This unique idea had piqued my interest and now I’ve heard from Mr. Williams again with an update to what is happening with Pep Boys:

“Several years back I presented you with the idea of Pep Boys – which is headquartered here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – offering its customers the service of converting their cars to run on hydrogen plus providing them with places where they could readily refuel. With Pep Boys having automotive service centers located all throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico, it’s what I recognized as being a ready-made infrastructure.

“However, due to backwards-minded Philadelphia-area, or Pennsylvania-based politics or whatever it is, the idea was never able to take hold, and all these many long and frustrating years it was as if the heads of Pep Boys Corporation themselves were under gag orders never to discuss it. And I would presume primarily due to that.

“But it was just publicly announced on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 (please see e-mail attachment) that the Pep Boys Corporation – pending shareholder approval – has been sold off to a Los Angeles-based interest: Gores Group.

“So perhaps this creates an opportunity where Pep Boys can finally reconsider what I first presented to them with way back in 2004 – unless politics there right now is as bad as it is here when it comes to going forward with the hydrogen economy. I’m certainly hoping that’s not the case and that this presents a new opportunity where the idea I first had way back in 2004 can be considered once more.

“In any event, I thought I should pass this news onto you since you’re based there, and Pep Boys is soon to be.”

Please take me seriously since I am. I am a retired electrical engineer. I began my career I as a technician at Bell Telephone Laboratories. I worked there from 1967 through 1970. I then went to Wescom (now Rockwell company) and worked there from 1970-1978 were I was promoted to design engineer, and finally a supervisor of analog interface design. I co-founded my own company started in 1978 namely Televation Telecommunication Systems, Inc. I sold my half of that business to my business partner in 1998 and retired to play with antique cars.

During my career I was granted 9 patents in the areas of power conversion using switch-mode power supplies, analog to digital conversion circuits and telephone interface circuits. I invented a transformerless telephone interface hybrid circuit that was patented by Wescom and was a significant piece of original thinking. 8 more patents followed with some in partnership with others.

I am known as a “think outside the box” kind of engineer and since retiring I have designed about 75 products for the antique automotive market place and have a company called “Fun Projects, Inc.” that makes reproduction parts for Model T Fords. I got my ham radio license in 1959 at age 15. I now use high tech to make low tech just for fun. I have built five 1/2 scale model electric model T Fords for my children back in the early 1970′s who are now grown. Those cars would go about 25 miles on a charge so about the same as present day battery operated “all electric” vehicles.

They used PWM type switchmode speed controls and were as efficient as any present day electric battery car. I see no future in that direction and I am distressed that the local clubs and other people think that a lead acid battery powered “golf cart” is the future. I see it totally differently and have followed at a distance the Honda Clarity and fuel cell vehicles and see THOSE as being the way to go for sure. I want to get involved in this enterprise in whatever way I can. I am 68 years old and am kinda looked at as the “grey beard” guy on electrical automotive stuff on antique cars.

My company is licensed by Ford Motor Company to put the Ford Script on things I make so I am not a newbie to totally original design ideas. I live on them. I have an idea of how you might make a big splash in publicity for free by going in a direction that might not seem obvious. I have even been called up by Jay Leno to help him fix his Model T Ford. He also called me back to thank me when my idea turned out to be what in fact was wrong with his antique T Model Ford. He is a genuinely nice man. We are NOT personal friends but I do have his personal phone number to call ha ha.

I STRONGLY feel that the fuel cell car is what our country should be investing in and that other hybrid cars are NOT stepping stones to that direction but will do what other hybrids have done in other markets and that is to delay the entry of the “real” technology that we need. I am not afraid to address a room full of people who think I am wrong because I am NOT wrong that electric battery power cars are NOT the way to go. We have been waiting for a “breakthrough” in batteries for over 109 years (1902 Waverly Electric car has about the same range as the Chevy Volt without gasoline).

It is time to stop betting on a battery breakthrough and start thinking about using a fuel cell. Maybe I am wrong but I can’t get much support around here from anyone. I was invited to join an electric car club but I frankly looked at what they were doing and see them as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Charging stations every 20 miles per car sold is hardly a practical idea given that copper must be MINED out of the ground and is not as plentiful as Hydrogen in nature.

