Aren't there alternatives to oil?

John W. Schoen Senior Producer • Profile • E-mail

The relentless rise of gasoline prices has readers asking about a variety of solutions to the problem -- including alternative energy sources. Michael in Virginia thinks it's time for a crash program to convert to a "hydrogen economy." Marian in Arkansas thinks tax breaks for hybrids will help. And Jerry in Washington says it's time to start pumping some of those U.S. oil reserves onto the market.

For more on alternative energy, check our series: After Oil.

WHAT ABOUT HYDROGEN?
You and others continue to say the replacement fuels (e.g., hydrogen) are "decades" away due to costs.  Is it not worth it to subsidize the start-up costs of, say, a hydrogen economy, given the price of the alternative?  Maybe not, but that is the debate we should be having...  Kennedy, after all, spent on the order of $100 billion to beat the Soviets to the moon. Where was the economic incentive there?
     Michael A. – Fairfax, Va.

The economic incentive for going to the moon was to develop all manner of technologies that would produce new materials, processes and products would help give the U.S. economy a shot in the arm. But economics weren't the main reason the U.S. space program got off the ground. In the midst of the Cold War, it was a hugely popular thing to do politically. Among other things, it was designed to scare the Bejeezus out of the Kremlin -- and any other regime that might have harbored a desire to challenge the U.S. militarily. 

Times have changed. Today, every politician alive remembers what happened to Jimmy Carter when he put on a sweater, sat by the fire, and told Americans to turn down the thermostat. In the recent political climate, proposing that people conserve fossil fuels -- let alone consider alternatives -- has largely been a non-starter. (If gas prices keep rising, that may change.)

So far, the best our Congress can come up with is a $14.5 billion energy bill that lavishes tax breaks on oil companies that are already drowning in so much cash they don’t know what to do with it. And then there’s the $286 billion transportation bill, which never met a road project it didn’t like -– including a quarter-billion-dollar bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, (pop. 8,000) to Gravina Island (pop. 50) that will be longer than the Golden Gate Bridge and higher than the Brooklyn Bridge.

But, okay, let’s assume that the money is there to jump start a hydrogen economy, and you were crowned King of America. You fund a Manhattan Project to develop an economically viable process for making hydrogen and the transportation technology needed to replace petroleum. (We’re assuming you’ve already solved the problem of generating the massive amounts of electricity needed to make the hydrogen and figured out how to make a hydrogen airplane.)

Now: how long do you suppose it would take to build an entire fleet of hydrogen-driven cars, trucks and commercial airplanes? Let's assume you already have them: you still need to build a hydrogen distribution system to fuel them -- a project on the order of, say, the U.S. Interstate highway system. With a lot of political support and no significant new technology required, construction of that road network took more than two decades (and counting: see aforementioned Transportation Bill.) So even if the U.S. government could afford it -- on top of the multi-trillion-dollar spending that be required over the coming decades to pay for Social Security and Medicare -- it would still take at least as long to build a hydrogen distribution system.

Even more modest networks have required huge amounts of money, materials, and labor -- all of which takes time. Look at cable television: a "utility" that most American families can no longer do without. It took cable companies 20 years to build out a network to where they could offer universal service. And that involved stringing wires on poles. Same with the mobile phone networks. And they didn't even need to string wires.

Now think in terms of burying tens of thousands of miles of pipeline underground. Or outfitting  over 100,000 gas stations and convenience stores with the tanks and pumping facilities needed to top off your hydrogen car -- which isn't even being manufactured yet by the auto industry.

That's why some people working on the problem think that even "decades" may be an optimistic forecast for the arrival of a hydrogen economy.

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