Federal Funding Shifting Away From Fuel Cells, Back to Plug-In Hybrids?
By Greg Johnson March 26, 2009
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the federal funding for green vehicle technology research has been flowing.
The Clinton administration favored plug-in hybrid electric vehicle research. The Bush administration steered funding to hydrogen fuel-cell research. And who hasn't heard President Obama's repeated pledge to have 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on American roads by 2015?
But some in Washington, D.C. are cautioning against the anticipated swing of federal funding back to plug-in hybrids at the expense of hydrogen technology research.
"I hope that we will avoid again putting all of our eggs in one technology basket," U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (D, Wash.) said while chairing a Tuesday hearing in Washington, D.C., by the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. "While we must be targeted in our federal R&D programs, this single-minded approach ignores the importance of balancing a diverse portfolio with sustained funding for longer-term research."
Subsequent testimony by Steven Chalk suggested that the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has taken to heart Obama's 2015 pledge.
Much of Chalk's testimony focused on batteries. He referenced the $2 billion for advanced battery manufacturing grants that was included in the massive stimulus bill that cleared Congress earlier this year.
"Making batteries in the United States will facilitate the administration's goal of putting 1 million PHEVs on the road by 2015," Chalk said.
In comments quoted by the Detroit News, Chalk seemed to go even further in his support of PHEVs: "We want diversity, but we also want critical mass. If we're going to address these problems [of dependence on foreign oil], we eventually have to build something."
Sooner or later, Chalk said, the federal government must "pick some winners so to speak and go with our best shot."
Industry representatives who testified at the hearing cautioned against short-changing other technologies.
"The DOE program should aim to promote technological diversity to the maximum extent feasible, including a wide range of alternative vehicle technologies," said Kathryn Clay, director of research for The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents 11 auto and light-truck companies.
"Please don't pick technology winners and losers yet," said Tom Baloga, vice president of engineering for BMW of North America. "We need an effective palette of solutions that should include an appropriate mix of vehicles powered by highly efficient internal combustion engines, powered by batteries and powered by hydrogen."
More than politics is at play, according to Global Insight, a London-based economic research outfit.
"The prevailing thought is that the challenges associated with the use of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel simply do not make it viable in terms of cost," the company's energy analysts wrote after Tuesday's hearing.
"The electricity necessary to generate the hydrogen could itself be used to power an electric vehicle directly, skipping an expensive, wasteful, and technically complicated step -- how to create a hydrogen infrastructure and safe, cost-effective, onboard vehicle storage."
Greg Johnson, Contributor
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