Some copper for motors yes but a super heavy duty grid to charge up a whole population using electric cars is not a practical idea in my mind and it just moves the pollution to the power company smoke stack.

Unless you have access to Dr. Who’s TARDIS or H. G. Wells’ Time Machine, you’ll have to depend on old texts to envision William Murdoch’s 1784 steam locomotive debut in Britain or Peter Cooper’s Tom Thumb, the first locomotive to run in America.

But if you can afford an air ticket to Asturias, the colorful northern Spanish principality on the Bay of Biscayne, you’ll be able to buy a ticket and ride on the world’s first hydrail train and experience rail history up-close and personal. If I can scrape up the cost of the trip, that’s an experience I wouldn’t miss.

A Taiwan science museum was the first to ride people regularly on fuel cell rail equipment. Japan built and tested two different hydrail trains late in the last decade, though neither was placed in revenue service. That’s a shame; they would have come in handy when the tragic tsunami interrupted grid power and brownouts occasionally stopped trains far inland.

Last November China “successfully launched” a “new energy fuel cell light-rail train” but the English language People’s Daily Online release makes no mention of plans for putting hydrail into revenue service.

But the Spanish meter-gauge train built by FEVE, the national narrow-gauge rail operator that I wrote about on October 10, 2011, will be selling fares to the general public and I hope to be waiting at the head of the ticket window line on Day One.

The last I heard, Day One had not yet been announced. But, given the wide coverage (in Spanish) on the Internet and the RTV España television coverage online, I’ll bet there are enough hydrogen economy disciples in the world to keep FEVE’s Series 3400 tranvía de hidrogeno booked-up with tourists for weeks before the queues get short enough for locals to try out their own historic innovation.

The TV URL is http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/panorama-regional/panorama-regional-23-09-11/1205440/

The hydrolley segment is about seven minutes into the program, with a short teaser at the beginning.

My prediction: the hydrogen train in Spain will usher in a whole new trend in tourism as we hydrailfans begin flocking to such openings wherever they occur around the world.

The DoD has released a study titled, “Beyond Demonstration: A White Paper on the Role of Fuel Cells in the Department of Defense’s Energy Strategy”.

According to the press release, “The DOD assessment validates technological and commercial progress made to date by developers of fuel cell technology, recommending that the U.S. Department of Defense proactively evaluate and acquire fuel cell systems for distributed power generation, backup power, material handling equipment, ground support equipment and unmanned vehicles.”

In the first three of these areas the DoD has let the private sector take the lead on testing of fuel cell powered equipment. On the last, unmanned vehicles, the DoD has done its own independent research.

For distributed power generation, the DoD cites companies like Google, Walmart, Whole Foods, eBay, FirstEnergy, and Toyota leading the charge for successful testing. For backup power, the DoD cites Verizon, Wind Mobile, AT&T Wireless, Motorola, T-Mobile, and Sprint as early adopters to test their fuel cell powered equipment.

For material handling equipment and ground support, the DoD cites Walmart, Coca-Cola, Whole Foods, FedEx, BMW and Sysco as not only early adopters of testing prototypes but also early adopters of buying commercial fuel cell vehicles as I’ve pointed out on my many posts about fuel cell forklifts.

For unmanned vehicles testing the DoD has done a lot of its own work in collaboration with private companies such as Boeing for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) and Adaptive Materials for unmanned ground vehicles.

The U. S. DoD has come to the conclusion after years of either its own testing or following the private sector testing of fuel cells in different applications that fuel cells are now ready for prime time commercialization within the military setting. The DoD has decided that hydrogen fuel cells provide more power, durability, energy and cost savings than other comparable technology.

And as the military starts a widespread rollout of hydrogen fuel cells in many different applications including vehicles and transportation, so will go the American public as well.

With his permission, here are Michael R.’s questions:

I’m curious how much hydrogen is available if landfills are tapped for reformation? Some of the methane landfills produce is burned to produce electricity, how much isn’t? I’d like to see statistics on the carbon footprint of procuring hydrogen by reforming methane compared to the carbon footprint of refining oil and burning the gasoline/diesel.

