He championed the low-emission vehicles as the wave of the future, and proudly announced that Maryland would soon get one for a state agency to use.
One year later, though, the state still doesn't have its hydrogen-powered vehicle.
"We didn't take delivery," said Michael Li, chief of staff at the Maryland Energy Administration. "It's been delayed due to logistics."
Maryland has been working with manufacturer General Motors all year on the details of a contract. But a lack of refueling stations and other logisitcal problems have put the brakes on the deal, Mr. Li said.
It could take six months or longer to work something out, Mr. Li said.
The basics have never been in doubt: GM would lease its $1 million HydroGen3, to the state for roughly the same price as a conventional car.
The van is a modified version of the Opel Zafira, a GM minivan sold overseas. It is powered by hydrogen, which is mixed with oxygen from the air in a stack of hundreds of fuel cells under the hood. The chemical reaction produces electricity that powers the motor, leaving behind water vapor as the only emission.
Some believe that hydrogen could one day replace conventional gasoline as the main power source for consumer vehicles.
But the technology is still in the early stages. There's just one refueling station in the region, in Washington, D.C., which has been a key stumbling block to getting the vehicle here.
There's also the complicating factor that the vehicle has to be housed each night at GM's research facility at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, and a GM engineer would ride along every day to monitor the vehicle's performance.
The initial plan was to give the van to an agency in Prince George's County, so the filling station and overnight home wouldn't be so far away, Mr. Li said.
When that didn't work out, the Maryland Energy Administration looked at a fixed Baltimore-to-D.C. route. But the energy administration didn't feel comfortable having no spot to refuel in the Baltimore area, Mr. Li said.
"It got a little complicated," Mr. Li said. "There were a lot of restrictions that we weren't aware of."
GM officials did not return a call for comment.
For now, Mr. Li said the Maryland Energy Administration is scouting more possible routes. And the administration is waiting to see if technology improves, so that the van can go farther between refuelings or a filling station can be added in Baltimore.
Josh Tulkin of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network said there are often hurdles to getting new technology on the streets. The Takoma Park-based group advocates for cleaner vehicles and alternative fuels to combat global warming.
"This demonstrates it is often
bureaucratic or political barriers that are holding back the clean car
revolution," he said.