>Better for the government to more heavily subsidize R&D into the "hydrogen economy" which still requires >a less energy intensive and lower cost (i.e. catalytic) way to make hydrogen on the scale necessary.

You know, this is interesting because, I saw a special on Pat's favorite channel (PBS) a couple of years ago about the state of research on these new technologies in the automotive industry and they seemed to me to be pretty darn far along, so, why would they need government funding ?

I think it was GM that had Hydrogen car ready that looked like a skateboard, the chassis was something like 11" thick and they were shooting to reduce that to 9". The skateboard chassis contained everything the car needed for to make it run and you simply chose the body style you wanted and it is dropped on the universal chasis.

Another Hydro car they showed ran on Hydrogen "cells" that looked like Hockey Pucks.

It was hosted by Alan Alda who got to drive these vehicals which appeared ready, or close to ready for roll out.

So, why do we need to pay a ton of money for R&D ?

Did anyone else see that program ? I know Pat probably did.