on technologies that could be implemented within next 10 years. Fuel cells implementation is not in this range
George Wade
July 13, 2009 | 10:30 AMToo much of politics in the USA is still concerned with backing monopolies. If fuel cells tend to democratisation of power we may have to be prepared to leave the USA behind for a while. There is no need to be shy about doing that.
Another factor is President Obama’s wish to get to the real facts on energy and medicine, for example. That is going to take most of his first four years in a country run by lobbyists and others who embellish the truth to suit their own industries: with no thought for the greater good of the world. Let us all clean up our own truth machinery for our own greater good; the USA can catch up when they are ready.