Wow - who cares? Why don't they spend their energy on conservation standards; carbon sequestration; solar, wind, thermal and tidal energy promotion; aligning their environmental standards to ensure manufacture of vehicles that meet their standards; tax policy that favors any of the above; or anything else that actually supports their mission, rather than holding hydrogen fantasy camps?

So many knee-jerk CARB haters here. We'd have a lot worse emissions from vehicles without CARB, folks.

dollared,
All what you proposed is being done or looked into. Meanwhile, vehicles need fuel to run, and when petroleum will run out, then alternative fuels will have to substitute.

This is a very fair and realistic way to promote renewable fuels, not just for Hydrogen, but should be done for any other alternative fuels such as ethanol, methane, biodiesel, and even for battery electric as well.

I wonder if any of the authors of 1505 realized that the hydrogen highway is a boondoggle?  Adding a heap of environmental requirements (which are way too loose anyway; we need an 80%+ reduction in CO2 emissions, not 50%) might be a serious proposal, or it might be a way to guarantee that the system is never built and the wasted money, materials and effort are kept to a minimum.

Battery electric cars are closer to viability then fuel cell hydrogen, why is that no the primary focus?

BEV's have been CARB's primary focus since the 1990's. Somehow, that didn't pan out, the GM EV1 was discontinued, and we got the HEV's instead, which gives us AT-PZEV emission status instead of the ZEV that was aimed for, but almost as good. If you use renewable H2 fuel made in the most efficient manner on the most efficient HEV, you'll get comparable source-to-wheel efficiency as a BEV.

Roger,

When all hydrogen is generated by totally renewable energy sources, all hydrocarbons are gone, and the entire hydrogen infrastructure has been created, then hydrogen *might* possibly be as useful as BEVs.

Until then, it is clear that it is a distraction technology used by oil companies, automakers and Republican naysayers to forestall PHEV, Biofuels including biodiesel, and BEVs, all of which are more feasible but carry that horrifying cost of immediate, productive change that gores current oxen.

In other words, environmentalists and alternate energy enthusiasts are useful tools for oil companies, middle eastern despots and car companies. It will take tremendous energy to get our LDV fleet to 35MPG average, even though the technology exists today and is in use throughout the world. It will take enormous political will to get people to use vehicles under 5,000 lbs to go to Costco. It will take even more will to force carbon sequestration and coal plant moratoriums on our mildly corrupt politicians and our thorooughly corrupt utilities.

Focus on hydrogen only saps that energy, wastes time, and is counterproductive.

Dollared,

I agree but the end of cheap oil will sort of force those changes one way or another.

@ Jack -

you're right, if your baseline is ca. 1960. However, going from LEV/SULEV to ZEV today actually makes little difference to air quality/public health in absolute terms yet costs a fortune. Unfortunately, CARB cannot claim the air is for all intents and purposes clean enough because (a) it would immediately be sued by some ambulance chaser and (b) many of its employees would no longer have anything to do. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

The real air quality problem is rooted in decades of poor urban growth management in the LA basin and the Bay Area. Too many cars and trucks on the roads, not enough integrated public transportation, no replacement of antiquated power stations, poor maintenance of home heaters, particulates from sources outside these geographic areas. Cleaner cars alone are not the answer.

Roger Pham writes:

If you use renewable H2 fuel made in the most efficient manner on the most efficient HEV, you'll get comparable source-to-wheel efficiency as a BEV.

Eng-Poet,

You've posted: "BEV: 0.35 thermal efficiency * 62% plant-to-wheel (with LD penalty, multiply by 1.07 to get today's average losses) = 21.7% total.
HTSOC to methane to wheel: 50% heat-to-chem * 80% methanation * 20% vehicle efficiency = 8% total.

All good with the exception that the best of HEV's in the future will be able to achieve >40% tank-to-wheel efficiency, not the lowly 20% that you're assuming. That's what we all can bet on, with HCCI technology now on the horizon, and better Nanotech Lithium battery. So, plug in the 40% HEV efficiency will give you 16% instead of 8%. Not bad.
Now, if you don't have to go the methane route, the efficiency will improve more, 16% / 80% = 20% for HT-SOFC-H2-HEV route. Tada! I did say it was COMPARABLE, not necessarily exactly equal.

dollared,
Even if you compare H2 from fossil fuel (65%-or higher if the heat of steam reformation is recycled to produce electricity) or electricity from fossil fuel at 35-55%, the source-to-wheel efficiency will be comparable, assuming the most efficient ICE-HEV or FC-HEV technology for H2-V.

Why bother to produce H2 from fossil fuel? To clean up the air, for one thing, AND to get technology and infrastructure preparation for the eventual H2 widespread adoption.
It's the "chicken-or-the-egg" thing, and unless we are preparing for H2 adaptation now, it won't be ready in the future when it will be needed the most.

All good with the exception that the best of HEV's in the future will be able to achieve >40% tank-to-wheel efficiency

However, remember that H2 has a very high auto-ignition temperature and also a very high flame speed. This makes HCCI problematic with H2 fuel. Methane has the opposite problem (very low flame speed), and both methane and H2 create issues with volumetric efficiency. Once you've worked around the vagaries of the various chemical fuels, I would not be surprised to learn that you've lost a fair amount of your advantage.

Of course, none of those schemes are going to be as simple and amenable to independent operation as electricity to battery to wheels. One of the things we should be looking at is off-grid capability as a civil defense measure, and only the PHEV can really offer that.