Here’s a link to the article where I got the image above.

I keep trying to find reasons why the vaunted “hydrogen economy” doesn’t look like a lot of pork-barrel ear-marks, as opposed to sound, practical science.

I’m open to conversion, but I haven’t read anything anywhere that suggests to me that hydrogen makes any sense at all.

Does anyone know of an article that suggests that a fuel-cell vehicle makes more sense than an electric car?

Even Amory Lovins, a very sincere hydrogen-economy proponent, in his article “debunking” myths about why hydrogen won’t work, (full text here) can only muster this, in rejecting the possibility of a battery-electric car future:

California has largely abandoned its mandate to introduce battery-electric cars because battery technology, as RMI predicted, was overtaken by hybrid technology, which will in turn be trumped by fuel cells. Battery-electric cars are a valid concept for niche markets, but (as Professor P.D. van der Koogh of the Delft University of Technology remarked) are “cars for carrying mainly batteries — but not very far and not very fast, or else they would have to carry even more batteries.”

Although batteries’ energy density, life, and cost can be considerably improved, it is still probably easier to make a good fuel cell than a good battery, and the comparative advantage of the technologies that compete with batteries is probably more likely to expand than to shrink.

Regulators that, like the California Air Resources Board, have rewarded automakers for increasing the “zero-emission range” (battery capacity) of their hybrids are distorting car design in an
undesirable direction, increasing the car’s weight and cost in a way that doesn’t well serve their strategic policy goals.”

I just don’t get it. I feel like that statement above might have been a reasonable perception three years ago, but as Li-Ion cells continue to fall in price, and companies like Tesla start to make their mark, I think the hydrogen economy will be left on the ash-heap of history.

The 20 “myths” he debunks, with the exception of the three paragraphs above, are devoted solely to explaining why hydrogen is superior to fossil fuels.

Any thoughts?