game night

It's game night, so don't expect to much bloggerature from me tonight. Full report tomorrow. In other news, though, I may be switching gear on the whole Senate hydrogen letter. It's taking me awhile cause I'm carefully researching each point I want to introduce, which means I keep coming up with new info and restructuring the damn thing. This morning, I discovered that this year and next our federal budget for improving hydrogen seperation, fuel cell technology and infrastructure is almost $200 mil. Not bad. Could be more, should be more, shoulda been that much five years ago, but that's what we got. I found a "progress" report on the US Dept of Energy's website, so I'm gonna read that when I have some time.

So what gear am I switching to? Well, I found an article about Daimler Chrysler, woefully slow in the decision making, but on the right track, partnering up with Shell Hydrogen (remember my rant about oil companies understanding) to start pumping out Jaguar hydrogen cars. In it, a rep from Shell Hydrogen said energy companies will take hydrogen a bit more seriously when consumers show interest. Chicken and the Egg man.

1. Energy companies will invest more when consumers show interest.
2. Consumers will show interest when hydrogen is a viable market alternative, such as used in cars.
3. Auto makers will make cars when consumers will buy them, but consumers won't buy a car they can't drive outside of their home area (except in California, where they electric grocery getter is becoming popular.

So, I gotta target the letter to the government AND the energy companies (I do like that they're calling themselves 'energy' and not 'oil' companies now) AND auto makers AND consumers internationally. Oy vey. Gonna be a big project. Gonna be a big letter.