Here's the environmentalists' dream for a hydrogen economy: 100 percent hydrogen-powered vehicles running on fuel generated through electrolysis, where the energy used to electrolyze the water is created through solar power or wind power. That would also greatly please those in favor of energy independence, since we have plenty of wind and sun right here. "We don't have to go to the Middle East for sunshine," says Turner. "We've got plenty out in the Mojave Desert."

But Bush's 2004 budget reduces the amount of research dollars going into renewable-energy sources over the previous year, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. For instance, the administration recommended cutting the budget for wind power by 5.5 percent.

"These budget cuts reduce the chance that the Bush administration's hydrogen plan will deliver on its promise," said Friedman. "We need a shift in budget priorities toward renewable energy sources and away from fossil fuels if we want to have a clean, homegrown hydrogen future."

Still, federal scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory say that their research will benefit from the new attention from the top, according to George Sverdrup, technology manager for the lab's hydrogen fuel cells and infrastructure technologies group.

The lab is researching producing hydrogen from biomass, including Georgia peanut shells. "We're not saying that peanut shells are going to provide the hydrogen for the country, not at all," says Sverdrup. "But around the country, there are different types of biomass that right now are waste material."

Turning agricultural waste into hydrogen fuel could still produce a carbon byproduct, for which other projects at the lab are exploring ways to create a commercial market. Even renewables are not necessarily CO2free.

Research into renewables at the lab includes deriving hydrogen from certain algae, and making hydrogen through electrolysis that uses solar energy more efficiently.

While the U.S. government is cutting funding for some renewables, other countries are taking them more seriously. Ron Pernick, a principal at Clean Edge, an energy consulting firm, points out that the Japanese environmental ministry is funding a study that uses wind power to convert seawater to hydrogen. The same ministry, according to Adams of the Rocky Mountain Institute, has set a mandate of having 50,000 fuel-cell vehicles on their roads by 2010.

It's also the Japanese automakers -- Honda and Toyota -- who have gotten the keys to fuel-cell vehicles into the hands of consumers in California before American automakers have.

Like the nuclear energy industry, renewable-energy advocates still have high hopes for their role in hydrogen. "It means a terrific market for wind generation. If you take electricity and shoot it through an electrolyzer to make hydrogen, where do you get the electricity from?" says Joe Richardson, president of Harnessing Dakota Wind, who believes that wind will be able to produce hydrogen more cost effectively from electrolysis than through the steam reformation of natural gas.

But even those who would like to see a hydrogen economy, fueled by the wind and the sun, have their doubts about what part renewable energy will play.

"The hydrogen economy is not a renewable economy. It's an absolute fantasy," says David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who points out that it has taken 30 years for renewable energy to get to just barely 2 percent of usage in the U.S. "At what point would they get to 2 percent of their hydrogen economy from renewables? It wouldn't be before 2030 or 2040. I don't want to spend another 40 years getting 2 percent of the hydrogen economy."

This story has been corrected since it was first published.

Recent Stories