Hydrogen and fuel cell cars are being hyped today as few technologies have ever been. In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion research initiative, "so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free." The April 2003 issue of Wired magazine proclaimed, "How Hydrogen Can Save America." In August 2003, General Motors said that the promise of hydrogen cars justified delaying fuel-efficiency regulations. Yet for all the hype, a number of recent studies raise serious doubts about the prospects for hydrogen cars. In February 2004, a study by the National Academies' National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council concluded, "In the best-case scenario, the transition to a hydrogen economy would take many decades, and any reductions in oil imports and carbon dioxide (CO_2) emissions are likely to be minor during the next 25 years." Realistically, a major effort to introduce hydrogen cars before 2030 would actually undermine efforts to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as CO_2.
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