Skip to Content

Death of the Hydrogen Economy

Obama’s budget puts hydrogen fuel-cell research out of its misery–almost.

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?

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives

The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.

Learning to code isn’t enough

Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.

Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit Google

Hinton will be speaking at EmTech Digital on Wednesday.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.