Fuel Cells

by Paul Wellman
(Oklahoma City)

There is a way to turn our energy crisis around and it is Hydrogen. No one is picking this up. You can run the trains, planes, buses and cars we have today on limitless, clean fuel. I am not pulling your leg.
I urge you to check out http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/ and http://www.clean-air.org/
I have read two books on the subject:
I cannot say enough good things about Roy McAlister of the American Hydrogen Association. He is one of the leading visionary/experts on hydrogen. He was one of the top scientists that helped NASA develop fuel cells for space flight. His book “The Coming Hydrogen Civilization” is a bible (I have read it three times) for where we should be headed. In the virtual blink of an eye we could have every internal combustion engine on the planet running on hydrogen. The conversion is no more complicated than the conversion from gasoline to natural gas. Storage is an issue but that is being worked out. Instead of building new battery powered cars convert the current fleet to hydrogen. Build the conversion equipment in Michigan. While they are busy doing that they can also set up and start production of fuel cell vehicles.
The negative buzz about hydrogen taking to much energy to produce is one of many myths that Roy bursts in the book. The technology is there - not in ten or twenty years but now. It just needs to be implemented! Michael Moore should interview Roy and get his story out.
Also Jeremy Rifkin's book “The Hydrogen Economy” is an excellent source of technology and sociology. Past civilizations have faced the same energy crisis – and they lost the battle. We don't have to. In Jeremy's book he speaks about the passing of large central power plants favoring a more “democratic” form of power production. “Distributed-generation associations (DGAs)” would decentralize power production bringing unlimited power to every corner of the planet.
If the government would devote a fraction of the money it squanders on Blood For Oil wars the technology could start being implemented virtually over night.
This is the most pressing subject I know of and it is getting no attention or it is getting false and/or negative spin.