For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 26, 2004
Fact Sheet: U.S.-EU Summit: Cooperation on the Development of the Hydrogen Economy
"With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will
overcome obstacles to taking these [hydrogen-powered] cars from
laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born
today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free."
President George W. Bush
January 28, 2003
President Bush and his EU counterparts welcomed and encouraged the
collaboration between the United States and the European Union on
accelerating development of the global hydrogen economy, which will
enhance security of energy supply, increase diversity of energy
resources, promote economic growth and job creation, and improve local
and global environmental quality.
This U.S.-EU collaboration is helping to advance President Bush's
goal that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered
by hydrogen fuel cells, and is a natural extension of the President's
$1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.
This U.S.-EU collaboration was launched at the 2003 U.S.-EU Summit,
and has led to a series of meetings on both sides of the Atlantic to
advance hydrogen research and technology development and the
establishment of harmonized codes, standards, and regulations.
Together, the United States and the European Union have:
-
Increased coordination of our approaches to hydrogen research,
helping to guarantee that research efforts are focused and
complementary and make the best use of our facilities and the most
effective scientific methods;
-
Identified targeted areas of cooperation including fuel cell
development, hydrogen storage, hydrogen production, and the necessary
codes and standards to support these applications;
- Committed United States' and the European Union's resources to
advance research in critical areas such as high-temperature membranes
and catalysts for improved fuel cell cost and durability;
-
Identified model demonstration programs showing the value of
public applications of hydrogen;
-
Shared lessons from municipal hydrogen-powered bus demonstrations
in San Diego, California and Brussels, Belgium; and
-
Explored collaborative applications of new safety techniques for
handling hydrogen in transportation applications in America and
Europe.
This transatlantic cooperation is intended to support the
International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (IPHE), which held
its inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C., in November 2003. The IPHE
has helped launch international cooperation on research for
high-temperature membranes used in fuel cells, hydrogen storage
materials, and renewable hydrogen production. The IPHE combines
financial and intellectual resources in a global effort to overcome the
remaining obstacles to the commercial adoption and trade of hydrogen
technology worldwide. These include finding means to bring consumer
costs to a level competitive with other energy sources and to build the
infrastructure needed to produce, transport, and safely handle hydrogen
and hydrogen-based fuel cells.
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