RAISE GAS PRICES HIGH ENOUGH AND INNOVATION FOLLOWS:

Cheap Hydrogen Fuel: GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology. (David Talbot, 3/08/06, Technology Review)

Among the many daunting challenges to replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen is how to make hydrogen cheaply in ways that don't pollute the environment. Splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from energy sources such as wind turbines is one possibility -- but it's still far too expensive to be widely practical.

Now researchers at GE say they've come up with a less expensive, easy-to-manufacture apparatus that can directly produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a quantity roughly comparable to a gallon of gasoline -- down from today's $8 per kilogram. That could make it economically practical for future fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen.