AN APOLLO MISSION FOR HYDROGEN AND THE "NEW ENERGY ECONOMY"

BETHESDA, MD — The United States needs a program as big as the Apollo space program to promote the energy efficiency of hydrogen, two energy experts maintain.

"The United States needs to build rapid political consensus for a hydrogen economy," say energy researchers Julian Gresser and James A. Cusumano in the March-April 2005 issue of THE FUTURIST magazine. "Shifting the global economy away from dependence on rapidly depleting supplies of oil to renewable, clean-burning hydrogen must happen sooner rather than later."

Gresser and Cusumano believe that a program centered around hydrogen on the scale of the Manhattan Project or NASA’s Apollo Program is necessary, a program that has committed political and popular support. Building the hydrogen economy will require massive and immediate energy conservation to reduce oil dependence, and it will need international initiatives based on hydrogen technologies to accelerate economic prosperity globally.

They envision a three-step strategy for launching the hydrogen age.

Phase I (2005-2010): Deploy existing technologies and capabilities by designing and implementing extensive energy conservation programs, establishing financial incentives, and expediting building larger-scale, more cost-effective fuel-cell plants.

Phase II (2010-2015): Expand hydrogen infrastructures beyond core metropolitan areas by expanding the number of fueling stations based on hydrogen, converting large sea vessels to run on fuel-cell power, and releasing prototype fuel-cell cars made affordable through financial incentives provided to automakers, oil companies, and consumers.

Phase III (2015-2020): Build the hydrogen nation by converting service stations to produce hydrogen via solar photovoltaic-powered electrolysis or through a hydrogen pipeline system. By this time, electric utility companies will have become power distributors instead of power generators and businesses will provide hydrogen to their employees as a perk.

"The transition will not be easy," say Gresser and Cusumano, but the benefits — energy conservation, oil independence, and global economic growth and prosperity — will be "immediate and massive." Courageous and farsighted leadership and commitment will be needed to complete the transition and make it successful.

The March-April 2005 issue of THE FUTURIST featuring Gresser and Cusumano’s article "Hydrogen and the New Energy Economy" is available for $4.95 at bookstores and newsstands and from the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814.