In its 2010 budget, the Obama administration put an end to funding for hydrogen fuel cell vehicle research, but Congress is putting that money back in. In the last two days, the relevant committees in both the House and the Senate have issued their versions of the Department of Energy budget. Both reduce investment in renewable energy compared with the president's budget, and direct money to research into hydrogen programs that the administration deemed too far away from reality to merit funding.

In an interview with Technology Review, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would require four "miracles" to become practical. Chu supports research into better biofuels and batteries instead.

A government program to help develop hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered vehicles--a hallmark of the Bush administration--has been almost completely wiped out in the Obama administration's proposed budget.

In 2008, hydrogen technology research and development at the Department of Energy got over $200 million. That's been scaled down to about $70 million in the current budget, and that's for fuel cells of all sorts--including generating electricity for the grid, and not just hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles.

Major automakers have also recently scaled back their hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicle development, emphasizing hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles instead.

Hydrogen fuel cells don't emit pollutants--just water. And the amount of hydrogen that can be stored, by weight, is tremendous. But fuel cells are expensive, hydrogen is hard to come by (there aren't many hydrogen filling stations), and it's difficult to store in a small volume. What's more, the cleanest way to make hydrogen--electrolysis using electricity from renewable sources--is expensive and inefficient.

What do you think? Is it about time we abandon hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles? Or do they still have a place in future transportation?

According to the website Xconomy, a start-up has been founded to develop a much-discussed catalyst invented by MIT professor Daniel Nocera, one that can be used to split water efficiently without requiring rare metals or caustic chemicals. Easy and inexpensive water-splitting (which produces hydrogen and oxygen) could be a good way to store energy from solar power or wind turbines for use when it's dark outside or the wind isn't blowing. The hydrogen could be used as a fuel that could be burned whenever it's needed. Some sort of energy storage will be necessary if these renewable sources are to ever supply a large portion of our electricity.

Not much is known about the company other than that it's called Sun Catalytix, and is funded by Polaris Venture Partners, based in Waltham, MA. It makes sense that the company would want to stay quiet for awhile. Nocera's advance was in basic chemistry. Turning it into a useful product could take a long time. Read more about Nocera's advance, and the challenges ahead, here.