Government Narrows Focus with Its Support of Hydrogen Vehicles

Newswise — The U.S. government is limiting its option by only pushing the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles, says Temple mechanical engineering professor Richard S. Cohen. "There's so much we could do in the short term that would help with the current energy situation rather than relying on this hydrogen technology being available in the next 15 years or so," says Cohen, an automotive engineer. He says that the feasibility of distributing hydrogen for fuel cells remains a major problem, one that will be expensive to solve. And, he adds, in the near future it won't really save energy anyway, because right now we get almost all our hydrogen from natural gas and it takes a lot of energy to produce hydrogen at processing plants. "The government is choosing one technology and putting all its eggs in one basket rather than supporting many potential solutions and then letting the market decide," he says.