[A-List] Hydrogen power or hot air?

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

This one goes out specially for Mark Jones who I know will love reading
this...


The US must follow Europe's lead and turn its back on oil

The rise of hydrogen power makes energy regime change inevitable

Jeremy Rifkin
Thursday October 10, 2002
The Guardian

This week, the world got a glimpse into the future when General Motors
unveiled its revolutionary new Hy-wire car at the Paris motor show. GM's
automobile is run on hydrogen, the most basic and lightest element in the
universe. When burned, it only emits pure water and heat.

The automobile itself is built on a fuel-cell chassis that lasts for 20
years. Customers can snap on any model they want. There is no conventional
steering wheel, no pedals, brakes or engine - the car is steered with a
joystick. It is a car for the dotcom generation. While GM financed the car,
what is particularly interesting is that much of the engineering, design and
software were developed in Europe. The GM car marks the beginning of the end
of the internal combustion engine and the shift from an oil-based
civilisation to a hydrogen age. Its debut in Europe also speaks to a great
change taking place in the way Europe and America view the future.

The EU and the US are beginning to diverge in the most basic aspect of how a
society is organised: its energy regime. Nowhere was this emerging reality
more apparent than in Johannesburg, at the world summit, when the EU pushed
for a target of 15% renewable energy by the year 2010 for the whole world
while the US fought the initiative. The EU has already set its own internal
target of 22% renewable energy for the generation of electricity and 12% of
all energy coming from renewable sources by 2010.

The difference in approach to the future of energy couldn't be more stark.
While the EU is beginning to mobilise its industrial sector, research
institutes and the public to the task of making an historic transition out
of carbon-based fossil fuels and into renewable resources and a hydrogen
future, the US is pursuing an increasingly desperate search to secure access
to oil. President Bush's almost fanatical obsession with opening up the
pristine wildlife refuge in Alaska for oil drilling, despite the fact that
even the most optimistic estimates conclude that the oil there will only
provide a mere 1% to total global production, is a case in point. Now the
president seems determined to invade Iraq. The ostensible reason is that
Saddam Hussein may be harbouring weapons of mass destruction, posing a
serious security threat to its neighbours and the rest of the world. He may
well be right. Still, there is a powerful sub-theme making its way in
political circles that the White House is certainly mindful of. That is,
Iraq contains the second largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi
Arabia. If a US invasion were to "liberate the oil fields", the US would
enjoy a new strategic position of influence in the oil-rich Persian gulf and
provide a counterpoise to Saudi influence in the region.

Meanwhile, just in case the White House's Middle East strategy backfires,
President Bush convened a high-level meeting in Houston last week to work
out the details of an earlier May agreement with President Putin of Russia
to secure oil from Siberia. Of course, what is left unsaid in the euphoria
around finding a possible substitute for Persian gulf oil is that Russia's
remaining oil reserves are less than half that of Saudi Arabia, and the
Russian reserves are depleting quickly as its oil companies flood the world
market.

What is becoming clear is that while the EU is looking to the future, the US
is desperately holding on to the past. The world is moving into the sunset
era of the great fossil-fuel culture that began with the harnessing of coal
and steam power more than 200 years ago. Granted, the world's leading
petro-geologists disagree about exactly when global production of oil will
peak. That is the point where half the known oil reserves and projected oil
yet to be discovered are used up. After that point, the price of oil on
world markets steadily rises as oil production moves down the classic
bell-shaped curve. The Cassandras say that peak production is likely to
occur as early as the end of this decade, but probably no later than 2020,
while the optimists say that global peak production won't occur until around
2040. What is most striking, however, is how little time difference
separates the two camps - only 20 to 30 years. What they both agree on is
that once global oil production does peak, two-thirds of the remaining oil
reserves will be in the Middle East, the most politically unstable and
volatile region of the world. What this means is that countries still
dependent on oil will be locked into a fierce geopolitical struggle to
maintain access to the remaining oil fields of the Middle East, with all of
the grave risks and consequences that accompany that sober reality.

The difference in perspective between Europe and America on this score is
reflected in the attitudes of the world's giant energy companies. The
European-based energy giants, British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell, have
made a long-term commitment to making the transition out of fossil fuels and
are spending large amounts of money on renewable technologies and hydrogen
research and development. BP's new slogan is "Beyond Petroleum" and Philip
Watts, chairman of the committee of managing directors of the Royal
Dutch/Shell Group, has stated publicly that his company is preparing for the
end of the hydrocarbon age and is actively exploring the promise of the
hydrogen economy. By contrast, the American energy company, Exxon Mobil, has
remained steadfast in its long-term commitment to fossil fuels with little
effort being expended on renewables and the exploration of hydrogen-based
research development.

The EU is now in a unique position to lay claim to the future by becoming
the first superpower to make the long-term shift out of carbon-based fuels
and into a hydrogen era. A change in energy regimes of this magnitude over
the course of the next half century is likely to have as profound an impact
on human society as the harnessing of coal and steam power more than three
centuries ago. The fossil-fuel era forever changed our living patterns, our
notion of commerce and governance, and the values we live by. So too will
the coming hydrogen economy.

At some point, the reality is going to set in that Europe is heading into a
new energy future. When that happens, the ripple effect could cross the pond
like a great tsunami - forcing the US to rethink its own energy future. The
last time the US was awakened from its somnambulance was 1957 when the
Russians sent their first satellite into outer space. Caught by surprise, it
mobilised every corner of American society to the task of catching up and
surpassing the Russians. Maybe it's time for another jolt.

· Jeremy Rifkin is the author of The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the
World Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth (Polity
Press, 2002).