I just wish Bush would do more than just talk about it! Why doesn't he raise fuel economy standards appropriately? Why is he fighting California on this issue? It seems to me its all PR...

As it was rightfully noticed, hydrogen is not energy source, but rather energy carrier. And extremely lousy one. It has 6 times less energy per volume even then natural gas, along with other numerous disadvantages. Before solution will be found to refuel car with liquid based hydrogen carrier, (such as methanol), fuel cell car is a pipe dream. Situation with electric car is even worth. It will never work for very simple reason: it is physically impossible in two minutes to pump into car battery amount of electricity your home spend in a week. Wires and connector will melt and battery will explode. No matter what fairy tales are told about “fast charge”, for EV-sized battery it is not possible.

Meanwhile hybrid cars offer real and very substantial advantages. Aside from substantial fuel savings, hybrid drivetrain could be tuned for high performance and comfort. Equipped with CV transmission, gasoline direct injection engine working on optimized Atkinson cycle, and in near future running lean mixture with NOx adsorber cat (technology on a brink of commercialization), family sedan with good performance, near zero toxic emissions, and close to 100 mpg fuel efficiency is clearly on the horizon. As a bonus, such hybrid is inherently suitable to plug-in option allowing recharge at night and driving first 40 miles on electricity without performance sacrifice. Fuel also could be quite flexible – propane, mix of ethanol/methanol/gasoline, natural gas, etc.

I do not believe that such global problem as personal transportation could be solved by one ultimate technology. So lets keep all options open.

You hit it right on the nail, Paul. It's rather interesting how leftists have a "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" policy. If Bush pursues alternative energy, he is wasting time or lying. If he doesn't, he's in Big Oil's pocket.

Stepping off the soapbox, Dubya has the right idea. We are going to have to do something for the inevitable day the oil runs out and at least his proposals are an idea as opposed to those who simply whine and offer no solution.

Good point gerald. I have been doing just that. Since they have no idea what I'm talking about, I get back a generic form letter that profusely thanks me for writing but doesn't say why.

One of our solutions for the situation we find ourselves in would be, to not to return a single incumbent next November, but we all know that won't happen.

Another solution would be a constitutional amendment, limiting every politician to one term in office.

That's most likely to happen when Pigs learn to fly.

Mr. Bush, here is a simple, short term fix:

Low range, plug-in (lithium ion or even NiMH) flex fuel hybrids....Period

I would fill up with gas twice a year if this were available.

Research on hydrogen is fine, but let's quit talking about how it has any relevance to to today's gas prices or much relevance at all for at least twenty years. Bush likes to talk about the future because he doesn't want to do anything about the present. The fact is that vehicles were getting better mileage twenty years ago than they are now. We didn't hear a peep about raising CAFE standards or doing anything else to encourage conservation now.

Notice that we have a bunch of poorly funded programs and that we continue to piss away our heritage and our future on war. Bush has no plans to withdraw troops or do something about our bloated defense budget. Most of the job growth during the Bush years have been the result of defense spending. We only have so much intellectual capital and piss it away on this stupid war and not energy alternatives.

Bush cut the budget for increasing energy efficiency within the government. Good move!

Notice that Bush, and no politician for that matter, will come out and actually set a goal for reduction of oil use and overall energy use. Once you set a goal, then you need to come up with a specific strategy to reach that goal. All this general talk about ethanol and hydrogen will get us nowhere.

In the spirit of nonpartisanship, I will say that the Democrats are not much better in this area. They, like Bush, will only talk about solutions that are seemingly pain free. They rail against high prices, when that's what we need unless we're willing to impose some sort of market based rationing system. Americans won't stand for higher gas taxes or rationing, so they are just going to have to live with high prices wherein most of our dollars go overseas.

Oil will be rationed, one way or another. It will be rationed through the market system, the tax system, or some other system.

If we need E10 and E85, WHY DON'T WE MANDATE IT?

So Bush burned 116 tons of JetA and what do we get, a lot of hot air and a country deeper in debt.

Stop criticizing my hero!!

If Bush wants a way to promote ethanol and reduce fuel costs, why doesn't he just drop the $.54 a gallon tariff on ethanol? We could be importing from Brazil and other tropical nations for a lot less than the $3.00 a gallon for gasoline that we are paying now.

Its not energy independence but it is a lot better then sending our money to Saudi Arabia.

The tariff on ethanol would probably be traced to a corn state senator not adolph Bushler.The president could be naive could be wrong but he is not the epitomy of evil represented in the marxist dissertation previous to this post.The game is played between the two parties.They tend to forget to be agents for the good of the nation and instead war agaist each other.We need to play our role in prodding them to come to necessary compromise.neither side has grasped the keys to eternal enlightenment.We can appeal to the enlightened self interest of reps.Clean coal tech appeals to coal states.Ethanol and biodiesel to farm states.Photovoltaic and other high tech answers to high tech states.Lets encourage a basket of American technologies to produce Americas energy giving Americans jobs.Energy security,cleaner energy,and economic opportunity is knocking.We can answer the door together or trample each other to death in our scramble there.

I am material engineer and I work with MIT scientists on new battery technology. All of you must know that fuell cell tech is not the answer and that it will take many [decades] years to even see any serious and commercially viable FC use. And to the contrary to some posters here that mention the lack of relaibility of pure [battery powered] EVs or even Hibryd EV/EV, you must know that very soon a 60 second+/- battery with a 300% increase in power storage capacity will be available to be fitted on highway-legal pure EVs.
We know of a new EV company that is already in the final stages of testing of beautiful {I was on a engineering team that helped them with battery technology] new Evs that will be intorduced to the US market in a year or so.

Bush and his cohorts are not the answer for the future.
Dems might do the exact same [wrong] thing if we Americans don't act upon it and make them change the view and the policy of oil dependency.
Why is not the Green party taking more votes and a stronger share in the political arena if they are the party of environment and future???

The ever biggest problem with this country is that there are ONLY two political parties that pretty much act the same way and that will cripple the US one way or the other.

Fred!!
PhD