Remarks Prepared for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
Wayne State University
April 27, 2004
Thank you. It’s good to be here. I am especially pleased to see Irvin Reid, Wayne State’s President, and the good people of NextEnergy. NextEnergy is working hard to place this city and this state on the cutting edge of advanced energy technology research. We have come to TechTown this morning precisely because this area has emerged as a national leader for technology development. I can think of no more fitting a locale for this morning’s announcement than here at TechTown.
In his State of the Union address last year, President Bush announced his revolutionary hydrogen fuel plan, which seeks a new day in which our cars and light trucks are fueled not by gasoline, but by clean hydrogen-powered fuel cells.
It’s an ambitious goal, made all the more so by the President’s pledge to achieve it soon. As he said last year, “the first car driven by a child born today could be fueled by hydrogen and pollution free.”
That child now is one year older, and we are making progress to implement the President’s vision.
As a concrete sign of that progress, it gives me great pleasure to be able to announce that the Department of Energy has selected over $350 million in hydrogen research projects to support President Bush’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. An additional $225 million will be provided by private sector partners. That makes a total of $575 million for more than 30 lead organizations and over 100 partners.
Not surprisingly, Michigan will play a major part in this effort.
Teams led by each of the Big Three automakers have been designated Partners in Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Projects. Working with NextEnergy, DTE Energy, and other team members from around the country, they will literally help build cars and light trucks that run on hydrogen-powered fuel cells, as well as the fueling stations to support them.
There are five total Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation projects around the country, including the three here in Michigan. These projects will split $380 million of the $575 million being made available with today’s announcements.
In addition, Delphi Automotive Systems of Troy, MI, is receiving more than $3 million for an ambitious Fuel Cell Auxiliary Power Unit project that will increase fuel and overall efficiency in long-haul trucks. The use of fuel cell Auxiliary Power Units will improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.
Finally, two of Michigan’s leading educational institutions – the University of Michigan and Michigan Tech University – have been selected to lend their scientific and research expertise to solving questions of on-board hydrogen storage.
Of course, it’s not all Michigan. Leading research institutions, laboratories, and companies from coast to coast have been selected to participate in projects to address some of the fundamental issues regarding the transition to the hydrogen economy.
Today’s grants were chosen through a merit-reviewed, competitive-solicitation process. They cover a range of areas, all of which aim at overcoming the barriers to widespread use of hydrogen for our automotive sector.
The first area centers on the fleet and infrastructure research that will be undertaken by our Big Three partners. These will fund “Learning Demonstrations” that will provide important data to guide future research priorities. Automakers and energy companies will work together with their teams under this project to demonstrate integrated and national system solutions operating in real world environments. Demonstration sites are being considered all over the country, including in Michigan, Northern and Southern California, the District of Columbia, and Florida. These demonstrations will assess the research program’s progress toward meeting the goal of making a commercialization decision by 2015.
The second area, which I just alluded to, is hydrogen storage. Three “Centers of Excellence” for exploratory research in hydrogen storage will be established. They will address the major technical barrier to on-board hydrogen storage – storing enough hydrogen to enable greater than 300 mile driving range without impacting cargo or passenger space. In addition, individual universities, research institutes, and small businesses will explore new materials for hydrogen storage.
The third area is fuel cell research. The projects we are funding here will focus on critical fuel cell cost and durability issues for consumer electronics and other applications.
Finally, a fourth area will focus on hydrogen technology education projects to broaden awareness of hydrogen’s benefits among the general public, particularly middle school and high school students and their teachers.
Today’s announcement is obviously important, and $575 million is a lot of money. But looking at the bigger picture, you will notice that it is backed by a broader commitment. Today’s announcement of $350 million in Department of Energy grants is really just the first installment of the President’s pledge to invest $1.7 billion over five years on the R&D needed to make the hydrogen economy a reality.
That commitment can be seen in the projects we have announced today. It can be seen in the Department of Energy’s budgets for hydrogen programs. And it can be seen in our relationships with other nations.
In the last year, since the President unveiled his vision for hydrogen, we have put together an international consortium of nations interested in advancing hydrogen research. This international partnership has pledged to work together on pre-competitive, high-risk research … on developing interoperable technology standards and codes … and on pooling valuable resources and leveraging them to best effect. And I am convinced it will further enhance our ability to move this project forward.
Ladies and gentlemen, hydrogen has the long-term potential to deliver greater energy independence by reducing America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy. It also offers immense environmental benefits that burning petroleum-based fuels do not.
This $575 million in hydrogen research grants I am announcing today is a down payment on a more energy- and environmentally-secure future.
And it shows that the hydrogen economy is not some abstract idea, but something real and achievable that will help us deal with our most vexing environmental, energy, and economic challenges.
I want to commend all those who were selected to perform these hydrogen research projects. The Department of Energy is very excited to work with all of them to bring about the hydrogen future.
