Well, another efficient use of the taxpayers money. And a wise allocation of precious limited R&D dollars.

For What?

To develop an inefficient and thoroughly unproductive method of transport, the FCEV, if ever achieved, leaves you even more dependent on fossil fuels to make the hydrogen, than you were the day before. Or force mega millions of further development into dangerous dead-end Gen IV breeder reactors to obtain temperatures high enough to electrolyze water semi-efficiently.

Isn't it amazing what you can justify to spend money on, when it isn't your money. And as a governmental organization, what you do, doesn't really have to lead anywhere.

Meanwhile you can sound, oh so concerned. It is just political posturing, from people who really seem to believe that all that is required is the politically correct posture. Accomplishment is irrelevant.

A Billion plus dollars poured down a rathole...

Surprise, surprise, the nuclear and natural gas lobbies can get their way anywhere in the world. Corporate welfare is alive and well.

Ironic really, when you consider that they would benefit just as much from expanded incentives for CNG vehicles and HEV/PHEV/BEV options.

This is further proof that the European community is a total failure and waste of money. Hydrogen as fuel is less efficient than traditional fuels. Hydrogen is only an energy carrier, and converting other energy forms into hydrogen (then converting hydrogen into motion energy or other energy forms) is very very inefficient, lots of energy is wasted during these conversions.

The european community steals from the poor and gives to the rich, because this programme only benefits the incredibly wealthy energy barons.

Suppose this big sum of money was spend on developing better battery technology, better solar cell technology, and improved electricity infrastructure, then who needs expensive/inefficient hydrogen and and a very expensive and dangerous hydrogen infrastructure? We already have an efficient electricity infrastructure!

The same can be said about the ITER project (European nuclear fusion project) : it is a Tokamak style reactor, while Russian scientists already proved that commercial fusion energy by means of Tokamak reactors is not possible.

But if nothing is ever spent on hydrogen development, will we ever get there at all? It's €470 million spread across the entire EU. The war in Iraq has cost the US in the hundreds of billions of dollars. I find it hard to consider this an irresponsible investment unless has been designed to produce no results.

At the moment, hydrogen is a rather inefficient energy source, but let's put the figures right.

If high-temperature electrolysis (or other ways of H2 production) is performed at industrial scale, the efficiency becomes very high. The hydrogen can be transported much like natural gass over the whole of europe (at the moment, there is already a lot of hydrogen infrastructure, but only between industries, not to end-users). If ( I should say when) high-efficient, cheap, high-volume production of hydrogen will be available, many things can be done : production of fertiliser (which is at the moment made from natural gas), production of biofuels with much less biomass, producing metals without CO2-production, ...
It's very easy to say we don't need it, but just calculate how much petajoules we will need to power the TOTAL economy (not only electricity), and show the alternative. It is simply not feasible, unless you transform the planet to one big biomass-production-facility.

Anyhow, I still don't see the problem of the 'money'. I repeat: not even 2 euro/european is completely nothing.
If there is only a 1% chance that it will solve 1% of our energy problem, it's already worth it.

Apart of the ecological advantages, being completely energy-independent will have enormous economic and security advantages. There are not many possibilities to spend money in a better way.

@Koen,

The International Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor is most definitely NOT a dead end boondoggle of any sort. Otherwise all the World's powers including the big undeveloped countries, China, India and Brazil, would not have rushed to join the re-invigorated and re-constructed worldwide research consortium, that is building and paying for ITER.

In this field, I think I am fully qualified to assess the state of Fusion technology, as any posters here, having worked at PPL in the early 80s, even if not directly in the Plasma Physics area.

ITER is the last scientific experiment, but it is also the first engineering exercise in designing inexhaustible clean fusion power plants. Fusion, available long term (i.e. post 2030), provides all the energy that all of Mankind needs to provide wealthy western lifestyles to everyone on and off the Planet.

The now assured availability of Fusion, makes the use of GEN III+ nuclear plants acceptable, a one more generation and done exercise, and complimentary technology. It also assures that there will be no need to design and develop fast reactors, GEN IV breeders, that many don't want to ever occur, including myself.