I’m certain that refining natural gas to procure hydrogen as popular and common as this is not the only way to get hydrogen. Thing is, how much methane is available for this purpose that isn’t currently being used? I don’t think reforming natural gas is a long term solution, but short term this might be a place to start.

Have you heard about Dan Nocera’s invention? He apparently has an electrolyzer design that costs less than $200 to manufacture which can be powered by solar panels. I’m interested in a second opinion on this man and his technology. Is it for real? Will he ever commercialize it? And the question of when comes to mind.

The broad question about hydrogen, has the means of procuring enough hydrogen to power: cars, forklifts, homes, tractors, trucks, etcetera become clear yet? I guess a mix of electrolysis, drilling for hydrogen, reforming natural gas, and possible something I’m not thinking of right now is the answer. Question is, how much reformation of natural gas is possible and needed? With Dan Nocera’s claim that 2/3rds of an Olympic size swimming pool contains enough hydrogen to power the whole entire world, is electrolysis alone, albeit with catalysts, the answer? There are two questions that a hydrogen economy concept raises: question one is how much hydrogen do you need, and question two is how do you procure that amount?

Supply and demand, if a supply of hydrogen adequate to support a hydrogen economy is procured in an environmentally sensible fashion, there should be great demand to use that hydrogen effectively. What side of the chicken and egg problem do you solve first? Do you come up with the hydrogen, or do you come up say a car, fork lift, or stationary fuel cell first?

How feasible is splitting water on the ocean to refuel ships? Is there any new information on laser metal hydride storage of hydrogen?

So, these are Michael R.’s questions. Feel free to chime in with your input. I have my own opinions, but I thought I would put these out to see what the hydrogen community has to say.

HydroKevin: What is your vision for the hydrogen highway system that is just now starting to be built in the UK?

Andrew: My vision for the hydrogen highway system is that it will provide a benchmark for future generations of transport, just as the very first motorways did for the car. It will enable those in close proximity to  test, hire and purchase hydrogen driven vehicles, and those further  afield to witness an inspiring change to the way in which we use and  store energy. Perhaps most importantly, it will prove that hydrogen is a workable solution to diminishing fossil fuel resources and environmental challenges.

HydroKevin: Who do you see as the major players in building the hydrogen highway system?

Andrew: This is an interesting question as it is shaped partly by the way in which the highway system is being funded. One example of this would be the numerous competitions held by the Technology Strategy Board (you can  visit their website at http://www.innovateuk.org/). The light-touch approach with incentives for small and medium sized technology companies is likely to bring some new competitors to the marketplace. Many of these companies are university spin-outs, meaning that they are full of  new ideas and technological innovations that have yet to reach the  mainstream.

I also see a role for the larger energy companies, but I believe that they are likely to come along much later down the line once the initial financial risks have been reduced.

At the moment my shortlist of major players would be:

•Revolve Technologies – because of their ability to retrofit existing ICE vehicles

•ITM Power – because of their revolutionary HFuel unit and the reduced cost of producing hydrogen

•Air Products – because they already have a foot-hold in a number of Hydrogen projects in the UK. These include developing the hydrogen refueling infrastructure for London buses and the refueling station at Loughborough University

•Glamorgan University – because they are next to the M4 and are already investing in a hydrogen engine test facility.

HydroKevin: What is your website’s goal in delivering this news to the United Kingdom and the rest of the world?

Andrew: My website’s goal is to inspire people about how hydrogen can be used in the real world to solve many of our fuel and energy storage problems. By providing a centralised point for contacts, information and resources in the UK I hope that people will come together and promote hydrogen on a wider scale.



Unfortunately, Mr. Freeman had been frustrated with the lack of enthusiasm from politicians and other decision makers in Minnesota, so he had decided to move on and start life anew in Colorado. Yet, Mr. Freeman still has many good ideas for how we need to jump start the American public and go full steam ahead with getting the word out about the merits of hydrogen cars.

