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Automobiles Of Tomorrow
LIVERMORE, CA (AP) - General Motors Corp. gave a progress report on the company’s
efforts to create automobiles of tomorrow by promoting a hydrogen fuel cell technology,
a goal that continues to be fraught with problems.
The world’s largest automaker is working with government scientists at
Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore to develop new methods for storing
hydrogen fuel - one of the biggest challenges to bringing hydrogen-powered
vehicles to
the market.
“We’re looking to literally reinvent the automobile,” said
Larry Burns, GM’s vice president for research, development and planning.
Burns spoke with journalists during a tour of Sandia’s research facility
in Livermore, about 50 miles east of San Francisco. The national lab, which
develops nuclear weapons and military technology for the federal government,
has several
decades of experience working on hydrogen storage.
Widespread use of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could reduce U.S. dependence
on foreign oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions, backers say. But the technology
faces many challenges, including high costs and the lack of infrastructure
such
as a network of hydrogen fueling stations.
In recent years, GM has been one of the auto industry’s most vocal
champions of hydrogen fuel cells, which generate electricity from a chemical
reaction
between hydrogen and oxygen and release only water as waste.
But environmentalists have criticized the automaker for putting so much emphasis
on fuel cell vehicles, which are still years away from the marketplace. They
say GM should instead focus more on increasing the fuel efficiency of their
cars and trucks to cut petroleum consumption and reduce air pollution.
“Hydrogen fuel cells are wonderful technology for the future, but they’re
not going to do anything in the next 20 to 30 years,” said David Friedman
of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmentally oriented group.
By sharing its latest research efforts, GM officials hope to demonstrate
that the company is making progress on the key technological challenge of storing
hydrogen, a low-density gas that must be converted into a denser form to be
stored on-board a vehicle.
“We really think we’ve made great progress,” Burns said. “But
there are still a lot of great challenges, technological and engineering wise
ahead of us.”
Friedman said GM should be commended for its work with universities, the
government and others on transporting and storing hydrogen, some of the key
barriers to
getting fuel cell vehicles on the road. For years, he said, automakers have
raced to display fuel cell vehicles as fast as they could develop them, but
few have
talked about the practical problems of hydrogen as a fuel source.
“GM has been relatively good at pointing to the fact that we need the infrastructure” for
a viable hydrogen vehicle market, Friedman said.
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