Gen IV plants safety margins will never be able to achieve the inherent safety margins of even Gen II and early GEN III LWRs, the presently running reactors, and certainly not within three orders of magnitudes of the even safer, more passive GEN III+ advanced reactor Designs, now being purchased.

It also assures that there is a solution to the radioactive waste problem; since the volume of such waste is now predictable, capped, and acceptable.

Fusion is no longer a question of IF; but with ITER being built, it is merely a question of WHEN.

Official plans say Fusion enters the scene widely in 2050; but the DOE has plans for exploiting a Fusion breakout by the 2030s. The two lost decades from, 2030 till 2050, were to be devoted to Materials Research, by scientists, seeking more research money, rather than engineers wanting to get on with the main issue, meeting Power generation needs for humanity.

So these potentially lost decades, are not really a question of Fusion reactor issues, the last questions are already answered. ITER, as presently constituted, is no longer much of an scientific experiment. It merely confirms the answers, painstakingly deduced with inferior equipment for experiments, since the early 1990s.

A cabal of tree-huggers and greedy politicians seeking earmark money, succeeded in killing the ITER in the rudderless Clinton era. That delayed Fusion by a Decade and half, and slowed but did not stop Fusion progress.

Some enviros wanted to force more "demonstrations" of windmills and solar energy un-solutions. The World as a whole has now returned to reality, with adults in charge.

The demonstrations, so stupidly funded, still proved that windmills and solar were no more economic, post demonstrations, than prior to the demonstration expenditures. Twenty years later, and many, many more "demonstrations" later, all the renewable plants of whatever type, collectively produce less that 1 quad of the 80+ quads of energy that Mankind uses annually.

There is now a realistic Energy policy that has actually solved the Energy problem for Mankind, both interim and longterm,even if many do not know of it. Short term, for the next 7-10 years, we will have to muddle through, since attempts at supply increases have been throttled.
In the interim term, from 2012-2030, we will solve Energy needs with the substitution of electrified autos, and Gen III+ electric power generation.
In the longterm, Fusion will replace these Plants and prevent the need for GEN IV Breeders, with truly clean and inexhaustible energy.

Fusion is proven scientifically; it is proven technically; it is not yet proven commercially. It still must be engineered into Power Plants that are reliable and cost effective.

That is as tough a job as engineering a better electrified vehicle. But even though neither is available yet, does all you knowledgeable posters here really doubt that the electrified auto is coming? I am similarly sure that Fusion is coming and certain.

It does not require any more scientific breakthroughs. Back in the 1970s these breakthroughs were still needed to be able to predict adequate novel batteries, to power fleets of Electrified autos. Similarly, breakthroughs were needed to provide solutions to the last few plasma instabilities encountered. Since then, these instabilities are now understood, and controlled. These last of these scientific problems, were solved and now allow the relatively straightforward engineering of Fusion electric generation plants.

Fusion already generates lots of power; 17 megawatts in current experiments, more than any solar or windmill installation in the World. It needs scale up, and ITER is it. ITER will generate as much as 700 Megawatts thermal, confirm all the solutions pieced together at various laboratories worldwide, in one place; and up scaled to appropriate power plant generation size.

The Government researchers, true to form, always want another Study. They want to create a boondoggle to study and research materials to make residual radioactivity almost nonexistent, for a couple of decades. That is nice, but we already know how to address that problem, even today.

Silicon Carbide is a fine and superior First wall material; and plunging fabrication costs for such materials make it economical to use even now, unlike in the early 1980s when the ITER and Fsuion research track was defined. It is even feasible to use synthetic Diamond thin films as the First surface, simplifying reactor "training". A Fusion Tokamak constructed with such first walls, would be non hazardous in radioactivity in as short as a several months after last operation.

The future is actually going to be solar hydrogen! It is easy to do and very easy to transport around the world, even under the oceans. We certainly wont be needing hydrogen cars. The solar powered hydrogen will generate FREE electricity to our homes. You will then only have to plug your super efficient electric car into the mains and hey presto, drive off in the morning. Lets just keep it simple stupid and we could have all this underway in no time!!