"APS is committed to supporting natural and clean energy development for the state of Arizona," says Peter Johnston, manager, technology development at Arizona Public Service, which is working in concert with ECOtality to deliver the news about the hydrogen economy. "In addition, this partnership presents a good opportunity to further educate students and the public about renewable energy."

Hydrogen does not normally "stand alone" in nature. If it's in water, for example, it must be separated from oxygen. The goal then is to produce pure hydrogen -- a process that requires other fuel sources to break apart the elements. Electricity generated from nuclear or renewable sources can be used to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen.

But, there's a real question as to how to separate the hydrogen. Some say that the amount of energy used to make hydrogen is more than the amount of power produced by fuel cells. If fossil fuels are extracted to make the hydrogen, then more pollutants would be released. At the same time, natural gas supplies are already over-extended and there's simply not enough of it to use in the hydrogen conversion process.

It is also difficult to store hydrogen -- something the U.S. Department off Energy has said is the number one priority when it comes to commercializing fuel-cell vehicles. This issue is now the focus of countless universities and federal laboratories along with industrial partners that include car makers and oil companies. The goal is to travel 300 miles before a car would have to refill.

The Bush administration's ultimate objective is to create hydrogen using a "carbon neutral" strategy that relies on renewable, nuclear and coal gasification processes to create hydrogen. Toward that end, it has allocated over a five-year time $1.7 billion. Of that, $480 million will go into hydrogen fuel cell production efforts for the 2008 budget. Government researchers, in fact, are working on new "stable cathode catalysts" that are far superior to the type of catalysts used in today's most prominent fuel cells.

Key Partnerships

No doubt, any transition to a hydrogen economy remains a lofty goal replete with obstacles. Scientists such as Nobel Prize-winning Richard Smalley from Rice University say that even if renewable energy could supplant fossil fuels right now, it would still take decades to make the leap. At the current rate of investment in new sustainable technologies, he adds, the process will take longer. Other scientists say that investments in hybrid cars that run on both gasoline and electricity might be more productive.

While the automotive industry generally says that the first commercial hydrogen-powered cars can start rolling sometime between 2010 and 2015, it still has not found a way to cope with the high costs of production. Individual components that go into such fuel cells are not mass produced and are therefore extremely expensive. Through public-private partnerships, however, that threshold -- where less input is needed to create one unit of output -- may eventually be reached.

In the long run, fuel cells that run on hydrogen have the potential to replace many current energy systems, including vehicle propulsion, stationary power generation and mobile phone batteries. Electric Fuel is developing a prototype that will power cars and buses with fuel cells for a whole shift without having to refuel. Already, the New York City-based company proved that it can run a bus for 101 miles without having to stop and juice up. With some funding from the U.S. government, it's producing its fuel cells now, although the company admits the current cost is higher than traditional diesel engines.

At the December 2006 Los Angeles Auto Show, Chevrolet, Ford and Nissan introduced fuel cell-powered sports utility vehicles. BMW also displayed a car that can burn either hydrogen or gasoline. Honda, meanwhile, unveiled a hydrogen-based sedan that it says can be mass produced in 2010. The company is furthermore calling on the industry to show solidarity in an effort to bring this concept to reality at a faster pace.

For the foreseeable future, Nissan says the internal combustion engine will continue to serve as the primary power source for vehicles. Looking ahead, though, it says that vehicles using electric motors with the power derived from batteries or hydrogen fuel cells will become increasingly important and may ultimately replace today's engines.

"Our product development philosophy is to deliver in a sustainable way, the right technology, at the right time, in the right market, and at the right value to the customer," says Carlos Tavares, executive vice president of product planning at Nissan Motor Co. Minimizing emissions and maximizing all available technologies are the values at the "core of our business model."

By all accounts, the global demand for oil is expected to rise in the next two decades. And that increase will also bring adverse environmental consequences. That real concern is behind the current wave of initiatives to develop alternatives to petroleum. If the hydrogen economy does eventually take off, nations around the globe will benefit economically and environmentally.