Here is what Mr. Freeman has to say:

“I still believe more than ever that electrifying the automobile, and all engines for that matter, is the future and that man-made batteries are really bad. I also believe that most supporters of hydrogen are not using the right way (stories) to sell the concept to the American people. I believe we need to tell different kinds of stories,

“The first story is a love story. It is the story of water. The basis of all life on this beautiful blue planet is water and even more specifically the atomic bond between hydrogen and oxygen is the basis of all life on this planet. It is through this intense love of a atomic bond for each other that God created us. It is that love, that everlasting bond that we can tap to power our future. You take water, you split it apart and it madly wants to recombine into the magic elixir I believe there is magic in that bond and that we can learn the secrets of that bond. Think of the computer revolution, Everything is based on off/on, 1′s and zeros. That simplistic concept has powered a revolution. I believe the same holds true for an energy revolution based on together/apart, together/apart.

“The second story is a gas station in every garage, just as a computer in every home, a worldwide phone in every hand. Every American home already has the 2 ingredients needed to assert control of their energy lives, cheap water and cheap electricity and even more importantly wasted water and wasted electricity. What they are missing is a new appliance. An electrolyizer / hydrogen refueler. Think of the combined GNP of all the oil companies in the world. An energy revolution based on hydrogen and natural electricity slowly moves that GNP from the few to the many. A new approach to energy empowers the individual, just as the information revolution has empowered the individual. Hydrogen based electrical storage from a green decentralized grid creates the opportunity to make everyone energy rich. To move past limitations of geographical oil wealth to the energy abundance of the universe.

“The third story is about financing. The great economic meltdown was at its core about bad financing. The wealthy had tried to create new methods of financing that increased the flow of money to them. A new financing is based on creating new buying tools for the middle class that redirects existing money they are already spending and use it to pay for their long term energy independence. Americans watched for months as raw crude poured into the gulf and I ask how can I get my share of BP. Not as an investor but how can I get my share of their assets. How can I move energy production assets from them to me. How can I become energy rich. Financing the buying power is key. Look at every industry in America. Aren’t they all constantly coming up ways to buy more of their products thru financing tools. Creating financing packages for individuals and cities and counties and states to buy fuel cell cars, refuelers, and smart grid upgrades.

“The fourth story is about how the story of America is in the story of how we make our goods and services. It is what we create that counts. I believe in taxing externalities instead of income. In other words taxing problems to pay for solutions. Example is the gulf oil mess. Oil for gasoline obviously has other costs to it besides extraction, refining, and transporting. Those cost passed onto society subsidize the status quo. Only by taxing those types of problems to recapture those costs and then invest the tax revenues in other types of energy production by creating financing packages for the consumer. I’m not explaining this well.

“The last story is the kind of story you’re telling, success stories. Look at all the great stuff that people have created. We have the solutions, what we lack is a coherent market response.”

So, Dr. Roger E. Billings has popped up on my radar once again, because I see that he had put up a new blog a couple of days ago and made a first post concerning how we can go forward with the practical commercialization of hydrogen.

According to Dr. Billings he had the $3 billion in financing he was looking for to put up a skeletal hydrogen fueling infrastructure. The only problem was that the financiers were foreign oil interests.

Besides helping to clean up the environment one of the other major reasons to go to hydrogen is for the sake of energy independence so that we don’t have to be reliant on Libya, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or any other foreign nation for our energy needs.

So, Dr. Billings is looking for domestic financing including political will at this point. With the Obama Administration and the Secretary of Energy wanting to slash the federal hydrogen budget by 40-percent, this will be a tough row to hoe.

But the revolutions and unrest in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Croatia may give the President pause to get his paws off the hydrogen solution. If private financing can be found to get this H2 project off the ground, then commercialization will be around the next corner. How does this sound? Profound?

After seeing the movie trailers from the documentary Gasland about hydraulic fracturing used in the natural gas wells and the concern over one of the biggest targets of Marcellus Shale drilling being Northeastern Pennsylvania, Stephen decided to write me a series of emails outlining his concerns.

