Using fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen from zero-carbon sources such as renewable power or nuclear energy has a cost of avoided carbon dioxide of more than $600 a metric ton, which is more than a factor of ten higher than most other strategies being considered today….

So I wrote in a 2005 journal article, “The car and fuel of the future,” which was the “hottest article” in Energy Policy from July 2006 through March 2007 (and still #8 as recently as September 2008).

So after the Bush administration squandered some $2 billion on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, it was welcome news that our Nobel-prize-winning Energy Secretary Steven Chu submitted a budget that sharply scaled back the hydrogen fuel cell program and shifted it away from a focus on transportation (see “Hydrogen car R.I.P. Secretary Chu agrees with Climate Progress and slashes hydrogen budget“).

Now some hydrogen advocates — and even some environmental groups! — are trying to restore the money, which is much more urgently needed helping to develop and deploy clean technologies that could save energy and reduce pollution in the near-and medium-term.  I’ll blog on that effort later.

First, however, I wanted to once and for all lay out the case against hydrogen as a transport fuel, starting with an excerpt of almost my entire Energy Policy piece.   I think it is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in understanding the challenges facing alternative fuels.

Abstract

This paper is based on a review of the technical literature on alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and discussions with experts in vehicle technology and energy analysis. It is derived from analysis provided to the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy.

The urgent need to reverse the business-as-usual growth path in global warming pollution in the next two decades to avoid serious if not catastrophic climate change necessitates action to make our vehicles far less polluting.

In the near-term, by far the most cost-effective strategy for reducing emissions and fuel use is efficiency. The car of the near future is the hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle, because it can reduce gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions 30 to 50% with no change in vehicle class and hence no loss of jobs or compromise on safety or performance.  It will likely become the dominant vehicle platform by the year 2020.

Ultimately, we will need to replace gasoline with a zero-carbon fuel. All AFV pathways require technology advances and strong government action to succeed. Hydrogen is the most challenging of all alternative fuels, particularly because of the enormous effort needed to change our existing gasoline infrastructure.

The most promising AFV pathway is a hybrid that can be connected to the electric grid. These so-called plug-in hybrids will likely travel three to four times as far on a kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity as fuel cell vehicles…. Read more

“We will have a bill,” the California Democrat said in a brief interview today after her weekly press conference.

So Greenwire (subs. req’d) reports this afternoon, for those who had any remaining doubts about whether the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill would pass the House (see also Boucher predicts “I think we’ll do far better than” the 218 votes needed to pass Waxman-Markey, GOP’s Walden agrees passage likely).

House Democrats are expected to close ranks within days on a major energy-and-climate proposal, leading to floor debate and final passage before the July 4th recess, according to key lawmakers and sources tracking the debate.

Behind-the-scenes talks on the comprehensive bill have left only a few critical sticking points, but those issues are expected to be resolved soon as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighs in on an issue at the top of her legislative agenda.

What about the push-back from the aggies that seems to be flooding the media in the last couple of day?

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Yesterday, House Republicans, led by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), introduced the “American Energy Act,” an energy bill that shares not just the title but most of its content with the “American Energy Act” of 2008, the Republican energy bill that died in the House last year.

House Republicans are quick to try to call the new American Energy Act a “substitute” and an “alternative” to the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454). Yet, like the 2008 version, the 2009 “American Energy Act” is heavy on dirty energy and light on the clean energy that generates American jobs.

Like its predecessor, Pence’s bill would continue the Bush/Cheney tactic of giveaways to oil companies. The GOP bill also makes a point of denying global warming — just as in 2008. This new bill merely restates the wrong-headed priorities of the past, mentioning “oil” three times more often that it mentions “renewable” energy and barely mentioning “climate change” at all.

This word frequency chart is a quick way to visualize the differences in priorities between the GOP energy plan and the Waxman-Markey clean energy economy bill:

The word “oil” appears 93 times in Pence’s legislation — much as it made 95 appearances in the 2008 bill — while there are just 29 mentions of renewable energy, only a few more than in the 2008 version. In the Waxman-Markey legislation, which would make historic investments in clean and renewable energy and create millions jobs, there are 141 references to renewable energy. The Pence “substitute” claims that it will “encourage greater efficiency and conversation,” but mentions “efficiency” only seven times. Waxman-Markey brings up “efficiency” more than 240 times.

Even the updated portions of the bill are just warmed-over, previously rejected Republican ideas: one of the biggest (and only) changes to the bill is the new emphasis on nuclear energy, but it’s just more of the same out-of-touch rhetoric on nuclear power that Sen. John McCain tried to push during the 2008 presidential election. As Joe Romm points out, this risky nuclear scheme could actually amount to an energy tax on American families.

Politico reports, “Republicans have proposed most of these ideas in the past.” A Media Matters fact-check exposes the similarities between Pence’s legislation and President Bush’s failed plans.

We’ve seen where this obsession has gotten us: the Bush energy system made us more dependent than ever on oil and increased annual energy costs for American families by $1,100. The House GOP just hasn’t gotten the message that we can’t afford more of the same.

