From Whitehouse homepage:
“President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Freedom Fuel initiative to reverse America’s growing dependence on foreign oil by developing the technology needed for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells – a way to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses that produces no pollution and no greenhouse gases. The Freedom Fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure needed to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen fuel for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation.”
What Al Gore proposed…
“I support new laws to [e]mandate[/i] improvements in automobile fleet mileage, but much more is needed. Within the context of the SEI [Strategic Environment Initiative], it ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period.” Emphasis added
There is a difference between an initiative to promote growth of a technology (a well established technology that continues to improve) and laws mandating it. A little further background information (note the release date)...
From:
Feds Accelerate Fuel-Cell Cars
Associated Press
07:32 AM Jan. 09, 2002 PT
“Begun in 1993 and championed by the Clinton administration, especially Vice President Al Gore, the joint venture between the federal government and the Big Three domestic automakers was seen as a way to put family-size sedans that get 80 miles per gallon into showrooms by 2004.
Using advanced aerodynamics, new engine technologies and lighter composite materials, the automakers in the program developed prototypes of vehicles capable of getting more than 70 mpg, three times better fuel economy than most cars now on the road. But commercial development of large numbers of these cars in the next few years, as once envisioned, was not expected.
Although Abraham supported the program as a senator from Michigan, shortly after he became energy secretary he said the highly touted program had outlived its usefulness because the auto industry was going in a different direction.
The administration proposed slashing funding for the program as part of its first budget a year ago. Nevertheless, Congress continued to keep it alive, even as some environmental groups and the watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense called the program an unnecessary subsidy for the car industry.
Instead, the administration intends to focus on speeding up development of hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles, a technology that has attracted intense interest in recent years.
This new government-industry partnership "will further the president's national energy policy, which calls for increased research in hydrogen technology to diversify and enhance America's energy security," the Energy Department said.
It is hoped that the new federal push for development of fuel cells will spur industry efforts to develop motor vehicle engine and power systems that eventually will replace the internal combustion engine.
Although several automakers, including DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors, have said they expect to have fuel-cell vehicles in showrooms within the next four or five years, wide availability of such cars is probably a decade or more away.
A fuel cell produces energy from a chemical reaction when hydrogen is combined with oxygen. The only byproduct is water. In recent years, the cost of fuel cells has dropped sharply. Hydrogen can be produced from natural gas aboard vehicles or pure hydrogen can be used, requiring development of a new supply infrastructure.”
