Just emailed this to the WashPost:
Your excellent article on the promise of hydrogen fueled automobiles, “Automakers Put Hydrogen Power on the Fast Track,” included the statement, “No one has yet figured out how to generate large amounts of hydrogen without causing as much pollution as internal-combustion engines now create.”
While it is true that large numbers of hydrogen fueled cars on the road would require many new electrical power plants to generate the amount of hydrogen required, it is inaccurate to say there is no clean way to do this. Nuclear power today generates 20% of the electricity used in the U.S., with zero greenhouse gas emissions and zero reliance on foreign sources of fuel. With new and safer reactor designs, we could start building more nuclear plants today, if we had only the political will to decide which desert mountain to bury the nuclear waste under.
In addition, Department of Energy researchers have recently demonstrated that advanced nuclear reactors can more efficiently separate hydrogen from water than conventional electrolysis, so in the future it could take less nuclear-generated electricity to make each “tank” of hydrogen.
Nuclear power is not only the best way to generate hydrogen, it represents the best overall strategy to radically reduce our dependence on middle east oil. France generates three quarters of its electricity from nuclear power. Why is it that the French can manage what we cannot?
If we can actually have a real debate about Social Security, perhaps a real debate about nuclear power is not far behind.
