This congress is a recognition that we the citizens of Arizona and of the world, must take environmental stewardship very seriously. It is our responsibility to make our environment better, safer and cleaner.

In the face of all this here-and-now pressure, some might ask why General Motors is investing so much time, effort, and money to develop fuel-cell-powered cars. And why are we supporting the development of hydrogen as a fuel for these vehicles?

Our fuel-cell-hydrogen initiative is a key component of our overall advanced propulsion strategy. This strategy is focused on reducing tailpipe emissions, ultimately to zero, while significantly improving fuel economy and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions through the introduction of advanced power-train technologies like Active Fuel Management, biofuels like E85 ethanol, hybrid power trains and, in the longer term, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

In line with this strategy, we have introduced new technologies that have made GM the fuel economy leader in more vehicle segments than any other auto manufacturer. GM also has been a leader in putting E85 vehicles on U.S. roads. Since 1999, we have built 1.7 million E85 vehicles, and this year, we will add 400,000 more.Later this year, we will introduce our third hybrid power train in the Saturn VUE Green Line. This new, affordable system joins the diesel-hybrid power train we are marketing for transit buses and the system available in our hybrid pickups.

Beyond all these technologies are hydrogen and fuel cells. They are the next logical step to energy and environmentally-friendly vehicles. Here's why:

Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people on the planet.

Of this number, only about 12 percent of us, primarily those fortunate enough to be born in the U.S., Europe and Japan have cars as part of our everyday life. Today, with about 800 million vehicles on the Earth, we are worried about our environment and the effects of greenhouse gases. We also are concerned about the availability and cost of energy, which, in our modern age, sustains our culture and lifestyle. Clearly, with continued growth in the world's population, with the increased demand for energy and automobiles, especially in emerging economies like China and India, and with the understanding that our environment is fragile, a greater effort to protect our world is and will be needed.

Recognizing this, we at General Motors are aggressively developing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles along with the more immediate technologies we are putting into the marketplace.

Why fuel cells?

A number of years ago, GM developed a revolutionary battery-electric car called the EV1. We leased these cars in Phoenix as one of our initial markets. Our customers loved the EV1, but what they did not love was its limited driving range, which severely restricted the miles they could travel before they needed to plug in the car to recharge the battery.

The essence of our American and Arizona culture is unfettered freedom of mobility supported by the automobile, which gives us the ability to go where we want when we want. Arizona is a large state with many things to do and many places to go. We are an active state, and the battery-electric vehicle was found by our customers to be just too limiting for an Arizona lifestyle, even though many were passionate about the car and concept.

GM soon decided that, instead of a battery, a fuel cell could be the electricity source needed to make an electric vehicle practical; and we began to apply our electric-vehicle learnings to our fuel-cell program.

A fuel cell produces electricity through an electrochemical reaction, just as a battery does. Unlike a battery, the reactants are stored externally and delivered into the fuel cell, as needed. In this case, hydrogen is the preferred fuel. It combines with oxygen from the air through a catalytic reaction inside the cell to produce electricity and water. The electricity powers the car, and the water is eliminated as exhaust. So we have, with a fuel cell, an electric, zero-emission car, "clean cities," for sure!

And because hydrogen can be pumped into the vehicle rapidly (two-three minutes), we are back to the freedom of mobility that we all want and expect as we go about our daily business.

On to hydrogen

We can think about hydrogen just like we think about electricity. When we switch on a light or power up our computer or start the dishwasher, we are usually not thinking about how the electricity is being generated.

In most cases, how that is done depends on where we are. We may be drawing on a natural-gas-fueled generating station, a nuclear power plant, a coal-fired power plant, wind turbines or, importantly for Arizona, solar cells.

In this sense, hydrogen is just like electricity. It is an "energy carrier" that moves energy from primary sources such as natural gas, petroleum, biomass or solar, wind and geothermal resources to the point of work, where it is reconverted to useful power.

Hydrogen can be made from all the same sources that can be used to make electricity, which gives us the "power" as a society, or as individuals, to choose how we want to make the energy we need. In a "hydrogen economy," trade-offs on costs, environmental concerns, energy availability and energy security can and will happen continuously, with all parties participating.

For Arizona, this is great news. A hydrogen economy will enable Arizonians to decide their own energy and environmental policies and create jobs in Arizona along the way.

A couple of years ago at a Western Governors' Association meeting on energy, Gov. Janet Napolitano shared her vision and hope for Arizona to someday be able to utilize its most abundant resource, the sun.

Hydrogen fuel can be a key ingredient in realizing this vision; it holds the very real promise of independence from oil, zero-emission vehicles, renewable energy generated from the sun and the wind and local jobs.

At GM, we are making great progress on the enabling technologies, and we are increasingly confident that we will have the technologies in hand by 2010. Today, we are already demonstrating our HydroGen3 test vehicles worldwide.

We have also been showing a series of concept cars - the AUTOnomy, Hy-wire and now the Sequel - that demonstrate revolutionary concepts that we expect to bring to our customers.

But more is needed. We are working with energy companies to develop a hydrogen refueling option so that our customers can "gas up" with hydrogen conveniently.

We are working with governments around the world to develop the incentives, rules and regulations required to help support and underwrite this historic transition.

We also are working with non-governmental groups to help educate people about the benefits of hydrogen, as the Rotary Club International here in Phoenix is doing through its Rotary for a Pollution-Free Planet program.

This is a team effort. To completely transition to a hydrogen economy will take years because the U.S. has almost 250 million vehicles on the road today that will need to be replaced. But our collective persistence and our investment in the future will be worth it.

We can all work together to make "clean cities" not just a goal but a reality for ourselves and, more importantly, for our children and grandchildren.

To learn more about General Motors' fuel-cell and advanced technology vehicles, visit its www.gmability.com Web site.

J. Byron McCormick is executive director in charge of General Motors' global fuel-cell activities. He is a native of Phoenix and earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from UA in Tucson.

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