Ogden's broad aricle discusses the opportunities and challenges for introducing hydrogen, both on the car side and on the fuel side. Two of the key points in Ogden's article are:

• Hydrogen fuel-cell cars can become commercially feasible if automakers succeed in developing safe, inexpensive and durable models that can travel long distances before refueling.
• Energy companies can produce large amounts of hydrogen at competitive price with todays gasoline, and from a wide variety of domestically available feedstocks, but building out the early distribution infrastructure can be costly.

For more information about Joan Ogden, please visit her personal website on http://hydrogen.its.ucdavis.edu/people/jmogden/index_html. To purchase the September edition of Scientific American, please go here.