Renewable Gossip

The Washington Post used a report from the National Research Council to criticize government subsidies for plug-in hybrids, such as the Fisker Karma.

After pouring billions of dollars of federal money into fuel cell car research over decades, the US Department of Energy recently cut way back on hydrogen funding—making long-time hydrogen supporters look like a losing team for now. Instead, the DOE shifted billions of dollars to plug-in hybrids and electric cars, although advocates in Congress saved some funding for hydrogen.

Last week, the federal government’s hydrogen wing punched back with a report concluding that plug-in hybrids will not produce significant savings of either greenhouse gas emission or fuel consumption for at least another two decades. Hmm. That sounds a lot like the argument that plug-in and EV advocates have used to cast hydrogen as a very long-term solution to oil addiction.

The report was produced by the congressionally chartered National Research Council, and funded by the DOE. The researchers are associated with the “Committee on Assessment of Resource Needs for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies.” The chairman is Michael Ramage, a retired ExxonMobil executive.

Collateral Damage

In the tit-for-tat feud, Vice President Joe Biden recently got poked in the eye, when a Washington Post editorial criticized the veep for his role as public spokesperson for the plug-in movement, and for bringing an auto plant for Fisker Automotive—an as-yet unproven start-up plug-in car company—to Deleware, with the help of a half-billion dollar DOE loan. The bickering is all about politics, and does almost nothing to further a fact-based public conversation about the real promise of both hydrogen and plug-in hybrid cars. Most analysts and engineers see plug-in hybrids and electric cars as an immediate strategy for greener cars, and hydrogen as a much longer-term—but by no means less real—technology.

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