The Honorable Ken Salazar                          Donald W. McLeod Ph.D.

United States Senate                                      Emeritus Professor of Physics

702 Hart Senate Office Building                   University of Illinois at Chicago

Washington, DC 20510-0607                       270 Crocus Rd. Gunnison,

                                                                      Colorado 81230

                                                                      October 18, 2005

Dear Senator Salazar:

Thank you for your visit to Gunnison last Friday (Oct. 14). It's gratifying

when you work for someone's election and he comes back to "touch base".

I asked you a question about the "Hydrogen Initiative" in the energy bill

but I fear I didn't express myself very well, given the time available.

I've taken the liberty of sending you some more material on the subject,

see the enclosed “Discussion Paper” from the American Physical Society

and the May 2005 Scientific American article on the same subject. You

may have already seen the email version of this letter etc. I sent to Ms.

Kareus; I sent you this print version so you would get a photocopy of the

Scientific American article which seems to be hedged about by copyrights.

I'll try to summarize my concerns as briefly as I can. I'm all in favor

of hydrogen for transportation, eventually. My "science fiction" dream for

the future would include hydrogen fuel cell powered cars, with hydrogen

produced by wind power, solar photovoltaic or direct production, even by

growing algae perhaps. But this seems to be a long way off, with many

major innovations needed. Trying to accomplish this on a short time scale

(even as soon as 2020) would be very wasteful and would divert attention

and funds from promising current developments. I'd put my money on hybrid

gasoline-battery or diesel-battery (maybe using biodiesel soon) as already

appearing on the market, with extension to plug-in electricity as an available

(and still expensive) option. Limited applications of hydrogen and of fuel

cells should be developed, but the emphasis should be on basic research to

overcome real obstacles that make the "hydrogen initiative" uneconomical

by several large factors. I'm afraid "demonstration projects" as planned in

the energy bill would be a tremendously wasteful boondoggle, benefiting

just the companies that push it and actually using much more foreign oil.

Although the energy bill is now passed, I hope you take my remarks into

consideration when funding is considered now and in the future.

Many of us have the impression that most people in the regrettable Bush

administration fail to understand that hydrogen is a means of transferring

energy, not a marvelous new energy source. It is not available in quantity

in its separated form in nature; it takes more than its final energy yield

to separate it from water, or a larger amount of natural gas etc. than if the

gas were used as fuel directly. This is no great surprise considering the

administration's hostility to science and to rational planning, demonstrated

in many ways and commented on widely by many others including 40+

Nobel Prize winners. Perhaps you've been too compliant in your attempts

to reach political compromise; I felt your degree of support of this energy

bill was misplaced. Much of it continues the waste and corruption which

has become all too familiar.

Sincerely,

Dr. Donald McLeod