Archives: Political Issues

Yesterday, President Obama signed into law the Manufacturing Enhancement Act of 2010. He says he wants to spur the growth of manufacturing jobs inside the U. S. and in particular clean energy jobs. According to President Obama’s speech before signing, “The extraordinary growth we’ve seen in the clean energy sector is due first and foremost • Read More »

The U. S. Congress once again wants to give U. S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu millions of dollars for hydrogen car research and development and the former Nobel Prize winner doesn’t want any of it. Energy Secretary Chu calls hydrogen fuel cell cars impractical. I had talked about a similar debate between the U. S. • Read More »

On June 28, 2010 I had talked about how New York U. S. Senator Charles E. Schumer was fighting President Obama’s proposed $37 million cut from the DOE’s hydrogen research budget. This comes a little more than a year after President Obama proposed cutting $100 million from the hydrogen research budget including zeroing out the • Read More »

United States’ Independence Day will be celebrated this coming Sunday, July 4, 2010. Two days ahead of schedule, the CEO of Cypress Semiconductor will make a “Declaration of Energy Independence” from the public utility grid using fuel cell technology. The Cypress campus headquarters in San Jose, California is turning to Bloom Energy fuel cells along • Read More »

In May 2009, the Obama administration ordered the Department of Energy to slash the hydrogen car research budget by 60-percent. Cooler heads in Congress prevailed and were able to restore much of the budget. A lot of the credit at that time went to U. S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) who oversees the Senate Energy • Read More »

Today, a little reported initiative happened at the White House. President Barack Obama has changed his stance on battery electric vehicles and has signed the “Nationwide Hydrogen Highway Initiative” into law. The new initiative will mandate that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Department of Energy (DOE) build up to 200,000 hydrogen fueling stations nationwide, • Read More »

Getting hydrogen cars on the road in mass quantities has been no easy task. There have been many bumps in the road, so to speak, along the way and this trend will continue. Even though hydrogen cars have been around for a couple hundred years now, preceding the gasoline engine, people and governments seem to • Read More »

Back in May 2009, I had talked about how the head of the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Steven Chu wanted to zero out the budget for hydrogen car development. In the weeks and months to follow Congressional representatives restored this funding. And amidst slumping car sales all major automakers have said they will • Read More »

While the critics keep kicking hydrogen cars to the curb, the funding continues nonetheless. This week the U. S. House of Representatives passed a $2.9 billion bill for advanced automotive research, some of which will go to hydrogen car R&D. On July 20, 2009 (and before) I had talked about how DOE Energy Secretary Steven • Read More »