August 1, 2005
All the auto manufacturers have hydrogen prototypes and all the oil companies - Royal Dutch/Shell, Chevron, and even Exxon Mobil - have hydrogen programmes.
But even with the best will in the world, the hydrogen age is probably more than half a century away. Bjorn Skulason, managing director of Iceland New Energy, a Shell-sponsored project to turn Iceland into a hydrogen-only economy, says: 'It will take at least 40-50 years before you replace everything with hydrogen,' he says.
That means what powers the car of the future may not be hydrogen, as Honda predicts, nor biofuels, nor electricity generated from unsightly wind turbines, but yet more fossil fuels - and dirtier ones at that. The world's never ending need for energy is about to send the global oil companies in search of a whole new barrel of nastier hydrocarbons.
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