From a recent Democracy Now program:
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Paul Epstein, in just the minute we have left, what people can do about global warming?
DR. PAUL EPSTEIN: We can do a lot. We need to move, as we are, towards electric vehicles and stop burning everything. Even ethanol has its health impacts and affects ozone levels in the ground, the ground photochemical smog. But those vehicles need to be plugged in to a cleanly powered smart grid. And we need to move towards the clean grid, the cleanly powered smart grid. And we can move today rapidly towards a smart grid with technologies that optimize use...
In response to The Contract for the American Dream, I came up with the following idea for introducing Fuel Cell-based Cars to the general public.
Fuel cells are an old technology developed by NASA for the space program when the US went to the moon. Fuel cells combine hydrogen gas and oxygen from the air to produce electricity and their exhaust is clean water. No CO2, no CO, no pollutants at all. Currently there are virtually no hydrogen fueling stations around; however since NASA stocks hydrogen in massive amounts -- the liquid hydrogen is kept in an 850,000-gallon tank on the northeast corner of the Kennedy Space Center-- it can easily keep fueling stations supplied without modifying its infrastructure. Unfortunately, fuel cell-based cars are currently limited to a small number of demo vehicles. Since NASA uses various vehicles (maintenance / security vehicles, tourist buses, employee cars, etc.) it could requisition fuel cell-based cars to replace the standard vehicles over time. Fuel cell-based cars would be used by NASA employees who could "fill 'er up" with hydrogen at the Kennedy Space Center fueling station, their workplace.
What process does NASA use to obtain its hydrogen? According to the U.S. Department of Energy (pdf):
Hydrogen can be produced using diverse, domestic resources including fossil fuels, such as coal (with carbon sequestration) and natural gas; nuclear; and
biomass and other renewable energy technologies, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric power.
Luckily, Kennedy Space Center is located on the coast of sunny Florida and due to security concerns, no one is allowed to use the ocean front. NASA could set up large sea side solar panel farms and produce clean electricity to
electrolyze hydrogen from sea-water thereby eliminating the need for fossil fuels to obtain hydrogen! While it is true that the sea-water electrolysis uses more electricity than the hydrogen produces, if the electricity used is generated from renewable resources, (ie. wind, solar energy,etc.) it doesn't really matter that the process is not very efficient. Ultimately the goal is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and thereby minimize its impact on global warming as James Hansen, Ph.D., the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, points out in an interview:
Rethinking Fossil Fuels.
So now we have a small fleet of vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells and they have a place to get said fuel. Fantastic!!! The problem remains: how am I going to get a fuel cell-based car if I don't work for NASA? The fuel cell-based fleet must be expanded! After a period of time (1 year?) fuel cell-based cars have to be sold (leased) to NASA employees as their private vehicles. NASA can then buy the next round of new fuel cell-based cars for its official needs. After some years of repeating this cycle we are going to need more hydrogen fueling stations. Place hydrogen fueling stations near the Orlando airport. Why Orlando airport? Answer: Car Rental companies and Disney World (Disney could adopt a similar approach to NASA and use fuel cell-based cars for their fleet as well as use fuel cell technology to power their rides).
The government could then create incentives for car rental companies to begin offering fuel cell-based cars and simultaneously produce nation-wide Public Service Announcements (PSAs) touting the benefits of pollution free cars. What would happen to drivers who run out of fuel? In the past rental car companies offered free roadside assistance and consequently, the government could mandate that drivers of fuel cell-based cars could simply call the rental company and receive a free tow and an exchange car.
Rental car companies are also offered incentives to sell off their fuel cell-based cars after a year or so. They already do that now with standard cars, so it's not a big deal. At first such cars could only be sold to residents living in the NASA and Orlando area. However, tourist world-wide visit the Orlando area and could potentially rent pollution free cars thereby spreading the word re: the benefits of such cars.
Now with a fleet of fuel cell-based cars growing over the years with more and more in private hands, gas stations in the area of NASA and Orlando can be incentivize to offer hydrogen for fuel cells if they haven't already begun to clamor to do so. Unfortunately, I don't live in that area, so how can I get my hands on a pollution free car?
The post office has locations nationwide and a large fleet of vehicles. Hydrogen fueling stations can be placed at post offices / nearby gas stations as a program replacing standard postal vehicles with fuel cell-based ones is initiated. Which state first? Well, it should be some place sunny with lots of wide open unused land space which has the facilities to deliver fuel to the rest of the country. Texas sounds good. Solar power farms are to be built in conjunction with wind farms and any other sustainable methods of producing power for hydrogen production.
Using the same incentives mentioned earlier, rental car companies will now be able to sell their "used" fuel cell-based vehicles to the general public since every post office is potentially an "open to the public" hydrogen fueling station.
State by state, post offices make the switch to fuel cell-based vehicles with its fuel source-hydrogen- produced as locally/cleanly as possible. Pretty soon, driving coast to coast, will mean never being out of range of one's next fueling station and buying a fuel cell-based vehicles will just be another choice in life. On that day I am off to my local car dealership to haggle for my new hydrogen powered car, because I need to get to work at my new job down at the solar farm maintaining all those solar cells. And that would be...good news for both the environment and the economy.