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.

Our recent interview with Steven Chu, the U.S. secretary of energy, seems to have raised the hackles of hydrogen-fuel-cell supporters. In the interview, Chu said that there are four "miracles" that need to happen before hydrogen fuel cells can be practical. Basically, he says, we need better ways to produce, distribute, and store hydrogen, and we need better, cheaper fuel cells. "If you need four miracles, that's unlikely: saints only need three miracles," he said.

Mary Nichols, the chairman of the California Air Resources Board, noticed his remarks and has sent a letter in response, as Green Car Congress reports:

In her letter to Secretary Chu, Nichols attached a summary response from ARB technical staff responding to each of the Four Miracles.

All promising low-carbon non-petroleum transportation options, including hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and advanced liquid biofuels in combustion engines, face significant technical, resource, and market challenges. Hydrogen and fuel cells show great potential and have met or exceeded nearly all of the technical milestones set out by US DOE. Several major automakers are pursuing early market testing with consumers beginning this year and are expected to ramp up production to nearly 50,000 vehicles in california by 2017. Ultimately the market will decide which technologies are the winners, but given the critical importance to our long term climate and energy security goals, the best approach is to pursue and invest in a portfolio of the most promising options.

See more details of Nichols's response to Chu here.

FutureGen's carbon-free coal vision may soon be more than a clean dream

Potential Energy has learned that Energy Secretary Steven Chu met with representatives of the FutureGen Alliance today, reinforcing positive signals from Chu two weeks ago that the troubled project could be revived. The public-private partnership to prove the integration of coal gasification, carbon capture, and sequestration technologies was killed by the Bush Administration in January 2008 using what Congressional investigators have shown to be specious accounting.

In an email to TechReview today, Department of Energy press secretary Stephanie Mueller confirms that Chu and the Alliance had a "good discussion" and that the Secretary Chu "believes that the FutureGen proposal has real merit":

Secretary Chu believes that investment in carbon capture and storage research and development is critical to meeting our energy and climate change challenges. Unfortunately, the prior Administration simply walked away from FutureGen after years of work ... In the coming weeks, the Department will be working with the Alliance and members of Congress to strengthen the proposal and try to reach agreement on a path forward.

Michael Mudd, FutureGen Alliance chief executive, struck a confident tone after the meeting about the prospects for reviving the project. "It is not certain but I think it is highly likely. We have a vehicle for funding it through the stimulus package. We have interest of the Obama Administration in seeing this go through. There's growing interest in reducing CO2 emissions. All of the aspects are there pointing towards [reviving the project]," says Mudd.

One attraction of the project is that it is more "shovel ready" than average--particularly for a capital-intensive energy installation. An environmental impact statement already issued under the Bush Administration, and a Record of Decision (ROD) from DOE formally approving the project seems to be in the works. "Step one is for new sec of energy to issue the ROD. With that we can do a detailed design and start procurement. If that happens quickly we can begin the heavy construction next year, and even some light construction this year," says Mudd. The plant could actually start up in as little as three years from now, with "90% carbon capture and sequestration from Day One," according to Mudd.

Which would be just in time for Obama's re-election campaign.