What emits no carbon, stores electric energy from renewable sources, and makes engines run fast and powerfully? Hint: the Universe is mostly made of it (so it should be cheap).
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00:00Officer Tom McClockery is a cop on the beat, patrolling downtown Columbia, South Carolina,
00:18working to keep the streets safe.
00:19And though these days it's not so unusual to see police on Segways, this one is different.
00:26It's a hydrogen hybrid.
00:28With the Segway and with the hydrogen cell, it keeps it nimble going around parking garages,
00:36down alleyways, and quietly with those that I have to interface with and socially motivate
00:46them.
00:47In just the last few years, Columbia has transformed itself into a hotbed of hydrogen research,
00:55thanks in large part to the Industry University Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells
01:00at the University of South Carolina, funded by the National Science Foundation.
01:05What we're focused on specifically in this center is how to make a better fuel cell,
01:11how to make the fuel cell less expensive, how to make the fuel cell more reliable.
01:17Hydrogen is widely hailed as the fuel of the future, plentiful and non-polluting, discharging
01:22only water vapor into the environment.
01:25Perfecting the fuel cell, which converts hydrogen into a steady stream of electricity, will
01:30be one of the keys to making prototype hydrogen vehicles like these commonplace.
01:35We're not tied to the barrel of petroleum.
01:38The long-term goal of the hydrogen economy and fuel cells in themselves is to be completely
01:45renewable.
01:46That means developing ways to generate hydrogen using renewable sources like wind and sunlight.
01:53Hydrogen fuel cells allow us to store the energy when the sun's not shining and when
01:58the wind's not blowing.
02:00And it allows us to put that energy, that renewable energy from sun and wind, to work
02:07in our transportation sector.
02:10A cop on a hybrid Segway is just one example of what a city can do to promote the powerful
02:15potential of this technology.
02:19Columbia's mayor, Bob Coble, sees hydrogen research at the university as a huge opportunity
02:24to create high-quality jobs in the community.
02:29While we don't know exactly how it's going to unfold and what technologies will be the
02:34primary technology 50 years from now, we know that there's going to be a green economy,
02:40a knowledge economy, and we better be part of it or we'll be left behind.
02:46To support the push to hydrogen, the city of Columbia, along with the university and
02:50local business and industry, are coordinating to put these new hydrogen technologies to
02:55work around town.
02:58Over at the Carolina Baseball Stadium, the scoreboard is partly run by a hydrogen fuel
03:03cell.
03:04The city Department of Homeland Security is testing this hydrogen generator that could
03:08be used during emergencies to power lights and computers for first responders.
03:14And this hydrogen bus will soon be zipping around town.
03:17I think it's part of sort of getting it, getting it that there's a new economy out there, there's
03:22a green economy out there, we don't have all the answers, but you know if you're not in
03:27the game, you're not going to be there in the fourth quarter to score the winning touchdown
03:32unless you've done the preparation work on the front end.
03:36So how far away are we from a hydrogen economy?
03:39There's much more research that needs to be done on fuel cells.
03:43But we have working fuel cell cars right now.
03:46They're expensive, but the price will come down as we produce more of them.
03:52How fast that happens, he says, is up to us and boils down to a few big issues.
03:57One, a real recognition that CO2 will be a problem for our children and that we want
04:07to do something about greenhouse gases.
04:09Second, a recognition that sooner or later the price of gasoline is going to be so expensive
04:16that we won't have control over it.
04:18And we as Americans will now worry about how soon do I fill up my gas tank.
04:24For Science Nation, I'm Bruce Burkhardt.