Now, suddenly, zero emission hydrogen cars are being developed by many of the foremost automobile manufactures, and investment in the development of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure is a reality.

But even while production vehicles are being developed and marketed now, the production and distribution of hydrogen as an alternative fuel to the consumer for automotive use still has a number of technological and economic hurdles to overcome.

While recent developments in use of renewable energy sources to make hydrogen indicate potential to produce hydrogen very cheaply, the manufacture of hydrogen is still largely dependent on the use of fossil fuels. And an effective distribution infrastructure for hydrogen as a fuel for transportation is still decades in the future.

Fuel cell technology is advancing rapidly with a number of auto manufacturers offering fuel cell vehicles for lease as test and promotional vehicles in the last decade. Many will be offered to the public in the very near future.

Hydrogen burns fast and clean, leaving nothing behind but water. And using hydrogen as a catalyst for ignition while burning fossil fuels in internal combustion engines actually serves to clean the fossil fuel emissions. The use of hydrogen as an alternative fuel holds promise for a world in which transportation and manufacturing can actually help the environment rather than pollute it.

But a hydrogen based economy is still just beyond the horizon. And it appears that the natural course of any honest discussion on the manufacture and use of hydrogen as an alternative fuel in the near term lends itself toward the grass roots research and development of portable devices that break water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

As it stands now, those of us who are developing water-to-hydrogen generators in our home laboratories and testing this new breed of hydrogen cars ARE the future of inexpensive renewable resource hydrogen fuel for cars in the near future.