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I suspect many people here have already written off hydrogen as a near-term transportation fuel, but I wanted to recommend Joseph J. Romm’s The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate anyway. (Note that I read the 2005 edition of the book.)

A European consortium called The Hydrogen Train concluded a feasibility study last year that looked at demonstrating the first hydrogen-powered train in Europe on a Danish railway. The goal of the project is to launch the first train by 2010

"Our target is to produce a hydrogen fuel-cell car for $50,000 by 2015," says Peter Froeschle, a senior manager at DaimlerChrysler, which has already spent more than €1bn (£675m) developing its fleet of prototypes, " though we don't expect the operation to be profitable until 2020."

7 January 2008—At first blush, you might lump claims about a machine that supposedly turns sunshine, air, and water into fuel in the same category as e-mails insisting that someone in Nigeria will pay you handsomely to help free up a large sum of money. But researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, say they have created a device that can break water into hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight, or in a another reaction convert carbon dioxide, to carbon monoxide that combines with hydrogen to make hydrocarbons such as methanol, ethanol, and even gasoline or diesel fuel. The technology holds the promise of using the same resources as biomass-to-fuel schemes but with potentially greater efficiency, according to the researchers.

All kinds of biodegradable garbage — from sewage to leftover food — could yield valuable hydrogen fuel, an alternative to fossil fuels, with the aid of microbes cultivated in special reactors.

This views electrolysers as a key path for dealing with the intermittency challenge. Again, a great vision, but the financial, infrastructure, and technical challenges must be judged against alternatives.

CSEM, the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, has signed a contract with the government of the Emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah (RAK) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to develop a prototype of a “Solar Island”. The aim of the project is to validate a concept for the large-scale transformation of solar energy into hydrogen and electricity at very low cost. It is funded by 5 mio US$ by the Gouvernment of Ras al Khaimah. The plan is to build large “Solar Islands” floating in the sea. These giant floating islands will be fitted with solar panels which will convert solar energy into electricity and/or hydrogen. A prototype of such a solar island, equipped with thermal solar panels, is to be built and tested in the desert of the United Arab Emirates.

During photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to break water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms and later on the atoms recombine and produce energy. MIT scientists have tried to duplicate this method of plants to store sun’s energy.

The main constituent in Nocera and Kanan’s procedure is a new catalyst that generates oxygen gas from water and another catalyst produces hydrogen gas. The catalysts are cobalt and platinum. These new catalysts work at normal room temperature in neutral pH water and the whole system can be installed easily.

Hydrogen fuel cells may be decades away from widespread use in cars, but later this year, consumers will be able to buy a fuel-cell generator that's light and compact enough to grab off a shelf during a blackout--or even take on a backpacking trip. The 22-­centimeter-tall generator weighs about two kilograms with an unactivated fuel cartridge. Add water, plug in a device, and the system pumps sodium borohydride solution over a catalyst, freeing hydrogen to power the cell.