As a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the “cash for clunkers” deal Congress appears to be on the verge of embracing is probably among the least cost-effective uses of federal dollars one could imagine (see here).  That doesn’t mean it won’t have benefits to the auto industry, but nobody should sell it as a GHG reducer. Today’s “guest bloggers” are Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), whose piece, “Handouts for Hummers,” was first published in today’s Wall Street Journal.

It’s amazing how quickly a good idea can go bad in Washington. In January, we joined with Sen. Charles Schumer to introduce a bill that would allow Americans to trade in gas-guzzling cars in exchange for vouchers worth up to $4,500 toward the purchase of vehicles with greatly improved fuel economy. This legislation was modeled after programs in California and Texas that improved fuel efficiency, reduced pollution, and stimulated auto sales.

Our “Cash for Clunkers” proposal was a win-win for the environment and the economy. Then Detroit auto industry lobbyists got involved. Soon a rival bill emerged in the House, tailored perfectly to the auto industry’s specifications.

The House bill was written so quickly that one of its main components — a provision that would have excluded any vehicle manufactured overseas — had to be removed because it violated trade laws. But the worst item on the auto industry’s wish list is still at the heart of the bill — a provision that undermines fuel-efficiency standards.

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Green jobs sector ‘poised for explosive growth’ — study

Green-collar workers — who include everyone from energy-efficiency consultants to wastewater plant operators — constitute a tiny but fast-growing segment of the U.S. economy, according to a study published today by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The “clean-energy economy” grew 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007 to 777,000 jobs. While that is just half a percent of all U.S. jobs, the clean-energy economy is poised to grow significantly with financial support from the public and private sectors, the Pew report concludes.

“¦About 80 percent of venture capital investments in 2008 were in the clean energy and energy efficiency sector, broadly known as “cleantech.” And while cleantech slumped with overall venture capital in the first quarter of 2009, the sector outperformed telecommunications, media and other sectors, according to an analysis of Thompson Reuters data by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

“[Cleantech] is faring better than the rest of the venture capital sectors — that’s driven by the sense that the government policy thinking has changed radically with the new administration,” said David Prend, a NVCA director and managing general partner at the venture capital firm RockPort Capital Partners.

Indeed, the Pew report cites the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which President Obama signed in February, as a significant force driving the clean-energy economy. The stimulus includes nearly $85 billion in direct spending and tax incentives for energy- and transportation-related programs.

Water stress, ocean levels to unleash ‘climate exodus’

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The Agricultural Committee led by Collin Peterson (D-MN) is the biggest remaining obstacle to passage of Waxman-Markey.  Yet, farmers would benefit from many provisions in the bill, and unrestricted greenhouse gases emissions would be a disater for farmers (see “A Stormy Forecast for U.S. Agriculture“).  Guest bloggers Jake Caldwell and Alexandra Kougentakis make the case in a post first published here.  In the photo below, Illinois farmer Ed Mies works to repair a seed planter.

Agriculture, energy, and global warming are inextricably linked, which is why America’s farmers must be a part of the solution to global warming. Today the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture conducts a hearing on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454. A close review of the legislation reveals that it provides a significant opportunity for U.S. farmers to increase their income while safeguarding their livelihoods and the nation’s food and energy supplies.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called reductions of carbon dioxide a “new income source [that could] change the old ways of supporting farms.” He has urged farmers to seize the economic opportunities from reducing greenhouse gas pollution and “not to be fearful of this future.” H.R. 2454 recognizes and rewards the benefits farmers can provide to the United States and the world in ending our dependence on fossil fuels and confronting climate change.

H.R. 2454 offers an opportunity for farmers to diversify their sources of income and cut costs by increasing energy efficiency. With modest improvements, ACESA can designate a more explicit role for agriculture in the carbon offset market without jeopardizing the gains for farmers already included in the overall legislation. ACESA rewards good practices and provides the tools to ensure that American farmers can benefit from solutions to global warming.

Here are eight reasons why farmers should support this bill:

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The House of Representatives is on the verge of a historic achievement that seemed unlikely just a few months ago — passage of bipartisan comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that put the nation on a path to slash greenhouse gas emissions more than 80% in four decades.

One of the key coal-state Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), yesterday “predicted sponsors would have little trouble crossing the 218-vote threshold,” as E&E News PM (subs. req’d) put it.  Boucher said, “I think we’ll do far better than that.”

While Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA0 continues negotiating with other committees, the most problematic being Agriculture chaired by Collin Peterson (D-MN), even Republicans are grudgingly coming around to acknowledging the inevitable.  E&E Daily (subs. req’d) reports today:

“My guess is they get to 218,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.). “I think they get there because this is such a priority for the Obama administration and the speaker. The leadership in this town is very much behind it. And I’ve been in the majority. When the leadership is all kind of coalesced around, they twist a few arms here and there to get to their required vote.“

And the bill now seems likely to get multiple GOP votes:

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