A 13-day cross-country road tour running on hydrogen kicked off this week in Portland, Maine and will wrap up in Los Angeles, CA… 31 stops and 18 states later, hoping to convince the public that hydrogen is the fuel of the future.

This story from the New York Times says eight different car makers started the tour… with the American companies conspicuously absent. But General Motors, which has put more a billion dollars in hydrogen technology, joins the tour in New York, Washington and Los Angeles:

The 2008 Hydrogen Road Tour includes some highly touted, state-of-the-art technologies like the Honda FCX Clarity fuel-cell sedan, which has a 280-mile range on four kilograms of hydrogen (the energy equivalent of four gallons of gasoline) compressed at 5,000 pounds per square inch. The tour also showcases some fuel-cell vehicles that have been less frequently seen on U.S. roads, including the Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage FCEVs, Nissan X-Trail FCV and Volkswagen HyMotion Tiguan.

The odd man out is the BMW Hydrogen 7, which burns super-cold cryogenic liquid hydrogen; BMW claims that emissions from the Hydrogen 7 are actually cleaner than the ambient air.

The Hydrogen Road Tour is co-sponsored by the National Hydrogen Association, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation and the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

A new company has been formed that looks to lead the U.S. hydrogen market.

Eden Hydrogen Inc. is the product of the merging of two American subsidiaries of Australian-based Energy Ltd… Hythane Company of Denver, Colorado and HyRadix of Des Plaines, Illinois. This story from the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch web site says the new company will be headquartered in Des Plaines, Illinois.

“Eden Hydrogen is a milestone in our growing capacity to deliver integrated hydrogen solutions to customers in the U.S. and globally,” said Greg Solomon, Executive Chairman, Eden Energy Ltd. based in Perth, Australia. “We have captured the hydrogen supply chain within a single, efficient company.”
Robert Gray has been named Chief Executive Officer of Eden Hydrogen Inc. He was formerly Chief Executive Officer of Eden Innovations Ltd. and a past president of HyRadix. Roger Mamaro, President of Hythane Company, will lead global operations and Dave Cepla, President of HyRadix, will lead global sales and marketing for the new company.

“As consumers in the U.S. and around the world demand cost effective and clean alternatives to petroleum, the market for hydrogen-based fuels and technologies is rapidly expanding,” said Robert Gray, CEO, Eden Hydrogen Inc. “Eden Hydrogen is uniquely positioned to provide economical onsite hydrogen generation, delivery, and storage.”

The announcement comes on the heels of a study that recommends the government spends $55 billion over the next 15 years to help hydrogen vehicles are competitive with their petroleum-fueled counterparts on American roads.

Your mail could be delivered using green energy.

This story from NPR says that the U.S. Postal Service has the largest fleet of alternatively-fueled vehicles in the country… 43,000 strong. And that’s just the beginning of its green efforts:

It’s using solar cells to power some buildings. It’s using eco-friendly packaging.

“We’ll test anything!” O’Tormey says. “Propane, compressed natural gas, biodiesel, electric. We have electric vehicles delivering packages in midtown Manhattan, and we have plenty of test sites, from the Grand Canyon to Alaska.”

Considering that each one-cent increase in the cost of petroleum-based fuels costs the USPS $8 million more, it’s no wonder officials want to burn anything but non-renewable sources. Maybe it will help keep down the price of a stamp.

A new study shows that hydrogen-powered vehicles have the potential to eliminate the use of all petroleum from American transportation in the next 50 years.

This story from TradingMarkets.com says the National Research Council study also recommends biofuels should be used in the meantime:

In a press call with reporters, the Department of Energy’s Mike Ramage analyzed the findings of the study, which focused on the best case outcomes for the use of hydrogen energy by the year 2023. Best case means that “technical hurdles are solved - vehicles are cost- effective, and that consumers will buy them,” Ramage said.

“Hydrogen by itself in this best case scenario could eliminate 60 - 70 percent of oil and carbon dioxide from transportation system by 2050,” Ramage said. Combined with biofuels and other environmentally friendly solutions, Ramage said “you could potentially in the best case eliminate all oil from U.S. transportation.”

Ramage adds hydrogen fuel cells are only a decade away from being commercially-viable. The article goes on to say that a diverse renewable energy plan is needed that uses all available resources.

French firm Biométhodes has inked an exclusive deal with Virginia Tech’s Intellectual Properties Inc. division to option-to-license the school’s processes to convert biomass into ethanol and hydrogen.

This story from the school says the processes were invented by Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech:

An integrated biorefinery pilot plant in Virginia is envisioned to advance the process for the conversion of biomass into ethanol and valuable co-products, focusing especially on biomass pretreatment. The process for transformation of biomass into hydrogen will be developed in France and will be validated through a biohydrogen fuel cell prototype and small-scale model car.

