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The Hype about Hydrogen by Joseph J. Romm, Island Press, $25, ISBN 155963703X Reviewed by Mick Hamer

IN HIS State of the Union address last year President George W. Bush trumpeted his new $1.2 billion research programme 鈥渟o that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles鈥�. General Motors forecasts that hydrogen cars for the motoring masses will be in the salerooms in six years鈥� time.

Hallelujah! The hydrogen economy is just round the corner. We can all drive as far as we like without any worries about pollution or global warming, secure in the knowledge that we have an inexhaustible energy supply. But the path to the hydrogen economy is fraught with technical and economic difficulties, argues Joseph Romm, who oversaw hydrogen and fuel cell research at the US Department of Energy under the Clinton administration.

The motor car is the critical issue 鈥� transport is responsible for most of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. In theory, topping up a fuel cell with hydrogen will provide all the power that drivers want. But creating a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure comparable with the existing network for cars will costs hundreds of billions of dollars.

And where will the hydrogen come from? Fossil fuels are currently the cheapest way of making hydrogen, so no saving in greenhouse gas emissions there. And who will buy hydrogen 鈥� which costs four times as much per kilowatt as petrol? A few committed greenies.

鈥淗ydrogen is no panacea,鈥� says Romm. In the next three decades, it offers little or no prospect of helping the United States reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.鈥� Instead, he says, we have to tackle the shorter term problems now 鈥� by forcing car manufacturers, for example, to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars by 25 per cent.