Covid-19 is a virus that has essentially shut down the U.S. Economy. Oil is at record lows and gas is cheaper than ever. Since February, there has been the wearing of masks and since April public Mass has been cancelled. The world is more interested in developing a vaccine for Covid-19 than hydrogen based transit. In six years there hasn't been much progress in hydrogen transit being adopted. Outside of California, there aren't very many states with hydrogen fueling stations and what is commercialized is still hand built and mostly sold in California.

There is promising work being done to generate hydrogen on demand efficiently given the ideal catalyst. If a water tank can be the fuel, that will be a lot safer and there will be no need for special hydrogen stations. This catalyst has to be both abundant and durable. Stored energy will be needed to get the vehicle started, probably a battery. The question becomes, how much electricity is needed to electrolyze water and can the amount needed be as much or less than what the typical automotive battery can provide?

I think if the country and the world wasn't so polarized over climate change that investment could happen in the technology needed to fully realize post combustion transit. Fully commercialized hydrogen fuel cell technology requires that hand assembly of fuel cells give way to machine assembly. There needs to be large scale production to disruptively replace conventional vehicles! The cost needs to come down. The durability of fuel cells needs to increase. The need for special hydrogen stations needs to be addressed and solved.

For better or worse, the keystone pipeline went in. Natural gas is a great source of hydrogen though and even oil could be dehydrogenated. The Canadians are talking about burning tar sands underground to release hydrogen. Combustion requires oxygen, combustible materials or fuel, and heat or a spark to start it. If you can keep the combustion products underground, inject steam, create syngas, and produce massive amounts of hydrogen that you then separate out, great! It's one thing to burn tar at the surface, it's quite another thing to get it to burn a mile down underground and control the products of combustion. I wish these engineers and scientists trying to burn tar sands in an environmentally friendly way the best of luck.

The future thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic is uncertain in many countries. A vaccine has not been developed and that needs to be the focus right now. President Trump is trying to win reelection, and despite his view of climate change as a debateable topic, I hope he can see the wisdom of changing the nation's energy base to something sustainable and clean.