This commentary is by Greg Pierce of St. Albans, a civil engineer who served as a reserve officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Now retired, he has written five novels.
In response to the commentary by Joe Flynn, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Transportation; June Tierney, commissioner of the Department of Public Service; and Julie Moore, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources:
With all due respect, on reading your piece in VTDigger, I was drawn into a momentary, surreal, visual dreamscape image of a trio of bedraggled time travelers recently emerging from a Rip Van Winkle-like 20-year snooze!
This trio had apparently missed all of the meaningful action in the realm of technical advancements on elimination of greenhouse gases. The trio was unaware the modern world had struggled past old skepticism over ancient technology relating to sunlight and water. The modern world was now moving steadily — but inexorably — toward acceptance that sunlight and water could be easily and economically harnessed to best address greenhouse gases.
Yes, the world had concluded that solar energy could be used to electrolyze water, separating it into hydrogen and oxygen. Thereafter, stored hydrogen could power fuel cells and make portable electricity for motor vehicles — cars, trucks, locomotives, ships, airplanes. And best of all, the solar energy/hydrogen regime was putting absolutely no greenhouse gases into Earth’s precious atmosphere. Its only waste product was pure water.
In America, the great state of California had embarked on a strong campaign to move the transportation industry into hydrogen-powered motor vehicles. A huge motor vehicle manufacturer — Toyota — already had a decade of development of hydrogen autos and its model year 2021 “Mirai” was able to travel 500 miles on a single filling of hydrogen. Indeed, the absence of a 1,200-pound battery used in most electric cars, but not in the Mirai, made it extremely light and agile and of course it caused much less wear and tear on the nation’s highways. And, further, the serious pollution impacts of fabricating and later disposing of massive and quite dangerous batteries was avoided.
In the east of America, always a bit slow to pick up on modernity, at least one citizen was in pace with the Californians. A New Jersey citizen named Mike Strizel had put together his own home-built hydrogen system, making his hydrogen from solar power, using the hydrogen to fuel his Mirai and even powering his home lighting and his heating system with his homemade hydrogen. The trio was startled to learn Mike is no longer grid-dependent.
Further, as the trio of misplaced time travelers began to come to grips with their re-emergence into the modern world, they puzzled over the majesty of the modern world’s slow awakening to an understanding that a new hydrogen regime represented a technologically sound, yet simple and economical solution to a long-simmering debate over the nation’s troublesome and highly vulnerable electric power grid.
“Wow!” they thought. “A hydrogen regime would allow the nation to abandon its massive grid with all of its brownouts and its proclivity for little power-line failures sending off sparks and precipitating huge forest fires.”
Sadly, at this point, I slipped out of my dreamscape of the trio of time travelers and commenced to wonder why the actions — or lack thereof — of three highly intelligent public officials in our little state of Vermont should cause such consternation in my mind. As a lifelong Vermonter, I’ve always been proud of our state’s tradition of being in the vanguard of progressive, forward-looking, logical and cost-effective solutions to difficult problems. And then another mind-shift overtook me.
New York, stodgy, staid, old New York. A bible of contemporary activity in the world of hydrogen, the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association — which publishes a free monthly newsletter that documents activity all over the planet — in last month’s newsletter reports that New York State will soon start construction of a huge hydrogen production facility in upstate New York, using hydroelectric power to produce hydrogen. “Hmm,” thought I. “Has California sagacity on energy matters wafted eastward and caught fire in stodgy, staid, traditional old New York?”
Though momentarily elated by such a prospect, perusing the Flynn, Tierney & Moore commentary swiftly brought me back to earth. “Advanced wood heat”? Oh, woe is me. And the electricity to power heat pumps and motor vehicles? Where will that be coming from? Will it be coming from Burlington’s wood-fired electric power plant? Huge strides in reduction of greenhouse gases or little pusillanimous mouse tracks?
Finally, has the FT&M trio given thought to taking advantage of Bernie Sanders’ recent e-mail solicitation of energy proposals seeking federal funding to move Vermont forward into a new 21st-century energy regime? If so — and I truly hope so — I pray the Vermont proposal is more along the lines of a new hydrogen regime and not advanced wood heat.