Here is an excerpt of those emails:

“I’m just writing you today to thank you for keeping the hydrogen economy cause going strong. Since the last time we spoke, two new glaring issues have surfaced that should make the push to put a hydrogen economy in place throughout this country and the world all the more compelling. One has been the recent massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and echoed by one similar in China, and the other is all the current controversy surrounding natural gas exploration, its downsides particularly accented by the not-so-long-ago documentary, Gasland …

“I think the general public now is in a state of mind that while I think they would like to see a switchover to a hydrogen economy, what good is this want on their part if our government’s not willing to support it? That said, I wonder how much the government officials in the Gulf States are aware of hydrogen’s potential? For they certainly have a motive to get behind it now if they didn’t before …

“As a regular everyday U.S. citizen, I discuss hydrogen’s potential with people I meet at every turn. But unfortunately, as I’ve pretty much learned the hard way, a regular everyday U.S. citizen’s voice these days can only carry so far. I compare the dilemma to that Joni Mitchell song, “For Free.” If credibility is to be had, people want to see hydrogen’s potential presented in a totally professional manner, that is, with an actual show of what’s being talked about to back up the pitch. Otherwise, it amounts to interesting conversation, but really none other than that. And this for a technology that from my understanding has pretty much been proven since Francois Rivaz patented the first internal combustion engine automobile in 1809. That is, how can we get that tortoise to run just a little bit faster?”

Stephen W. also writes to his local Senator, “I am writing to you today out of grave concern for the natural gas exploration that is being proposed for our state in the portions of it that are part of the Marcellus Shale Formation. This Associated Press article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer for Monday, August 16, 2010 – I find to be extremely disturbing. Particularly if the recent documentary Gasland, about the horrific downsides of hydraulic fracturing, is to be believed.”

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens wants to replace drilling for oil with drilling for natural gas but is this really the answer? Getting off our dependence of foreign fossil fuels is one step. But as the BP Oil Spill has taught us and perhaps the contaminated drinking water from hydraulic fracturing of native natural gas reserves, the answer is to get away from fossil fuels altogether.

Is hydrogen the answer? Most likely it is one of the answers including solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other alternative energy and alternative fuel options. We need to voraciously pursue the alternatives with government, alternative energy companies and a grassroots movement in order to make sure another fossil fuel disaster is averted in this country and that we have clean energy for the future. The future starts now, so let’s use our voices and keep pushing the hydrogen message forward among the largely uninformed public and government officials. As public support grows so will the pressure to do the right thing.

This is not like other books about hydrogen that serve as primers to the newly informed public. This is a more in-depth look at how to create hydrogen renewable and why fuel cell cars make sense.

Right now, according to Evers 45 million tons of hydrogen is produced each year generating sales worth around $28 billion USD. Most of this is used in the refinement of crude oil into gasoline. Ninety-six percent of the hydrogen production in the world involves the steam reformation of natural gas, which itself is not as clean as using renewable energy.

Evers talks about Germany company ENERTRAG which is the world’s largest independent renewable energy only utility using wind (400 turbines), solar and hydrogen to produce one billion kWh of electricity annually which is enough to power one million homes.

But critics to a hydrogen produced via brute force electrolysis often point out that the inefficiencies of this process. They say, why not use the electricity from solar panels and wind turbines and store it in traditional or leading edge batteries?

Mr. Evers also says there is a better way to produce hydrogen from renewable energy without using electricity. He advocates for processes like photoelectrochemical hydrogen, biological photolytic hydrogen, and conversion of biomass and wastes into hydrogen. Mr. Evers even talks about solar thermal water splitting as a more efficient method of creating hydrogen.

But the top solution that his book advocates for is direct solar hydrogen production. Evers mentions the Hydrosol project as exciting new technology in this field. According to the Hydrosol website, “… the participating research team has developed an innovative solar reactor for the production of hydrogen from the splitting of steam using solar energy, constructed from special refractory ceramic thin-wall, multi-channeled (honeycomb) monoliths optimized to absorb solar radiation and coated with highly active oxygen ‘trapping’/water-splitting materials (based on doped oxides exhibiting redox behavior).

“The ‘proof-of-concept’ of the technology has been demonstrated beyond any doubt in a pilot scale solar reactor designed, built and operating at the DLR solar furnace facility in Cologne (Germany), continuously producing ‘solar hydrogen’”.

This direct solar to hydrogen production can be used in power plants or the hydrogen can be sold and piped to various fueling stations local to the plant to be used in fuel cell cars.

The book can be found on Amazon.com and more information and Mr. Evers and his theories can be found on the Hydrogen Ambassadors website.