According to Gilles Amsallem, Biométhodes chief executive officer, “The pilot plant will integrate two major technologies – Virginia Tech’s pretreatment process, which breaks down the biomass, and Biométhodes’ hydrolysis enzyme optimization technology to improve the cellulose degradation into fermentable sugars.”

Virginia Tech officials believe the ethanol production from biomass can reach into the billions of gallon a year with Biométhodes scaling up the hydrogen end to deliver fuel cells for cars.

A group of junior high students from Boise, Idaho has won first place in the National Fuel Cell Competition at the 2008 National Middle School Science Bowl in Golden, Colo.

This story from KBCI-TV in Boise says it was a good chance for the students to learn… and the sponsoring U.S. Department of Energy to get some new ideas:

“Each team started out with their motor and this fuel cell,” said eighth grader, Alex Baca, one of the master minds behind the design of the car. “And it was up to you to design some kind of car.”

The US Department of Energy sponsored this week’s National Middle School Science Bowl in Colorado, all in search, for creative ideas when it comes to researching alternative fuels.

One of the students’ mentors said while hydrogen may or may not be the answer to the nation’s energy problems… but they won’t know if it is the answer until they ask questions like this.

What debuted as a concept vehicle just three years ago will soon be driving on American roads, running on hydrogen and producing nothing but water for exhaust.

This story on CNN says Japanese carmaker Honda announced today the first five people who will receive the new hydrogen-powered vehicle:

The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the gases believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says.

Among the first customers are actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, film producer Ron Yerxa, as well as businessmen Jon Spallino and Jim Salomon.

While these few celebrities will be the first to receive the FCX Clarity, Honda has plans to distribute more in the U.S., especially after the hydrogen fuel station infrastructure increases.

A growth sector focused investment bank is hosting its annual Alternative Energy Conference today at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York. The Thomas Weisel Partners one-day event will focus on the opportunities and challenges of the Alternative Energy industry for 2008 and the future.

The conference will showcase presentations from over 30 established and emerging public and private companies, including those engaged in alternative fuels, energy efficiency, fuel cells, smart grid technologies, solar power, and wind power.

“Rising energy prices, political uncertainty in oil producing regions and increased environmental standards and regulations are creating tremendous potential for alternative energy solutions,” said Keith Gay, Head of TWP’s Research Group. “We believe the management teams will provide investors with a unique look into various sectors of the alternative energy industry and a chance to find out what is on the horizon for 2008.”

It looks like alternative energy is generating large fiscal interest.

This weekend I visited the RIT/NASA AstroZone exhibit in St. Louis. The free exhibit was offered in conjunction with the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society and it offered all kinds of fascinating scientific demonstrations: from seeing yourself in infrared to star-gazing in a portable planetarium to being enveloped in Cosmic Collisions while watching a video a portable dome. I’m not going to lie, the free exhibit was geared towards children but, that’s why I had my little brother and sister in tow.

So what’s all this have to do with domestic fuel? One of the videos that I watched in one of the cool, miniature, omnimax-type domes said that one solar flare releases the same amount of energy as millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs. That’s just too big of a number for me to even grasp. But, it did get me thinking. The U.S. is awaiting an apparent “energy crisis” as oil becomes more scarce and gas prices go up. Yet, just one little burst from the sun emits enough energy to… well, again… I can’t even fathom how much energy millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs means. So it looks like there’s plenty of energy coming from the sun and it doesn’t look like that energy source will “dry up” anytime soon.

My point is, developing alternative ways to harness energy from an abundance of energy out there, yes abundance, is exactly what we should be doing. Whether it be from the sun, from wind, water, or corn and crops. It just makes more sense to start relying on what nature already offers us in plenty instead of continuing to chase after this “oil scarcity.”

Some of the world’s biggest airplane manufacturers are looking at renewable fuels… made from everythig from hydrogen to algae… to fly the friendly skies.

This AP article from the Seattle Times says companies at the the famous Berlin, Germany Air Show were showing off some of their alternatively-fueled aircraft:

Boeing displayed a one-seater demonstration airplane that can fly on batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. While the plane is still in the early stages, the company said that test flights have shown “a manned airplane can maintain a straight-level flight with fuel cells as the only power source.”

Dutch airline KLM, meanwhile, said at the show that it had signed a contract with AlgaeLink for fuel made from algae for a pilot project whose first test flight is scheduled for this fall.

AlgaeLink produces technology to grow algae that can be turned into biodiesel and is setting up two plants of its own in Europe.