Hydrogen Highway

The governor of California has proclaimed that there shall be a hydrogen filling station every 20 miles north south along the hydrogen highway. There are twenty filling stations open now, 14 clustered around Los Angeles County, and 6 in the San Francisco vicinity. Ten more will open in early 2008. Most of the hydrogen for these filling station is created by reforming natural gas and then trucked to the filling station. The reforming process releases CO2 into the atmosphere, and so do the trucks. The longer term solution will be on-site hydrogen generation at the filling station, using renewable energy to create electricity which is then used to split water using electrolysis.

A Dozen Hydrogen-powered Cars

GM recently announced their Sequel hydrogen-powered car. I visited the Sequel web site and applied for the pilot program via a long questionnaire. I was notifed immediately that i did not qualify, and later learned from Marc Puckett at United Solar of America that only applicants in Burbank are being considered. I also learned that there are hydrogen bus test programs underway in Palm Springs, Vancouver, and Iceland,

Wondering if GM is the first car manufacturer here in the USA to announce a hydrogen car, I looked in wikipedia expecting to find only a few concept cars. There are a dozen some of which are in production. BMW, Fiat, Chrysler, Mercedes Benz, Peugeot, and several other manufacturers have created one or more models of hydrogen cars.

If you live in Burbank, you can check your eligibility for the Project Driveaway Test program at the Chevrolet web site.

Man-made Fuel

Synthetic genomics is a new research area within the field of synthetic biology that uses gene therapy, genetic modification, or genetic fabrication to create a new life form, ie., a life form that does not exist in nature. In addition to using custom-designed base pair series, genomicists believe it may be possible to use genetic codes other than the four base pairs of DNA that compose all DNA today.

Life forms of immediate interest are those that can be used for fuel products or to process undesirable materials such as sequestered carbon.

With today's genetics technologies, it is straight-forward to construct long base pair chains cheaply and accurately. Researchers can then experiment with, or computationally simulate, these new DNA to see what useful purpose the life form might provide. Scientists believe that there will be a large number of commercially viable applications that will re-invent the production of energy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and potentially assist with environmental remediation.

Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SG) is a privately-held company with offices in Rockville, Maryland and La Jolla, California. SG is one of the first companies to attempt to develop and commercialize synthetic genomic processes and naturally occurring processes for the production of clean, renewable alternative energy solutions.