In Bush's 2004 federal budget, submitted to Congress on Feb. 3, the president designated $273 million for research into hydrogen fuel cells, including studies on deriving hydrogen from coal ($5 million), nuclear sources ($4 million), natural gas ($12.2 million), and renewable alternatives such as solar and wind ($17.3 million).

The nod to the old-school energy industry disturbed environmentalists, since it's hard to call coal the road to a "pollution free" car.

"None of this money should be going to coal. It's like running to McDonald's if you want to lose weight," says Brendan Bell, a spokesman for the Sierra Club.

Environmentalists found it even worse after Bush viewed fuel-cell-powered cellphones, laptops and scooters at an event at the National Building Museum on Feb. 6. The president then touted nuclear fusion as one promising path for producing hydrogen. "The energy produced will be safe and clean and abundant," he said, not bothering to mention the nuclear waste byproduct. "If we develop hydrogen power to its full potential, we can reduce our demand for oil by over 11 million barrels per day by the year 2040," he cheered.

There's even money in the new budget to support technological research into reforming gasoline into hydrogen right onboard a fuel-cell vehicle in order to power it.

But how much of an impact will using gasoline for hydrogen production have on reaching "energy independence"? According to the Department of Energy, some 96 percent of hydrogen around the world is produced from fossil fuel sources such as natural gas, oil and coal. Even with the help of hydrogen, weaning American drivers off fossil fuels will be a challenge.

The vast majority of hydrogen used in the U.S. today, however, has nothing to do with foreign oil: It is generated by the "steam reforming" of natural gas, according to Turner. In steam reforming, extremely hot steam (700-1,100 degrees centigrade) is mixed with methane gas in a specialized reactor.

The process is only 85 percent efficient, meaning that some energy is "lost" when natural gas is converted to hydrogen. Which raises the question, why bother? Why not just convert combustion engines to run on natural gas and be done with it?

Scientists say that while some energy is wasted, a fuel-cell vehicle powered with hydrogen derived from natural gas is still more efficient than, say, a car powered by natural gas.

"Energy is lost," says David Friedman, a senior analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, "but fuel cells are more efficient than internal combustion engines using natural gas, so they more than make up for that."

The environmental benefit is also considerable. "[In fuel-cell cars] the vehicle is zero emission. The compressed natural gas vehicles on the road are low emission, but they're not zero," says Turner.

Most of the cars and buses at the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a research consortium of automakers and energy companies, get their hydrogen through just such steam-reformed natural gas. The automakers in the partnership already have 21 cars and three fuel-cell buses on the road in California, either in prototype or actually leased to customers.

Natural gas is abundantly available in the U.S., so going that route will help energy independence. Plus, driving a hydrogen-powered car with the fuel derived from natural gas will lead to cleaner air in cities and near freeways. It will even cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-half, according to Turner.

"Natural gas is viewed as the fuel to bring us to a hydrogen economy, because we can extract hydrogen from natural gas. It's more plentiful, and it produces less carbon dioxide when it's burned," says Brian Adams, a public information officer at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Still, the conversion does initially produce CO2, making the resulting fuel-cell cars not quite "pollution free."

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