Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a prototype of a hydrogen fueling station for your garage. It's about the size of a filing cabinet and runs on electricity generated by standard-issue rooftop solar panels.
The first version of the home fueling station produces enough hydrogen to give your car a range of some 100 miles without giving off a single molecule of planet-warming gas. "You don't need a hydrogen infrastructure to introduce the hydrogen economy," says Sukhvinder Badwal, a veteran fuel-cell scientist leading the project at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
The solar-fired fuel-station-in-a-box leapfrogs two big obstacles to the much-hyped hydrogen economy. One is the multibillion-dollar expense of building national networks of pipelines and fuel stations to replace the corner Chevron.
The other is the fact that today most hydrogen is produced by burning fossil fuel to create hydrogen gas - not exactly a clean and green process. The home hydrogen fuel station solves those problems in one package that Badwal hopes will ultimately sell for about $500.
So I guess Anne is right – maybe I am becoming an ecosexual.
