Last May, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) slashed the federal budget request for hydrogen fuel-cell research in 2010 by $100 million to $68 million. Soon afterward, DOE Secretary Steven Chu made it clear that he does not expect fuel-cell vehicles to become commercially viable fast enough to merit priority funding at this time. He decided instead to favor in the new budget "nearer-term" alternatives such as plug-in hybrids and biofuels. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist told the MIT Technology Review, for instance, that lingering obstacles stand in the way of the gas' use as an energy carrier in a future hydrogen economy.
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