The blogosphere is very alive with discussion about hydrogen cars. It follows a National Hydrogen Association Convention meeting where a BMW representative said hydrogen-fuelled cars would not be commonplace until 2025.

I would argue that this is far, far too optimistic. Since writing The Hydrogen Economy - what price and when? a couple of years ago, I've changed my mind very little. Back then I believed that 2040 would be a more likely date for fuel cell vehicles. Although, making any prediction beyond 10 years is very hard to get right. 2 years ago for example, very few people had heard of plug-in hybrids. Now this is almost off-the shelf technology and I would venture it is going to succeed. This study shows that there is more than enough overnight spare electricity capacity to power 168 million plug-in hybrids in America. So why would you bother with hydrogen fuel cells ?

2 years ago, I did anticipate in the article that mass production of portable fuel cells for electronic devices would have started by now and we would be able to buy them - well it hasn't and I'm not sure if it ever will. But CHP fuel cells produced by the likes of Ceres Power and Ceramic Fuel Cells look very close to commercialisation and possible success.