Shell Installs Hydrogen Pump At DC Gas Station - WP

[hatrack]

The new pump at the Shell station on Benning Road NE in the District doesn't look much different from the others, but it represents a new concept in automotive technology: hydrogen power. The hydrogen-dispensing pump is the first installed at a public gas station in the country, according to officials from Shell Hydrogen and General Motors Corp., who will team up today to introduce it.

Average motorists can't do much more than look at it, because the only local vehicles that run on hydrogen are six minivans GM uses to demonstrate the technology to members of Congress. But the pump, which Shell spent more than $2 million installing, is a sign of how major corporations think they'll be able to wean the nation from dependence on foreign oil.

"This is a significant step on a bigger journey," said Jeremy Bentham, chief executive of Shell Hydrogen. "I think this is a little like the cell phone industry in the early 1980s -- you had a patchy infrastructure and cell phones the size of briefcases, but those people had a vision of how to step forward to the future and have created a very, very big business."

EDIT

Environmentalists hail the notion of cars and trucks that emit nothing more harmful than water vapor, but they have become increasingly skeptical about the promise of hydrogen. "The major unanswered questions about hydrogen are not whether you can run a car on it. They are, how do you make it? What is it going to cost? And what is going to be the public investment in infrastructure?" said David Hamilton, director of global warming and energy programs at the Sierra Club. The Shell station on Benning Road NE is "devoid of economic reality. doesn't exist in the real world except as a hugely subsidized example of something that the companies want you to see."

EDIT

Wow, the revolution has arrived.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38168-2004Nov9.html

[Sven77]

1. they stick with the old models

this is just for show. bmw already has cars running on hydrogen. i think theres a hydrogen pump station in las vegas owned by bush. the oil/auto companies will stick with the outdated gas model for as long as they can. hybrid cars are way overpriced. and dont forget most hydrogen now is made from fossil fuels. this is a step in the right direction, and we have the technology now to do it. its just a matter of flipping a switch at the manufacturing plants to make more eco friendly cars.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. "Wow, the revolution has arrived."

Really? None of my local car dealerships have any Hydrogen cars for sale.

And where exactly did the Hydrogen/energy to make the Hydrogen come from?

Sorry, no revolution.....yet.

[hatrack]

3. Did I need to include a sarcasm tag?

I thought the one-pump headline would have been enough . . .

:hi:

[BlueEyedSon]

4. Oops!

:)

[hunter]

5. Just wait until they see my DeLorian...

I can drive three hundred miles by spitting in the Mr. Fusion unit.

[amandabeech]

6. This is the first time that I've heard steam reforming of natural gas

referred to as burning.

On the other hand, if you actually burned the natural gas to make electricity to extract enough hydrogen from Potomac River estuarian water by electrolysis or otherwise to supply the D.C. area vehicle demand, you'd end up changing dramatically the salinity levels of the lower Chesapeake Bay and the tidal Potomac from Hampton Roads to Georgetown.

I don't think that anyone would be too happy with that.

[NNadir]

7. It can be thought of as "burning" in the sense that waste heat

is rejected to the environment when one reforms natural gas. Technically it's slightly different in that the oxidant in this case is water whereas most of the time in traditional "burning" the oxidant is oxygen.

Natural gas reforming to make hydrogen to run cars will probably stand as the dumbest energy idea of the twenty first century. I say that in full knowledge that there are still 96 years left in the century.

[midnight armadillo]

8. Great show! Let the federal subsidies begin!

Ok, we have one pump meant to support a PR effort with congressmen...for the sole purpose of securing federal subsidies for their research. Guaranteed.

[hatrack]

9. Yeah, but since when has the "hydrogen revolution" been about reality?

It's all about subsidies: subsidies, and lots and lots of green PR for both car companies and politicians alike.